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

Hear hear! I am so tired of people preaching everything with " I am privileged but".or boring on about " gratutude". Just own it!

Prefacing not preaching.

Don’t read them then!

I think it's impossible to walk in someone else's shoes and salary isn't the be all and end all as you don't know someone else's finances, situation especially when you throw the cost of childcare into the mix.

I earn well, my DH does a professional role reasonable salary. He might as well not work our childcare bill is above his take home pay each month but that leads to more difficulties down the line. We live in a 2 bed cottage hardly the life of Riley!

I don't understand why people get offended at 'I worked hard' statement. The most successful people I know did work really hard. They worked hard all through school, got qualifications then worked their way up the ladder.
I wish I'd worked that hard and not just coasted through the education system into my mediocre life.

There are different types of hard work. And we need them all. Both high earners and low earners.

OP, you don't live within MN you know. This forum is not about you! Its not here to pander to your concept of 'normal' or 'acceptable.' If you str expecting that, then you're over-invested. This is the internet! Anyone from anywhere and any walk of life can and will post about anything they like. What else would you expect?

The worst thing on here is the envy about "high earners," "private schools," "SAHMs" and so on. As if people are shocked that such people exist!

Well, they do - look around you - and they have their own questions / problems which are just as valid as yours and they have as much right to post as anyone else.

That’s what gets me. People on low incomes work really hard, make sacrifices and have stressful jobs too.

This! You put in effort at all income levels and you don’t get out what you’d parents got for similar efforts. Young adults (under 50-ish) on all income levels feel shafted.

Take it up with the government. It’s not illegal. I don’t think it’s even immoral, it’s just common sense if you look at the figures.

I think a lot of people would feel differently if they seen some actual figures, including the loss of personal allowance starting from £100k, combined with childcare costs. The government should probably look at how it could be done better. I guarantee that if you earned a bit above £100k, you would go the same rather than be thousands of pounds per year worse off. You might say you wouldn’t, but you would.

If someone on a high income says they work hard, why do you take it that they mean those on lower incomes don’t? I think some people have a chip on their shoulder.

I think it is crass and insensitive. I suspect a lot of the time it is because people aren’t living the life they thought their salary would bring especially if you live in London.
The other thing that sometimes people start to blur the lines between essential and discretionary spending. I would have a lot more free cash if I didn’t pay school fees, but that reduction in free cash doesn’t mean I suddenly deserve sympathy - nobody forced me to spend the money - there are free alternatives.

People live in a bubble so they benchmark themselves against their neighbours, friends, work colleagues not against the national average. You can feel poorer than your neighbours whilst being objectively well off.

I think it’s more about recognising privilege.

i had someone rant at me about contextualised uni offers recently. The absolute scandal that their little darling needed A* for Cambridge while child x from sink estate had an offer for A’s!

not one ounce of consideration that private school from birth meant their child had significant advantages which meant they were much more likely to succeed academically.

same with the “I’m on 300k and have no disposable income” brigade. You aren’t skint, you aren’t in the same situation as someone on a 20k salary, you have just chosen private school and a big house and need to budget better.

Because that’s usually exactly what they mean 🤷‍♀️

I heard today that the Chancellor thinks that having a job with a six figure salary isn't enough to live in surrey

Strange take to say that if a thread doesn’t appeal to you/isn’t relevant to you then feel free to keep scrolling? You’re not forced to engage.

Not every thread that someone makes about their own lives has to centre what you consider to be more important, or framed in a way that appeases your sensibilities.

How do you know? Not everything is a dig at someone else but some people think it is.

We used to have at least 4 holidays a year, couple of city breaks, cleaner and a nanny. We are feeling the pinch and only have 2 long haul and 1 city break now. Have had to reduce the cleaners hours and the nanny doesn't come away on the long hauls anymore we have had to cut back.

Because so did those on lower salaries, simple as that.

I agree OP. There have been several threads like that recently and when the OP goes into the detail it turns out they’re skint because they made shit financial choices like buying a house in a posh leafy town or village instead of an average one because they believe their kids couldn’t possibly be safe anywhere else and because they “deserve” that lifestyle because they went to uni. I have no sympathy for them.

You could have pointed out that Cambridge does not actually give contextualised offers if this really happened. They consider context when deciding whether to make an offer but they don't have contextualised offers

Some people on high and low salaries will work hard and some won’t. But someone saying ‘I work hard’ is not saying that others don’t work hard. That’s just others being overly sensitive and looking for the worst in people.

It's not a race to the bottom and everyone's circumstances are different. Income is just one small part of the picture. There's always someone worse off, so by that logic nobody can ever complain about anything.

Why is there an assumption that if someone on a high income says they worked hard, they are simultaneously saying people on lower salaries didn’t? The higher earner is simply stating a fact.

I earn six figures. I worked hard at school. I wasn’t particularly bright but tried my best, went to Uni and fell into what turned out to be a lucrative career in IT consulting. None of this means I think someone earning a lower salary didn’t put any effort in at school or work hard. Life outcomes are a mix of luck, ability and circumstance.

And I do moan about my financial situation. Shoot me. I don’t post on MN because people on here lose their minds if anyone earning more than the minimum wage dares to complain but the bottom line is I live in London, have a mortgage and 2 DC. So our 6 figure household income doesn’t stretch to all the things I’d like because our day to day living costs are high. I’m really sorry if the reality of my situation is offensive to you. I don’t know what to say…it is what it is.

That’s the problem though, it so often is a race to the bottom on mumsnet. IRL I avoid people that think that way because they’re very negative and draining to be around.