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.

Not fair. You don't know what if's truly like until you've given it some time. By the time it becomes intolerable you can't afford to train for anything else.

A lot of people are single too…

You have chosen to retire early, now you are complaining that you don’t have as much as someone else.

feel sorry for the next generation because we won’t have anything near the wealth of the pensioners now

Most of the teachers I know do tuition on the side. Is that an option for either /both of you?
My children have tutors and they all had waiting lists! And charge a lot. And that's on top of them working full time at the school.

I know that really. It just amazes me what other people have.

Is this a new friend? Do you seriously want a massive house with 4+ bathrooms and a garden house...who do you live with, just dh?

You must be in the generation that still profited from reasonable house prices and low or no student debt though. It's those of us born 10 years later (and after) who really got kicked there.

I should add I was a nurse for 38 years with small pension. Totals income with husband’s £32000. I know people on benefits earning more but I worked for mine and enjoy.

It’s not a great job anymore, I agree, but you’ll get a decent pension.

I also agree with the quit whining. It is what it is now. You could diversify if you really wanted to.

But people get wealth (or visible wealth ) in all sorts of ways)

• hard work/skill
• good luck/inheritance
• Dodgy deals and exploitation
• heavy debt or no pensions

Just focus on your own life and what you can do

You must both have decent pension pots surely?

An 'excellent career' earning less than minimum wage for the hours you put in, being sworn at and disrespected by teenagers everyday. Yoy are clearly not a teacher!

You seem to have conveniently forgotten the long holidays

Many people work teacher length hours on similar pay without the long holidays to compensate.

And all the secondary school teachers I know have a side line in tutoring which suggests the "day job" hours aren't that dreadful. Many do exam marking in the summer too

Yeah - her husband's money. He owns his own business.

You are 57…you had it golden 🫣

It’s well advertised that you earn a relatively significant more than minimum wage as a teacher providing you follow the progression routes. Which you need to do in any career to earn more anyway. Their hard work is admired and it’s not something that I or many others could cope with! But the monetary aspect is nowhere near as bad as many claim

It is index linked. You would really struggle to get equivalent in private sector no matter how hard you saved unless you were very senior at an exceptionally generous business

We have three kids at home and are quite happy on less than that. Loft converted on a three bedroom house and the mortgage being slightly overpaid, two cars, the kids do all the clubs they want, abroad every other year and to UK family most school holidays.

Why do you need five double bedrooms if there's just the two of you? You'd be spending your retirement just dusting!

Exactly this point. I am at a USBank and we get matched up to 10%, but this is up to a salary of 120k a year. After that it’s purely own contributions. People who have always been in the public sector don’t see the benefits they have

Over the last few years, due to our jobs and circumstances, I’ve had a lot of money at times and then also very little.

What it’s taught me is that the intrinsic value of things is in direct proportion to how easy (or hard) it is to acquire them.

So a very expensive handbag purchase when we had money actually felt a lot less special than a lovely surprise Thai meal in a local restaurant when we had very little.

When I reach state retirement age, yes, although that's affected by being contracted out. As I said, I can't complain. I don't have much longer to wait for that. I'll add that because of the changes in pension I was told that I hadn't paid the full amount required for the state pension, so I did take the advice from the Martin Lewis page and paid for an extra year's contributions. I was also given the underlying Carer's Credit contributions for nearly two years and that will have helped my state pension.

When I first retired, my monthly pension was significantly less than the above. However, I need to emphasise that I was in a promoted post. I can't recall my exact salary now, but I had just topped 40k when I had to go to down to the 4 day week and ISTR that that knocked my annual wage down to 34k. (The combination of my full-time job and being a carer had become impossible.)

If I'd been able to stay to 60 as planned, I'd have been very comfortable.

I should add that there have been changes to the pension scheme for teaching staff across the UK, so I think it's the case that younger people won't do as well.

I should also state that my late husband was a teacher and I inherited a portion of his pension. He was a late entrant to teaching: he did mainly manual work originally. As an estate worker, he got the basic agricultural wage. I believe that his forestry wage was about the same. He intended to work to 65, but his health got in the way and he retired at 60. His annual teaching pension was around 8k a year.

Please note that teachers in England have a lower wage than those of us in Scotland. On the other hand, we have higher taxes and different tax bands - the higher tax band here kicks in sooner than the higher tax band in England.

Most teachers pay the Intermediate 21% tax band and promoted staff hit the higher tax band.

https://www.gov.scot/publications/scottish-income-tax-rates-and-bands/pages/proposed-rates-and-bands-2025-to-2026/

As I said, I can't complain. I paid off my mortgage a few years ago. If I have to go into a care home, the house might go for around 150k. (It's a reasonable area in Fife, but one that's not yet been affected by an influx of Edinburgh commuters.). The fact that my council tax is lower than it would have been in a more affluent area is quite a bonus.

My house is actually quite shabby, to be honest. I have some repairs to pay for before I can spruce it up. If things had gone to plan, it would all have been done by now.

I'm better off than many.

The tone of your post is just yuck. Perhaps you should have made different choices in your own career rather than being envious and identifying the cause as your husband. It’s not the 1950s!

But where does it all go?
Why are you not more financially secure now?
Is this a second marriage for either of you? Lots of debt?

Why can't you earn it yourself rather than expect your dh to?

I've never married but have a nice house with a big kitchen, dining room, sitting room, utility, large garden. Four beds. I can retire when my current job ends. So no, I don't envy them.

I’m struggling to understand why you are struggling so much if you are both full time teachers. He’s in £44,000 presumably you are at least high £30,000s ft teacher. So joint household income £80,000 ish. You are 57 husband older. Mortgage presumably paid off. You’ll both have decent pensions.
Yes maybe not same size of house as friends married to men with higher earnings but you’ll be looking forward to a comfortable retirement on two teacher pensions, its a generous pension scheme.

Why would you even want a house that size? I can understand wanting a bit more money to be able to do fun things in retirement but once your family have grown and left, why do you need 3 bedrooms and bathrooms plus huge rooms downstairs? Perhaps your friends also have cleaners but it seems more trouble than it’s worth to me.

I have no idea where you live or when you bought your own house, seeing as you are still paying off a mortgage, but the sensible thing to me isn’t wanting the huge house with the big mortgage but making do with the cheapest acceptable property, paying off the mortgage as soon as you can and then you have the luxury of either working fewer hours or having money to do things and go places.