To think mumsnet posters must have a lot of £££

[TwoBabas]

General observation from reading posts on here is that there seem to be an awful lot of posters claiming either themselves or their partners are eating salaries of 100k plus.

Now am I being very naive or are people over exaggerating their financial situations. What type of job would put you in that range? Doctor? Headteacher? Lawyer?

Most people I know are skrimping by and don't have a lot to piss in.

But then perhaps I'm living amongst the not so wealthy sector.

Are people telling the truth do you think?

Absolutely, the man who did the job I do before I did it was a complete dimwit. Left the entire place in utter chaos due to his incompetence.

He fit all the criteria, private school, middle class, plum accent etc etc. it took them 11 months to find him out, and a year later I'm still picking up the pieces. He left with a six figure payoff, so desperate were they to get rid of him, and he walked straight into another one.

I've met many many men like this during my career.

A lot do, that's my perception, but it's also my perception that there is a lot of nonsense. Ie, how to cope with your child being an NHS doctor married to another NHS doctor. In what world is that a disappointment.

I find it hard to believe that all these wealthy women with highly skilled (highly paid) jobs also ask the most ridiculously stupid questions on MN. Do these highly paid jobs not require common sense? Are all these people with supposed intelligence really too scared to answer doorbells or know basic things?

For those concerned about feminism - I'm a woman and I personally earn over £100k, closer to £150k in fact. Some of my female friends earn close to double that. Happy to report our existence :) I love the theatre but I'm not going every night, particularly when I'm regularly working past 9pm on weeknights, and I genuinely really enjoy Mumsnet and find it a pleasure to read and participate so here I am :)

@laclochette is right though, the various bumps and cliffs in the tax system are a problem and we don't appreciate enough how wages and productivity have totally stalled in this country.

Have you actually done a data check to be sure that the askers of the stupid questions are the same ones who are the high earners? !

So do I and earn less than £30k per annum!

I've wondered about all that, too. I certainly haven't got much money - husband and I are in our 60s, worked all our lives, paid off the mortgage 10 years ago. We're both a bit under retiremant age, but now can't work due to health problems. With my PIP, and his very small private pension, we're managing on £850 a month.

I earn £100k plus and lead a very boring life, but I'm very happy!

We have a combined household income of £125k in our mid 30s, my partner earns more than me but we’re both in the 40% tax bracket. That seems like loads to me and my partner’s currently negotiating a pay increase as he’s moving to a new job.

It’s not normal for the circles we move in, we’re both from modest working class backgrounds (especially me) and no one went to uni in our families before our generation. He works in tech, I’m public sector middle management - both worked our way up.

We live in the NW in a 3 bed semi in an ‘up and coming’ area, drive an old estate car, I buy a lot of our stuff on marketplace/Vinted/etc. I don’t really know anything different, I haven’t suddenly found a love of designer handbags or the opera as our earnings increased!

@indigovapour

I don't think a director at Deloitte, PWC can be called a "middle manager" as the typical structure across audit, risk advisory, consulting typically is (role names may vary):

Analyst
Executive
Consultant
Senior consultant
Associate director
Director
Partner

So IMO, a director is clearly a senior manager.

I’m a woman earning £150k.

I manage a team that’s largely made up of women with an average salary of £110k. The average salary in my company is £80k, the minimum is £37k (graduates) for roles requiring degrees, and £32k outside of that.

Directors in my company are on £250k+.

(And before anyone asks why I’m on MN, I’m off today- no opera or private viewings planned, but I do need to get to the dry cleaners).

My husband earns a little more than I do. Again, his company pays well.

We both have phenomenal pensions and very good benefits.

If anyone (outside of close circle) asks us what we do, I say I work in an office and he says he works in a bank. I don’t think people really realise what a lot of jobs have bvolce and earn.

In our scenario, people will see that we have a nice house and nice cars but what they don’t see are the rental properties, investments, pension pots, bank balances etc.

I think there are an awful lot of people earning a lot more than others realise. There are also a lot of people who have money from other sources (inheritance etc) that keep very quiet about it.

You see it on MN time and time again, a thread asking how people afford new cars and 90% of the responses will be “it’s all on credit”. Some of it certainly is but people forget that access to credit is based on income so someone earning £20k isn’t going to secure financing for a new Merc.

There’s plenty of money out there, it’s just not well distributed, or discussed.

That’s why MN frustrates me. Women who earn a lot are dismissed as fantasists. That does nobody any favours. Discussion and transparency around avenue open to women that allow them to achieve high salaries is a very good thing.

It’s depressing the feminism still has a long way to go for many reasons, one of which is the disparity between what men and women earn in the first place, which often results in the motherhood penalty which increases the gap. I’ve written another reply to a similar comment about this in this thread.

Couples who earn different amounts isn’t evidence of the wage gap though. The reason some women are earning less than their partners is because they don’t have the academic ability, aptitude or vocation to carry out a highly paid job, but it is a societal norm for men to partner with women who earn less than them. It is much more unusual for women to have male partners who earn less than they do. So you get natural variations in earning ability/intelligence, which are reflected in the makeup of couples. The equivalent men, the ones who don’t have the aptitude for high paid jobs, are most likely partnered with women who earn the same as them or even less.
Amongst the other common couple type- those who have a similar level of aptitude, intelligence and career aspirations (eg met at University)- it’s rare for the woman to earn less than the man unless she has taken a conscious decision to step back from her career at a point where both had the same earning power. That is a choice. If she was too blinkered to realise that her husband could have been the one to make that choice that is not society’s fault.

@LittleArrowsEverywhere thanks, agree with all.

The industry gap is really significant and it's why I do try to mention my salary occasionally. It's not to boast but to make sure women are making an informed decision when deciding what to study / work in. I think some people think "well a teacher makes £30k and bankers make loads, probably like £60k, but that's not worth it to me!".

Actually "bankers", depending on what you mean by that, could make £60k a year or two out of uni, £200k in the middle of their careers and go up from there as you become a partner, MD etc and start getting variable comp. Plus very generous maternity...

That is extreme and quite competitive but even corporate middle management salaries can be £100kish, but if you think £60k is "loads" you'll never ask for it.

Well to make generalisations I don't know anyone in the real world who:-

1. Doesn't have a pot to piss in
2. Lives rurally but doesn't drive
3. Makes 10 meals out a medium sized supermarket chicken
4. says 'no' as a complete answer
5. Doesn't put the heating on when they are cold.

Are the people that no post that fantasists as well?

Of course small salaries get eaten up too. Where did I suggest they didn't?

My comment was illustrating that a £100k salary does not put you in a position for endless theatre trips and private viewings. If you live in the SE and have children most of it will be swallowed up by living and childcare costs, not available to spend on luxuries.

I've lived on small salaries (my first graduate job paid £14.5k) and considerably larger ones. I felt wealthier in my 20s on 30k living in a city cheaper than London, with no mortgage, house maintenance or childcare to pay than I do now. I rented a one bed apartment from which I could walk to work and my expenses were minimal. Most of my salary was for discretionary spending. Now on a multiple of that salary I have far less available as it is all swallowed up by bills.

I think a lot of people on Mumsnet have ASD.

Explains being bewildered by social things but able to do jobs.

@Blankscreen number 2 on that list has always bewildered me!

I’d been on over £100k if I went full time. My father earns over £200k, one of my brothers pays himself about £80k I think but owns a multi million turnover company and has a lot of assets . Most of my family are over the £100k bracket. None of them even have degrees! They’re just entrepreneurial and intuitive in business.
I’m lazy and enjoy a modest lifestyle so I just work 2 days a week and am happy to be poor! I wonder if I’m adopted 🤣

@LittleArrowsEverywhere transparency, period, is helpful. In the first job I got in the kind of role I do now what we earned was talked about openly. It was good, I joined thinking I was doing well. I learned that contractors in my team were earning x5 my wages, and the 3 of us who joined learned the disparity between what we earned for the same role. All men, so no gender gap here. Openness benefits all. The other 2 joining the same time as me were hesitant, only disclosing after I told them what I was on. Turned out I was worst paid across all the specialist teams in our area!

We brought it up with what was by that point a different team manager, that we were not happy with both the disparity and the general underpayment for our skills generally. Despite wider politics, change came, it wasn't fast enough but it came because of that openness. We all improved our skills ASAP and left in the end for contracting opportunities due to that slowness.

In the wider world, I think openness is difficult but overall a good thing. We have to know what's wrong to stand a chance of imagining solutions. It's not worth sweating about individuals because the problems are systemic and need solutions individuals can't action on their own. I don't go blabbing about what I earn and have earned in the past, but when relevant I won't lie. I've got nothing to be ashamed of, and acknowledge luck and advantages, and unfairness when I see it

My lifestyle doesn't give much away because early years of struggling mean I prioritise security over objects, always thinking longer term and how I'll cope with lots of months out of work. All my favourite things are cheap, allotment/growing, paddling, climbing/bouldering, running, quiz nights, bar billiards, gaming. Some can be expensive, but not how I do them. I love learning, and being skilful, objects can't deliver that. The pandemic was quite harsh, working just 6 of an 18 month period, the only reason I didn't struggle was due to being prepared.

I've really noticed this on Mumsnet. I live in a middle class area and have plenty of middle class friends but can actually only think of two people who earn around £100,000. The rest are earning well (say £40,00 to £70,000) but nowhere near £100,000 plus. On Mumsnet I've seen many posts where people talk about earning £150,000 and a partner earning a similar amount. In my mind that's a very high income and very far from average.

Where has anyone said it’s average?

@SallyWD

Most of my uni mates (unusually) earn £100k, but they are corporate law, banking and IT (contractor here, so works exclusively on day rate). Most other people I know earn £30-60k.

Maybe majority posting here is having a sly gloat...

It is high, the average is somewhere in the 20s or 30s. You should see how the graph goes as a whole, though. it's rises noticeably over the top 10% or so and somewhere very close to the end its almost a vertical line.

The reality when we talk about the equality of income is that even around the 100k-150k mark you still have far more in common with the other 99% than you do the top 1%

A final thing too, is that net worth is much more interesting than income. Earned income can go in the blink of an eye, an accident, bad luck etc. Net worth includes all of your assets and is a much better guide to a person's economic power. Many high earners status pales into insignificance compared to some peers when you factor that in, because the other assets are not necessarily earned income and can also accumulated income over generations. This is why the states role in wealth distribution is really important, because individuals cannot on their own overcome many of the factors involved, the system is heavily stacked against people not from privileged backgrounds, and this by design. It's not an accident. It's why the elite really hate any talk of inheritance and wealth tax ideas

Wealth is a much more complicated subject than a lot of people think, and seemingly wealthy people you see are not necessarily in comparable positions.

The MN demographic skews more privileged than average. There are plenty of outright bullshitters on here though, always have been, and some of them even pretend to be poor.