AIBU to think many Mumsnet posters seem to be high earners?

[Jane143]

AIBU to think that the majority of people on MN seem to be high earners? As a guide, income over £60k? Most people I know in real life earn closer to average wage which I think is around £35k

I imagine a large percentage of it is bullshit, or at least exaggerated for effect. I would have thought most women in these alleged 'six figure' jobs wouldn't even have Mumsnet on their radar let alone be actively contributing at 3pm on a Wednesday (between mergers, I guess..).

Personally I love it and treat it the same as any other doom scrolling SM, with a pinch of salt - it can be very helpful on occasion, but it's mostly comedy/toxic rubbish.

That being said does it really matter? If it's not hurting anyone?

I dont' know, who are all these people on minimum wage who have so much time to scroll on their phone and post on MN during working hours.

Absolutely and everyone seems to 'live rurally'.

That’s a really outdated idea about high earners do tbh. There are plenty of women in the UK who earn six figures. Why can’t they be on Mumsnet?

Also investment banking isn’t the only way to make more than £100k.

Employed people have extremely limited access to tax avoidance

This. There are loads of london based on here. I live in SE and work in london & most people i know earn over 100k p.a, or have gone part time to avoid going over 100k.

Hmmm I wonder how many of the 10% earn as they do because someone has to do the low paid jobs, jobs thst often their salaries couldn’t happen without. It’s a stupid statement really, can you just imagine what society would be like if there wa no one who would do the basic tax jobs?

Eww you sound gross

We are very, very average. We earn the average wage, have average savings, live in an average price house for the area, have average children and actually almost everything about our life is average. It made me laugh when I once looked up how average we are.

And people in certain jobs. DD can't use her phone while operating an X-Ray machine or a CT scanner.

I'm retired and live rurally - honestly 😁

What an inaccurate assumption. The top earners pay the majority of the tax in the UK.

They do!

If you're achieving all that in the current climate, you aren't average, you're amazing! Excellent stuff!

There do seem to be a lot of well off people on here, but also some struggling with the cost of living and asking about benefits.

Have you misunderstood my post?

Most people on Mumsnet don't talk about their income at all. How can you possibly know?

Hahaha, yes of course they do.

Roughly 50% of adults don’t pay any income tax at all. They fall below the PA threshold.
The bottom 50% of earners contribute 10% of income tax revenues.
Top 10% of earners contribute 60% of income tax revenues.
Top 1% of earners contribute around 30% of income tax revenues.

Im not sure, I’d love to see the demographics because when rich people post there’s inevitably a lot of ‘read the room’ comments. I will say I can be gobsmacked when people say what they have in savings or as a pension!!!

Everyone on here seems proper rich. I’m on 27k and I work full time and I struggle. There’s families on here that are easily on more than 100k and they struggle? wtf? 😂😂 I’d love to have their lives. High paying jobs, a husband, kids. A life I can’t even fathom!

Same 70k on my own, single parent, lone breadwinner. Living in south east, I’m doing ok but I’m not
loaded. Thirteen years ago I was on 17k a year and I had nothing. Every story is different.

Pretty much every person in every investment bank in London who is at MD level earns around £400k so do most CEOs and CFOs of listed companies. There are tens of thousands of them in London.

Then almost everybody over 40 in London who works in Finance will be getting £100k. This is all publicly available data and you can ask ChatGPT if you don’t believe it! 😂

Just look at what a house costs in many areas of London. There are real people living there - it isn’t an illusion. 😂

It depends on the question you ask!
When a poster asks a question like how much do you help your adult kids - you’ll get a very high proportion saying they paid the deposit on a house a car, take them on holidays every year and provide them with an annual income. It seems that everyone is rolling in it.
When a poster say their family are struggling to live on £90k a year - they are ripped to pieces everyone talking about the cost of living, how can you spend £3.50 on a coffee and read the room. It seems everyone is skint!

I was reading the thread yesterday about what people do to help their adult children - providing deposits for houses, paying for university, paying school fees - amongst other things. Made me wonder how much all these people earnt.
Myself and dh are late 50's, both earn just above the average, neither of us have ever been higher rate tax payers. We earn enough that we are comfortable ie. a car each, a holiday each year and can pay our bills. But couldn't have helped our children to the extent that others were saying they helped. Both our children actually out earn us.

I see way more posters talking/complaining about higher earners on mumsnet, than higher earners on mumsnet tbh. Threads by higher earners also tend to draw the attention of those posters itching to tell them to ‘check their privilege’.

That said, Mumsnet is a forum that was started by middle/upper middle class and higher earning women in the south-east, that predominantly attracted, and attracts, more of the same.

I expect some posters lie, because this is after all the internet (and I don’t think it’s always in the more affluent direction either), but I doubt it’s to the extent that some seem to think it is.