How Much Do You Earn? #2

[Zenchick101]

One of my friends cousins mum takes it to the extreme. She got her daughters bedroom electrically wired separately from the rest of the house (or something like that, can’t remember exactly what she said), and charges her daughter a separate electricity bill.

she won’t let her charge her phone in the family living room either and “use their electricity”, and makes her buy all her own food. I remember she used to charge her phone at college

That teaches some bad values or at least could imo, like a lack of communal sharing/living, being stingy with others, those are some odd values. It's one thing to have an adult child contribute but that's nuts.

 

[GinBunny18]

I'm a senior admin working Mon-Fri 9am-5pm earning £26k. Holiday allowance is rubbish though at 20 days. I'm unsure if I want to stay at this company as there are quite a few people who think they're better than you in the team and like to whisper about other staff members and undermine you. I feel like you spend so long at work that is it too much to ask to enjoy your day without such playground antics I'm not on LinkedIn but wonder if I should create a profile, would you all say it's worth it? Feel a bit unsure about where to go next and what to do...

 

[Penelope Strawberry]

I love reading this shit!

29, Top 4 firm, £66k basic with £5-10k a year in bonus.

Partner earns basically the same. Have found as our wages grow so do our expenses I had more disposable income when I was earning 30k

Thank you, this made me feel so much better!

I'm on £65k now and was thinking the other day that I had more disposable income when I was on £25k. I rented a little room in a horrible house share in a dodgy area and took the bus everywhere. Now I have a huge mortgage on my dream house, car payments, insurance, a dog, etc etc - the lifestyle creep is real! I'm so satisfied with my life and really couldn't ask for more, but I'm ashamed that people on far less than me have way more in savings.

 

[hannah123]

This is the dream! An excellent salary with very reasonable hours and hopefully you like your workplace as well.

This might be a stage of life thing but I've also found that as I entered my 30s, the disparity in income and lifestyle between my old friends and I have widened considerably and it's definitely led to some tensions, even though I never share my salary or talk much about my work unless it's stuff like a tough client or long working hours recently. People will always assume based on what you do and my partner also can't help but sometimes share how proud he is of me for my professional accomplishments, and that definitely makes things awkward with some people in his circle as well.

This has been something I’ve thought but with family, not that they have a problem (at least haven’t said anything to my face), but I come from a pretty poor family who still struggle now. All of my other siblings earn minimum wage or mid £20,000s and kind of just get by, but I was earning £45k plus bonuses (hopefully) by the time I was 26. I’ve worked for it by being the first in my family to go to uni, then getting a masters and professional qualification, but there’s just the awkwardness of talking about my life sometimes, like my mum asking why I need my nephew to watch my pets for a couple of days and it’s because I’m going on my 3rd holiday this year. Even something as stupid as offering my family a cup of tea and biscuits and they were M&S and my dad commented how they were posh biscuits, you don’t know if that’s just an observation or a funny comment.

I feel like the kids of today would call this imposter syndrome, but it’s a worry I have that my future children and their cousins will have two different lives and that could grow resentment toward them.

 

[Begborrowsteal]

One of my friends cousins mum takes it to the extreme. She got her daughters bedroom electrically wired separately from the rest of the house (or something like that, can’t remember exactly what she said), and charges her daughter a separate electricity bill.

she won’t let her charge her phone in the family living room either and “use their electricity”, and makes her buy all her own food. I remember she used to charge her phone at school

I don't agree with living rent/bill free as an adult but wow that is beyond extreme!!

 

[Monkeybum]

For those of you earning good money who didn’t go to university, what industries are you in? Did you go down the route of online learning instead of uni? Apprenticeship?

I’m band 3 admin in NHS earning £21,709-£23,603. If our pay rise is accepted (which I don’t think it will be..) it’ll go up to £23,914-£25,808. I want to earn more but I have no idea what I want to do. The natural progression route in my current role would mean going into management if I wanted to earn decent money but I definitely don’t want to be in management. I can’t afford uni as I have a mortgage to pay and am a single person/income household so looking at other options to upskill.

I’ve looked at things such as AAT, Open University, HND (already have HNC) etc but since I have no idea what my end goal is apart from earning more money, it’s hard to know where to start

I'm in the Civil Service, I started 20 odd years ago straight from college in an admin role earning £10k a year, have progressed and specialised in Finance and now earn £65k. I am now a qualified accountant which was fully funded by work and hugely helped my wage increase. I was very similar to you and had no idea what I wanted to do then found my natural home when I did a secondment to finance

 

[Meg78]

This thread is very interesting! We have an unusual situation as we bring in less but have more now, if that makes any sense at all

I worked in FMCG earning £42k per year, husband was earning £35k as a recruiter. We had tiny humans and one of them is special needs, so now I earn buttons but husband swapped to better paying positions and he’s now on £70k. We technically earn £7000 less than we did five years ago, and against inflation its worse in real time, but I now receive a carers allowance and disability living allowance for being a full time carer, we save on childcare costs, and the changes overall forced us to look at our financial position, we now put far more away as retirement savings and never need credit as we pay for anything we need upfront. It was a stressful transition but we’re more financially secure on one salary than we ever were with two! I’d love to return to work but finding a remote job I can do with school-friendly hours in my industry isn’t a thing sadly, and I’m not sure where to retrain into?

 

[Raymond Luxury-Yacht]

it seems impossible to get a good wage without a degree, someone please change my mind because i’m losing hope that i’ll ever make enough money to live without going to uni or being extremely talented

I’m not sure whether it will make you feel better, but I have a degree (I even graduated with honours) and make so little money I don’t even want to share the exact amount because I’m ashamed. But at the end of the day, I’m pretty sure your personality, soft skills and experience matter more than your education/degree.

 

[JOHN1967]

Unfortunately a bad relationship and bad investment in property have left me with a lot of debts to pay back - my parents bailed me out so I pay them back over £800 a month...hopefully in around 2 years it will be sorted. I think my version of skint is very different to a lot of people though

Lol, your version of skint is similar to my aunts'. Her husband and her very very well off. In 1990/1 her husband died, and after clearing all debts, by 1995 she was reduced to living on 4500 per month. Yes, she was skint compared to her previous life, but let's face it 4500 per month back in 1995 isn't really skint for most of us.

 

[Shinythings]

Not sure if this is OT but does anyone else struggle with feeling like you always need to be earning more? I've gone up 4 bandings in the NHS in the space of 5 years, so just over a 20k leap altogether. But whenever I reach the next step I get angtsy and feel like it's not enough to feel financially secure and I need to earn more.

Realistically I know I've done well to climb that quickly, but I don't know if I'll ever feel secure even if I was earning £££££. It drives my other half mad. But we have very different mindsets. He's quite happy plodding along earning an OKish salary.

 

[holasun]

I totally agree on more transparency of salaries!!

Construction engineering
£52,300 pa.
Pay 10% into pension and have a company car both via salary sacrifice, so after all that it's £42,100 pa pre tax.
Take home is around £2800 a month.

 

[Beachbabe]

I love this thread. I work part time for a small accountancy practice doing accounts admin and I’m on £16 an hour. Financially I’m ok but only because of tax credits and child maintenance. My daughter is 15 so I haven’t got long left to get my act together to find a full time job which will earn me the same amount of money I have now. It keeps me awake some nights trying to plan the future.

 

[Homebird44]

While I can sympathize with your situation, at least you have a job. You could always take a sickie.

Somebody else can have the job. If I take a sickie I'll get a disciplinary as I've already requested the day off and its been declined. I'm not missing my sons special day. I'm in a no win situation. If I go into work I let him down, if I don't go in I have a disciplinary on my file that will follow me to every job.

 

[nancyxx]

€150-180k…dental surgeon.. money doesn’t buy happiness, makes some things easier for sure but definitely creates some jealousy sometimes. Love my job though because I just love people! Am very aware how privileged I am financially

 

[Flowergirl14]

I was on £65,000 plus all the snazzy benefits and perks in my last job but it was utter hell with a toxic fake positivity culture. Everyone had a smile plastered on their face while they stabbed each other in the back.

I am taking a £10,000 pay cut to my base salary and letting go of basically every benefit and bonus with my new job but the people are lovely, everyone seems genuine (an old work friend of mine has already been working there a year now), and people just get on with their own shit.

I can't wait to start.

Did you work on This Morning on ITV with their toxic culture??

 

[HoGi]

Someone told me yesterday that civil servants get a 27% pension contribution!! Is that true?

The employer contribution in most public sector schemes is around this if not more.

But it's a bit of a misnomer as there isn't a "pension pot" as they are defined benefit schemes.

So it isn't like that contribution is directly going to that person's pension. It is going to the pool of contributions to ensure there are enough funds for the current and future liabilities.

 

[LifeOfMog]

Administrator & Office Manager (used to be two roles - but I don't seem to get 2 salaries!!) - £28,000 + very generous bonus (25%). My take home after tax/NI, student loan, pension etc is £1,800. Live alone so it doesn't stretch too far...

Does anyone else feel as though everyone else their age is earning way more?? I don't know how people are landing jobs in sectors that have £50k+ salaries. What's the secret!

Someone I know is a year older than me (26), has been in tech since 18 and is now on £64k ... crys in regretting not being a computer girl tbh x

 

[Lalla]

My low stress, low responsibility mainly 9-5 job has in the past year started to involve repeated 10 or 12 hours days. As I logged off at 9.30 tonight (which incidentally was meant to be my day off but I ended up working because I was being badgered for urgent work ) I was thinking that I need a massive raise. The thing is, I know I work easily 50% faster than other people, so if I am struggling it means I really do have too much work.

I earn £60k a year which for someone with my qualifications and nearly 30 years of experience is really low. I would put up with it when I had an easy life but if my job is going to involve this level of effort, I think I want more money.

 

[miamae]

I've posted here before - I'm a teacher (FE) and am currently earning 24k a year. I've just found out a colleague, as she has more experience than me, is on 37K for doing the exact same job as me! (I actually do more as I programme lead various units). I literally can't get over it, do you think I'd be rude to ask for a pay rise due to this? I'm on Mat leave at the moment but seriously considering it

 

[101d]

So although I got a relatively poor pay rise of 4%, today I got told I got a bonus of 13%! So it's not all bad