To be unsure of how much I actually believe on here

[Youllneverseemeagainn]

Anybody can write whatever they want and can fabricate everything.
I'm amazed by the number of posters who claim to earn circa 200k (and no not just women). They claim they've 'worked damn hard' to get here and now only need to work about 3 hours a week in some mysterious role. The number of people earning this sort of salary in reality is very low, what are the odds that they're all on Mumsnet?

The number of posters with perfect marriages, still having amazing sex 3 times a day after 65 years of marriage, slept together within 3 seconds of meeting and moved in together the same day, husband covers the bed in rose petals still every day and so on. Again it's not the norm.

Everyone's child is a strapping 6'4 with 'model looks', thin as a rake despite eating 4000 calories a day.

It's just not representative of most people, I'm not saying the above doesn't exist but it's the number of posts on here that stipulate things like this, it feels very exaggerated, does anyone else find this?

That sounds very unpleasant and deliberately vindictive to the OP if someone did actually write that in the words you have stated. That’s obviously not remotely helpful and I presume that many others posters would have intervened and objected at the time?

People here are generally pretty decent overall compared to the internet at large, particularly when there is a post from someone genuinely in need of support. There is a generous sprinkling of nutters as well, of course, but that’s the case anywhere on the internet and they can safely be ignored.

The only thing I can claim on your list is I have a 6ft 4 DS.

I always take any forum with a pinch of salt, it’s not exactly peer researched meta data. Finances do genuinely interest me as I did research in to educational outcomes and poverty amongst other areas such as access to healthy food. I’m a product of social mobility, much harder to attain these days.

Your reading comprehension is rather lacking. I acknowledged the below in my post that you are replying to. I never said that no-one earns a 6 figure salary.

Yes, I know that head teachers, directors of council departments, hospital consultants etc earn 6 figure salaries, but those jobs aren't two a penny round here.

No, my friends and I don't discuss our incomes. Why would we? Most of them are retired, which I also stated in my post.

The facts where I live - there are fewer 6 figure earners per capita than you will find in large cities, London in particular. We have one general hospital, 11 secondary schools and 77 primary schools. 80% of the area covered by the borough council is rural. This is not a financial centre, or a centre for any kind of commerce, so average salaries are lower here.

When I googled, I found the median salary for the UK is approx £39,000 and between approx £49,000 and £49,000 for London.

I don't earn 200k and nor do any of my friends - but I don't disbelieve it when other people say they do. Mumsnet doesn't have to be representative of the population as a whole - for example I imagine a lot of us have flexible jobs/are retired to have time to be posting in the day.

Me and my friends do talk about money, we've all known each other since school and talk about pretty much everything.

Also I imagine most people have good and bad things they post about...e.g. on one thread I could mention that my DC both do lots of sports and are very active, or for ideas of where to go on holiday, but on another thread I might ask for advice on fussy eating or moan about how the DC are so messy.

@RampantIvy that’s 88 head teachers who could all be on over £100k right there, plus however many hospital consultants and at least one council leader, so you’ve over 100 people earning the magical “six figures”. Add in some IT bods, well established tradies working their arses off, a self employed accountant or two and you’re nudging 150 people. They will certainly not be the majority by any means but these people exist and you probably know a few of them. The lifestyle people imagine on a high salary vs the lifestyles most people have is very different so it’s not at all obvious (particularly if pensions are being utilised to the max)

I also find it odd that people say that nobody in their area earns over £100k. Presumably you have hospitals with consultants working in them? GPs? People who own small businesses and builders, plumbers etc who have built up a small business? Headteachers of secondary schools? Or do you live on a commune and grow your own vegetables?

I think most posters know of people like this but they don't know them personally, so if they say that no-one in their social circle earns a six figure salary they may well be correct. For example, I know a couple of retired head teachers, but I didn't know them when they were teaching. I knew DD's head teacher (I was a school governer), but he wasn't part of my social circle, neither is the CEO of where I work. I suspect most posters are talking about people they are close to.

DH is retired and I am on a pension and still work part time, so we are comfortable, but not high earners.

and you probably know a few of them.

I will have met with several consultants recently, but they are not in my social circle. I "know" them as a result of DH's heart surgey, that's all. They aren't my friends. I am talking about the difference between knowing someone professionally and knowing people in your social circle.

A head teacher in a primary school is very unlikely to be on £100k. I know a very experienced headteacher of the biggest primary school in our county and she is on £85k.

Headteacher salaries start at £58k. Please don't imagine the average primary headteacher is on over £100k. They are not.

But what does them being your friends or not have to do with believing that their existence is more or less prevalent?

One of my children is well over the 99th centile in height. I don't earn £200k though.

Of course the median salary for London alone will be higher. So are the living costs, and the tax revenue generated there is what keeps the rest of the country afloat.

No, my reading comprehension is not lacking. The point I have made several times is that it is odd for someone to conclude that earning a certain salary is either very common or very rare across the country just because it happens to be very common or very rare in the specific area where they happen to live or amongst the people with whom they happen to socialise and that whatever the circumstances of their immediate circle of friends/ family are this must the benchmark of what is “normal” or average for everyone. Having lived in very deprived areas and affluent ones it never occurred to me to try to extrapolate the lives of people in that specific area where I happened to be living into a conclusion that everyone in the country must be living similar lives. It’s a very odd and illogical assertion to make, particularly when you are an adult and have access to economic and statistical data at your fingertips. It seems a very narrow-minded worldview, regardless of which end of the economic spectrum that this type of tunnel vision is coming from.

Presumably people are aware that this is the internet and therefore it isn’t only people who live within 10 miles of their house who post on this forum so what is “average” obviously isn’t determined just by people they know personally? It’s very odd for someone to conclude that anybody who has a different life to the people they happen to know must be lying and I simply don’t understand the thought processes which have led several posters to make such assertions so was hoping for some insight on why they believe their personal experiences provide a more accurate picture of what is “average” than statistically verified economic data.

I have checked every one of my posts on this thread. Nowhere have I said that I don't believe that the existence of very high earners is more or less prevalent.

I know perfectly well that hospital consultants, head teachers etc are on high salaries. We are talking at cross purposes.

You clearly want to have the last word, so feel free to post again.

Perhaps you need to brush up on your own. I didn’t say that you personally had made these assertions, rather than multiple posters on the thread had done so, hence my comments in the thread.

MNers never take general posts personally.

Excuse me, @AndrewMountbattenWindsor - how very dare you say that about me!

😉😂

Mumsnet seems to lean more middle class so the number of higher earners does not seem odd to me. The sheer number of people who apparently know people with a perfect 50/50 split of domestic labour does seem like pish though.

I am innocent.

I'm always amazed at people who claim to be working 80h a week.

DH is on min wage, we claim UC and I am a SAHM as we can’t afford childcare. I never see this situation on this site so makes it really difficult to relate and posting anything about it leads to people calling you a scrounger.

You would be entitled to 30 hours of free childcare when your youngest is 9 months.

If I can even find a job! The job market where I live is horrendous, and I have medical conditions which don’t qualify me for disability benefits but limit my ability to work as one of them is a bladder condition that is unpredictable and debilitating when it flares.

I don't have any debt. I own my car and my flat. I am divorced and my children have left home. I don't take expensive holidays abroad and I don't order takeaways. I have a year's salary in the bank. I'm smart
with my finances and listwn to Martin Lewis.

Well - I DO have a DH who is nearly perfect, does most of the housework, a lot of the cooking and who enjoys shopping.

I DO have beautiful adult children and smart and clever grandchildren.

I DO have quite a nice (but modest) house and the mortgage is paid.

However - I never had a £200k job and my DH used to earn even less than me. We are now both retired and having to be very careful with our money.

I now have a good relationship with my children but it hasn't always been that way.

I'm not good at lying, even on anonymous forum - so I only write the truth.

I never tell any untruths;

And you never sweat while not telling these untruths.

What did you do with the it? Was it wrapped up like it is in the movies? Very interesting find.