To be fed up of AMA high earner threads where the poster is not actually the high earner?

[Evilcountspatula]

Please can we hear from a female (single, married, with kids, whatever) who earns enormous sums rather than someone who has married a rich husband. No jealousy, I’d have loved to have married a rich husband myself, but genuinely interested to have a thread from a woman at the top of the money earning tree. Is that too much to ask?
edited for typos

That will be for tax purposes not practically.

Huge assumption, speaking from personal experience.

She says as much - she says it’s her husbands company, she works FT in another occupation and it was him who worked hard. At no point does she say she erects scaffolding or was the brains behind it.

Even on threads where someone asks if you earn more than 100k a year, what’s your job? Quite a lot of the posts are about what their husband does for a living. It’s usually the way though. It’s usually the man who earns the cash. It doesn’t sit right with me that low earning women marry a rich man and live off his cash.

A lot of people purely assume that partners are on the company pay roll and directors to share the tax allowance. While yes that makes sense, it doesn’t mean that a woman can’t also actively be involved in the actual running of a company purely because it’s with their partner.

There is more to running a company than just putting the scaffolding up.

My female boss earns £1.2m a year. I asked her once in a mentoring session how the hell she managed it and she said her husband is at home part time and they have a reliable Nanny that's been with them years.

I know a lot of women in middle management (£3-600k a year) without Nanny's who juggle but struggle. They had a Nanny whilst their kids were younger but now their kids are older and it's a different kind of parental involvement, and one that can be balanced with working FT.

TAAT!

agree it’s annoying on ‘higher earning’ threads when people post about their DHs, but suppose it just reflects reality: ‘motherhood penalty’ and economic inequalty.

I resent that phrasing. 'Living off'.

My husband wouldn't be able to have the family we have if I wasn't a stay at home mum, he just wouldn't. He is in some way 'living off' me?

Why are you wanting such gloaty people bragging about not having financial worries, under the guise of an AMA thread?
Generally, MN flames high-earners or contains numerous 'my friend earns more than me, aibiu that i can't do x,y,z with her..' threads.
It is so common to talk about money in polite society. You run the risk of sounding like the Harry Enfield plasterer character (many of you may need a history lesson at this point, I'm talking 80s!). Asking or wanting to know about other people's income is also very crass, talking about ones income, particularly in company pooere than onesself is moreso
Be more ladylike, and don't give the show-offs fuel

Yes I’m not totally thick - but OP makes no elusion that she actually runs the business. She added in that she is a director when someone asked if they’re worried her husband might leave her high and dry.

She said “ Our take home pay “ not my dh is a high earner. She also said “Happy to take the good and the bad” which she clearly wasn’t. Getting a straight answer from her was like getting blood from a stone.

Sure, high earning fathers are facilitated at home, so get to be parents and build their career / company and personal earnings, which are shared for as long as the marriage lasts or as per the divorce settlement.

In the event of divorce they retain their personal earning power and most of the money.

The title of this thread still stands regardless as:

”To be fed up of AMA high earner threads where the poster is not actually the high earner?”

It is factually incorrect in reference to jointly owning a company. Both are equally the high earners because I’m sorry if you disagree but that’s what it says on paper, that’s what it says on the bank statements and that’s what HMRC see. Whether you agree that someone isn’t worthy of declaring ownership because they don’t do the trade.

Consider the many directors out there that are women or men. Who are directors of multiple companies, with investments, dividends, on the pay roll. They often don’t do the trade but they have the income still.

The OP of that thread was wrong to say her job was 60k it was factually incorrect if she was also a company director with equal shares.

It’s frequently the default that “it makes no sense” for a woman to go back to work/ work full time post kids because their partner is the higher earner. I’m particularly interested in hearing from women who have pushed past that mindset, got to the top of their game, and reaped the financial rewards

In that case the father often takes on the main childcare and household chores.

Well I get £2,200 a year they would be bloody shocked

My sister is a very high earner, I suspect she has never heard of mumsnet and definitely doesn’t read it. I think that’s why we have these type of threads. I haven’t asked what she does with her spare money but would quite like to!

I bet he takes all the dividends so they don't both pay 45% tax so its probably not actually factually correct that she is a v high earner either.

I actually find it pathetic when women piggy back off men like this or just have themselves added to companies that their husbands have started and do all the work for. Start your own company, earn your own money. And if you can't then don't paint yourself as a high earner, because you're not.

I knew someone whose husband is a finance guy and every year she used to say, oh we got a great bonus this year, we're off to wherever on holiday and buying such and such car. No, he got the 6.30 train every morning and worked 10 hour days and got the bonus, not het, who did the school run for one kid twice a day and played a bit of tennis. Traded in for the younger model now of course, they still manage that with the 10 hour days!

I honestly don't want to hear about or celebrate any high earning woman unless she does the work herself.

Yes I just think 'why would I ask this air head anything'? Go back to your daytime TV love!

No, he got the 6.30 train every morning and worked 10 hour days and got the bonus

I doubt he could have caught the 6:30 train every morning without his wife looking after the children and taking them to and from nursery and school. It helps hugely to have a partner who takes care of the house and children, as you can solely focus on your career.

I don't disagree. But it doesn't change the fact that he is the high earner, not her.

That's what we should be challenging, not pretending that these women are high earners. And that setup often puts the woman at a massive disadvantage when they divorce. Why should women settle for this setup (if they don't want to)? And many don't, many women are out there quietly working and earning the same as their partners, give or take, to contribute to the family income equally.

I'd like to see an AMA about a high income family and how they juggle everything when both people are working and earning good money.

It’s not just the high earning threads. Anything professional related, some women come on to give advice in a really learned way and then say that this is what their ‘DH’ tells them. A but like kids saying ‘my mum said’.

Just let the women who know, share their experience, rather than shoe horning what your husband says or does.

He absolutely could. He could hire a nanny if he really is a high earner. This delusion that women create in their heads that without them no man could ever be a high earner does disservice to women themselves by reducing them to facilitators or men’s careers. Have a bit more self respect.

There are a lot of assumptions about women directors here. I’m a director in our business. Yes it’s my husbands day today work that is the function of the business, but, alongside my own existing employment, I do all of the business administration. I deal with the finance, the website, any tax, compliance with HMRC rules and those of companies house.

without those parts of the business we would not be earning and so damn right I “earn” my share of the income. But for me he’d have to pay someone else to do it as it’s not his forte at all. Just because it’s not producing product doesn’t mean I don’t earn.

same in my job. I don’t deliver the service we sell, but with out me the team that do couldn’t either.

YANBU. As a single parent I want to hear from women who have done it on their own.