AIBU to envy friends with wealthier husbands and easier retirements?

[TheAngryPuxie]

Just had coffee out with a friend and then went back to her house. She is similar in age to me (I am 57) and recently retired. I know she didn't earn much as she told me that she earnt sround £32,000 a year. My husband, like me, is a teacher and IS close to retiring. He's on about £44,000. I know that sounds a lot but after mortgage, bills, etc thers's not much left. I try to economise with the food shop, buying supermarket own brands,etc, I buy almost everything in charity shops, discount stores, etc. We rarely eat out or have takaways. My friend's husband runs his own business and, I don't know what he makes, but when I saw their house I was stunned. It is absolutely beautiful with 5 double bedrooms, 3 of them with en-suites, massive kitchen, dining, living room area,, downstairs bathroom and a large utilty room, large garden with another little 'bungalow' at the bottom, plus double garages, etc.

I have worked hard my whole life in a really stressful and demanding job and all of my female friends and colleagues seem to have one thing in commmon: their husbands earn a lot of money meaning they can afford to stay at home or earn a rubbish salary like teaching (which they are doing more as a hobby or for a bit of 'pocket money'). They have long holidays abroad and a lot of other luxuries I just can't afford.

AIBU to envy these women and think that life isn't fair? I love my husband, but sometimes wish he was more ambitious and that I could have a gorgeous house and didn't have to work.

Be happy for what you have and aspire to work towards having more (if you want).

We earn £200k plus as a family. We don't see those on more and are jealous. We have relatives who earn more and have big businesses, it's fine. They built their success, we have ours as well.

Yes, agree. I keep reading here that teachers are not paid for their holidays. It's nonsense!

It isn't, the salary is significantly reduced to reflect that. Also, they are often expected to do quite a lot of work in those unpaid holidays.

You need to realise that your pensions are extremely generous compared to the private sector.

When you are both retired, you will have close to what you're earning now, if you include the state pension - and as you won't pay as much tax, your net income is likely to be close to what you have now.

Your H did of course have the option to apply for SL jobs and even headships.
He didn't have to stay on the main scale.

A teacher starts on £33k in the UK. That's a lovely starting salary to begin working life on.

They obviously can move up and progress if they want to earn more.

Are you paid for weekends?

Not sure where you're getting that from!

The pay is not 'minus holidays'.

That's nonsense.

The only teachers who are paid by the day/ hour are supply teachers where their equivalent annual salary is divided into working days and that's their daily rate for supply.

It is, otherwise their salaries would be higher. 5.6 weeks are paid holidays. I'm afraid you are wrong.

Then it's something they knew in advance and chose.

I didn’t even know houses like that existed lol. A bungalow at the bottom of the garden? 🤣

Indeed, but it doesn't change the fact that those bleating on about holidays are incorrect, which is my only point.

And also me asking AI says teaches' salaries aren't reduced due to the holidays they get. So go figure.

Wow
Demonstrates the enormous difference in the human race.
It has never featured in my mind re potential earning when I have developed feelings and pursued relationships with another person.
You do you

@GreekIslands and @Jhhgrtf See my previous posts on experienced teachers being actively disincentivised to apply for upper scale pay bands.
It's not that simple.
https://schoolsweek.co.uk/support-plans-misused-to-force-out-teachers-from-schools-say-campaigners/

You could have looked at your friend’s house and felt sorry for her for having all the extra work and responsibility involved in maintaining a massive white elephant. As for the husband running his own business - no easy pension arrangements, then, so maybe they were relying on the house being a big part of the retirement wealth, but large properties like that are not easily saleable. You also don’t know how much debt they have, or how dramatically their income may fluctuate. You and your dh at least have stable, reliable careers and have not had to take the sorts of risks that someone running their own business takes.

You can be a teacher and be ambitious too!

I’m old. My family wanted me to marry for money (no jokes) and I married for love. I’m with that man 100 years later. It’s the best thing I’ve ever done. The best decision I ever made.

Sure most of the 100 years we’ve had no money. We’ve worked so so hard. Together. As a team. I’ve had periods where I’ve gone part time for the kids, he’s had periods of working 2 jobs.

Today people will say we have a nice lifestyle. They don’t know how hard we’ve worked to get here. How many jobs that actually I didn’t want to leave but did so for the money . How many times we’ve said no to events, holidays, takeaways, new cars and restaurants. How many times my husband went night shift in his job for the shift allowance money.

You’re not living other peoples lives. You don’t know what they’ve done to earn or keep their money. Isnt there a saying about “ never wish for what other people have, because you don’t know what it took, or the headache they had, getting there”.

All you can do is work on your finances and your own future. Sure, it’s not something we want to do be doing at this age, I get you. Lots of advice will come from the much younger community, who can’t imagine how tiring life is at this age, both physically and mentally. It’s not something you realise until you get there. But equally nothing lands in our lap. If we want something, most of us have to go out and earn it.

just a note on teachers, I’ve never known any teacher working for pocket money. It’s a damn hard job. Most teachers I know, or did when I was working in the sector, would have loved to have a job less stressful.

AI🙄

The teachers in my family are mostly happy in their chosen career.
Of course they work very hard and work over the school holidays, the weekends and the evenings.
They also have job security, good pensions, seem to manage their work/life balance well enough to enjoy lots of down time when regular office workers are juggling childcare and have been able to progress.

I think there are a few things going on here. Initial decisions versus ongoing choices.

If the OP is 57 she would have graduated in 1991 or thereabouts, well before information was freely available on the internet. Salaries were a lot flatter and more similar across different sectors back then. Yes trainee solicitors were always paid more than trainee teachers, but it was more like a difference of £5-10k than the multiples that you get today. Around that time a decision to go into teaching wasn’t seen as a decision in favour of lower wages or a struggle to afford a family home. It was seen as a solid choice. You knew that you would be earning less as a teacher than as a solicitor, but not that you would be worlds apart.

People do forget that there was a big jump in private sector professional salaries in the late nineties and early noughties, with a corresponding escalation in house prices. All this was fed by the IT boom and the bonus culture cascading out of the City. So that left behind those who were on fixed salary scales like teaching or civil service.

But:

Many years have passed since the OP’s original decision and there were multiple points where she could have made different choices.

In the late nineties you could easily buy a decent one bed flat in Zone 3 London for around £150k.

Banks offered 95% or even 100% mortgages.

The OP and her husband were adults during some periods of huge economic growth, including exponential growth in the property market.

Huge amounts of money poured into schools and the wider education sector in the late nineties and the noughties. Thousands of new jobs and leadership positions were created. There were all sorts of courses, schemes and training opportunities for teachers. NCSL courses etc. You had to be prepared to put yourself forward and commit extra time, but the opportunities were there. If you wanted a school leadership role, had some determination and were prepared to move schools you could probably get to an Assistant Head or Deputy Head role. I know because I did it at the time!

Education-adjacent businesses were growing. Fortunes were made by running supply teaching agencies, training companies or by providing IT equipment to schools.

There were also opportunities for saving and investing, including in private pensions, during some huge boom years. Information about this could be found by buying a weekend newspaper (£1) and actually looking at the personal finance section! This is why I have limited sympathy with the WASPI cause, because I remember the information being widely available in the financial pages as well as on the radio at the time (Moneybox on R4 etc).

Taking advantage of some of the above opportunities were all open to the OP. But it would have required raising her head from the normal routine of life and being prepared to go in a different direction and have different priorities to colleagues and friends.

Finally, the big one, choices around how many children to have make a huge difference to family financial resilience, because other implications (maternity leave, work, housing and ongoing expenses) then flow from that decision.

So I would advise young women now to raise their heads and look around them to see what is happening in the world and make decisions accordingly.

I always find it weird when people have to tell themselves that others who seem to have more than them might be in debt or have a load of issue, in order to make themselves feel better for not having as much, especially when these people are your friends. Who needs enemies eh?

Maybe they’re happy, have no debt, a lovely home. Can people not just be happy for their friends?

The job security has been significantly diminished over the years sadly, many teachers are on rolling temporary contracts and if they want to manage someone out they can do so very easily
However, I do.think many find it rewarding despite all this, it's just a shame it doesn-t seem to be properly valued.

He’s probably envying the men with ambitious, wealthier wives 🙄

I’m two years older than you. DH and I are both teachers and manage fine on the money we have plus excellent pensions coming soon. I’d not give you a thank you for a massive house - very happy with my Victorian terrace. I went to Cambridge and have lots of rich banker friends but don’t envy their jobs at all. I think you need to get a sense of perspective. I’m concerned about my children’s generation who don’t have access to affordable housing, childcare or a functioning NHS as we did.

Oh, I didn't know that about temp contracts. The teachers in my family have been doing it for many years.
For them it's been a vocation which obviously helps with job satisfaction.
I entirely about their value. The same is happening in my field (academic science). It's an employers market so they can demand the moon on a stick and pay crappy salaries.