To be fed up with all the threads about high earners feeling poor

[trekking1]

It's always the same condescending "I've worked so hard and only have a 3 bedroom house in a great location and an expensive car", as if 1. that's not a lot 2. people who make 5 times less do not work as hard!

And the suprised pikachu face that having a degree did not magically get them a 500k job. That is not how capitalism works folks

People would just go on boards that don't fit their situation and moan anyway

But that's not the point the poster was I was responding to was making, she sad they can't get A job

@Krakken I don't begrudge people who work hard and are successful financially

But they sometimes fail to acknowledge that other people work v hard in demanding roles that don't pay well eg carers

No she didn't. You're just unwilling to acknowledge that getting A job is not the same as pausing and resuming a high paying career at will. You're being deliberately obtuse.

No, I understand them. But the people from this article for example seem to just whine because they can't buy whatever they want whenever they want

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2024/mar/22/debt-britons-financial-difficulty-credit-cards

Monthly overheads add up, including £110 for property service charges, £550 for petrol, £240 for council tax, £300 for electricity, £200 for car insurance, £370 for dog day care, £170 for special diet dog food, £90 for mobile phone bills, and £200 for life insurance.

This is where my sympathy runs out. What the hell is he driving that costs £2,400 a year to insure and uses £550 in petrol a month? Just the dog costs £540 a month. No bloody wonder he’s up to his neck in debt, despite earning £73k.

Exactly. "I'm poor because I spent all of my money on things I want, not need", well duh! Completely delulu about what being poor really means

I would assume that’s more than one car, and probably used for work. But I didn’t read the link.

Agree. Prior to first child, I was on £80k ish. 16yrs ago. Finance.

Did a bit of self employment stuff and minimal side hustle stuff for the last 16yrs whilst essentially SAHM.

I walked straight back into my first employed role in 16yrs, last September. I work part time and I'm paid £35k for my hours. Couple of years and I'll have job hopped it to more like £60k. It's no fortune. And it's not where I would be without the 16yr break. But it's hardly a pittance. However, I wouldn't really go for the highest paid roles anymore as I'm not that bothered, I'm raising my children. To be fair, I'd probably never have gone much higher than £100k without the kids, as I'm not that person who puts in every hour to shoot for the biggest bucks.

This is exactly the issue.

There was a thread on here about a woman who couldn't feed her kids, but had three dogs, each with insurance, diet food and £600 a month alone in dog walking fees.

The absolute horror when people suggested she needed to get rid of the dogs to feed her children.

"Absolutely not. They are family. Different solution please."

Wtf is wrong with you?. It's the dogs or feeding your children. It is the solution. £600 on dog walkers, FFS.

Yes she did, she said her career would completely be over, which just isn't true. She would simply have to go back to a few steps lower, oh the horror.

Not being able to resume a high paying job /= career being over. You're the one being deliberately obtuse.

This is a batshit example. That guy earns the same as me but there’s no way I could afford the dogs AND my mortgage and childcare fees. Nor could most people on the same wage. Don’t cite people like him as the norm, he is not.

It absolutely would in my profession - you lose your professional registration if you can’t demonstrate you are maintaining your skills every year. Would you want lifesaving surgery done by somebody who last picked up a scalpel in 2018?

I suspect most other regulated professions are the same. You live a very sheltered life if you aren’t aware of that.

It can mean your career is over. What do you think career progression looks like for older women with a career break, mothers in particular? A job is not a career, and they're not high earners anymore, so you've got nothing to whinge about.

£60k no fortune? 🙄

Do you not even recognise the irony in what you are saying, from your own example?

I know a woman who had a 20 year old gap from working in tech and still managed to get a job. She gave a talk about it at a women in tech event.

People don’t give talks at events about things that are routine. She was giving the talk because it is unusual 🙄

And, just to spell it out further. A job is not a career. A job is the paid activity you are doing in the moment. A career is the trajectory or path through a series of related jobs showing progression. So if you halt that trajectory you are, by definition, damaging your career. When you return you may find you can’t get that momentum going again, and you are stuck in a job with little or no progression. This is what people mean when they say their “career is over”. Yes, they can get a job, but not necessarily have a career

I’ve posted before that it would be good to have a board for higher earners who can ask questions about financial issues, tax, difficulties with money etc without being judged and shouted down.

Despite being a higher earner I’ve found myself living pay check to pay check recently and I’d be interested in hearing from others who are/were in a similar position and the kinds of tactics they used to mange money better. But I’m certain the thread would be derailed by people accusing me of being insensitive, boastful or ‘goading’ people who survive on a low income.

i guess it depends how much disposable income you have at the end of the month, and this has affected all people. Therefore, if you had a few hundred spare each month, then increased mortgage costs, food costs, energy bills etc is going to make you ‘feel poor’. It’s comparative to how you were before. It doesn’t mean you are poor, just that you are feeling less affluent then you were before.

Yes of course I would if they could demonstrate they could still do it. We're not all sexist and think popping out a baby suddenly makes you incompetent to do the job you have been doing for years

No, the irony is that you're making a point that your career MAY be over, which is not what I was responding to. I was responding to the claim by a poster saying that your career WILL DEFINITELY be over. If she said that her career may have been over if she took a break and she didn't want to take that risks I would have not responded, because that's fair enough. But if you exaggarate to make your point you're gonna get called out, simple as that.

If you’ve seen it happen to many others, it’s reasonable to assume your career would be over. Maybe the poster had seen it happen.

Generally the more people complain about deteriorating standards of living, the better. This is particularly true when it comes to those considered aspirational/‘well off’ - aka people that political parties are actively courting.

People SHOULD be complaining. That people are struggling to afford their wants as well as their needs (and wants aren’t in fact a bad thing to aspire to unless you’re in favour of an entirely utilitarian existence), when they have previously been able to cover those expenses, is indicative of a much larger problem.

’People that make more than me should shut up and suck it up!’ just reads like a desire to see others brought low, rather than actually wanting to see the issues vocalized in the hope of improving things across the board.

Oh, and not liking the topic of a thread is a ‘you’ problem. That you can’t stop yourself from clicking on, reading about and engaging with topics that annoy you doesn’t in fact oblige anyone to stop talking about said topics.

You don’t seem to grasp that if you lose your licence to practice (by being out of practice for a number of years) there simply isn’t a route back in. Maybe there ought to be, but there isn’t. You can’t apply for a job without a licence to practice. You can’t regain your licence to practice without evidence of current safe practising. There are no tests you can take to prove you are still safe, no retraining pathways. Once you are out, you are out. A lot of women leave medicine in general, and surgery in particular, because they can’t afford childcare for the antisocial hours they need unless they are married to another high earner.

There was a GP retainer scheme (for returning GPs, not surgeons) but that was scrapped about 20 years ago. Now if you leave, it’s a one-way trip and you have to find a new career. I suspect law, accountancy and other regulated professions such as dentistry and physiotherapy are similar.

Yes I grasp that, I am simply disagreeing with it being right. You asked if I would you want lifesaving surgery done by somebody who took several years off and I said yes.

Thats odd. I don’t see that in what you quoted. I see reference to it being “entirely possible” for a career to be over, but I don’t see a poster saying her career WILL DEFINITELY be over.

Regardless, it’s a small semantic difference.