To ask if you have a wage/income that would shock people?

[Newmumatlast]

Inspired by the tipping hairdresser thread, and a post on there about people having no idea what some people earn with an anecdote about a London cabbie earning twice what his nurse wife did.

I just wondered if anyone does a job where people would actually be shocked to know their true earnings based on stereotype- either way. For example cleaner earning loads or lawyer earning very little.

I'm pretty sure they are unless they're on agency?

A friend offered me a job - he was hoping to pay £30k.
I earn £150k but have never spent more than £4k on a car and live in a small home, so people often assume that I'm potless.

I never earned more than £35K as a high street lawyer in the U.K.

DH doesn’t have a degree but does have 30 years experience in the oil industry. He earned roughly £300K last year.

@Notwavingbutsignalling add oil to your list 🙂

Architectural technician / interior designer- £13 per hour. Roughly £18k a year. Working mostly term time only and from 9am - 3pm - Monday to Friday. I can take days off if kids are ill without worry. Work is 5 min. drive from kids school and 15 min. drive from home. Small Office based in London.

Although I earn fraction of what most would expect or assume- I have fair flexibility in my work to take day off if needed on short notice and very family oriented approach.

I am happy but would like a bit more money. However I understand you cant have both flexibility and high income 😊

Husband - electrician and earns around £65- 75k a year

Head of Year (teacher) in a state secondary school. £52k

I worked as a PA at 25 for 20 hours a week, the pay was £30,000 so it would have been £60,000 for full time. I think people would assume that I’d have made a lot less!

My 17 year old DS’s boss (his cousin) is 30 and earns around £80k pa, as a bricklayer. This gave ds the drive to enter into an apprenticeship and go into the building trade, he is not academic (like his cousin) but is hoping to earn good money using his practical skills, which he excels in. Dh is a HGV driver for a tarmac company and earns around £50k with an extra £10k per year for winter gritting. Many practical jobs actually pay quite good money.

NC. My in-laws would be shocked to know that I earn over 3x what my husband does (and I’m absolutely nowhere near 6 figures). They think husband = breadwinner and my job must be for a bit of pocket money. I have a ton of specialist qualifications. MIL doesn’t understand why I commute and work FT, and suggested I should get a job in a local shop instead. If I did that we wouldn’t be able to pay the mortgage and bills!

I earn £20ph (so just under 40k) doing document control
Quite a lot for the work I do so I count my lucky stars each day to be in this position

Private Client Lawyer, earning £35,000

dh Is a hgv driver for a supermarket permanent night shifts which he prefers as less traffic granted I couldn’t drive a truck but he seems to have it pretty easy he doesn’t unload the truck he has a sleep or watches tv on the iPad that’s not counted as a break and he has his breaks every 4.5 hours on top of that. he earns 56k does 9.5 hour shifts 5 nights a week sometimes gets overtime

I have no idea what an LSA is. Life style advisor? Local school assistant? I hate when posters assume everyone knows these acronyms.

not huge compared to some, but I work part time and inlaws seem to think we don’t earn much. We get offers of help for things like second hand cars from PIL and BIL thinks he is by far the highest earner in the family. I actually earn more than him with my part time wage and our joint income is almost £100k.

Your dad obviously doesn't know anything about tax! This is bread and butter stuff for financial planning.

If your occupational pension is a defined benefit scheme, then don't change your contributions to that (tbh you wont usually be able to as contributions are fixed). Instead open SIPPs and each put in enough to bring your taxable pay below the CB threshold.

If your occupational pension is a defined contribution scheme, just put more into that.

Either works. I believe increasing your occupational pension is better as you also save the NI, whereas paying into a private pension (SIPP) you just save the tax. And get your child benefit back.

Be aware that paying more into your occupational pension may make your salary look lower is you’re applying for a mortgage.

Learning support assistant. In a school...

DH does similar and also prefers night shift. He does a trunking run though 227 miles each way five nights a week.

Solicitor - when I was in UK was earning between 30 and 40k in both private sector and public. Not worth it.

I gave up my dream of being a doctor after seeing how poor the salary was from my friends and how long it takes to be fully qualified (like 10 years) and retrained in Data science, I'm now on (including bonus's and wfh pay) about 42k and I'm mid 20's. I have friends who are still training or just finished as teachers pharmacists etc who are only on mid 20'sk

@AnathemaPulsifer

sorry, how can your sipp affect your tax that way? I pay into a work pension, they take the pension from my salary. If I set up a sipp how would tax be calculated?

I do a bog standard admin role £30k. DH in IT, works about 20 hours a week £100k. He's got a side hustle doing something creative which he loves and makes £1k per day as a freelancer. We also have investments which provide an income of around £35k pa.

We have friends who probably earn as much but it's a lot more obvious because they have the lovely house and car and nice stuff. We're just not into any of that so probably look much poorer than we are.

Nobody understands my job title, they have no idea what I earn, which is significantly more than DH who is a teacher and his Kay is publicly out there

@marblemad I’m a late 30s dr not even on that 😒