Be Excellent To Each Other

How much money do you personally make?

I've stopped the poll at £100,000 to save Grim... embarrassment. Instead he can put down how much he pays his butler.

Oh, and I've put mine in at £20,000 for being sort of an IT dogsbody data processing problem solver.

Is this including bonuses and suchlike? Or just basic salary?

It's not real science. Vote for what you feel is appropriate and explain in the comments maybe. Or you could average your last few salaries after bonuses...?

I was on 24 grand until a month or two ago. Before that, 18, and before that, about fuck all.

Some of you people fuck about on here all day and still get upwards of £80k? Christ, I want your job. Maybe. As long as it's nothing to do with IT.

Somewhere between £1 and £1m.

That'll be your problem. IT, more specifically software development, is where the money is.

To be fair, i've fucked about on loads of other websites before I found this one, so it isn't all a bed of roses...

Im basically between 10-20 on what Im on now I think, but it's only for the summer. So after... who knows!

You make the mistake that people are actually telling the truth given the mods can probably see how people vote and therefore could arrange to poison you at the next meet.

Nah, we can't. Grim... probably could if he looked in the database, but I doubt he cares.

I suspect that Grim... could see if he went into the db code, but other than that - no. Why do you think the mod voting became a manual task?

All I know is, that whatever you earn, it isn't enough.

If 19yo me had looked at what our present day household income is, I probably would have wept with joy and imagined me living in a huge house with 3 cars in the drive. Present day me looks at and thinks, "We could really do with another £10k/year, then we'd be fine". Money is a load of shite. Which I think is why people are reluctant to divulge it, there seems to be a level of embarrassment, almost, no matter which bracket you're in.

The last person who looked into the database vortex went quite quite mad.

Definitely. I'm on a decent wage for the area I'm in, but I'll be on the lower end of the voting scale.

Although I'm probably more embarrassed by how little I have to show for that salary.

Aw fuck. I just noticed that I've moved up a tax bracket this year without even getting a raise.

Edit: Er, and this probably means the payroll company have fucked up, because the amount I get paid hasn't changed.
Edit: No, ha, I've ended up £7/mo better off. Woo! But still, they're going to have to bump the pennies I get just to make my real-terms-pay-cut as small as last year.

I earn much more than the average, yet Kate and I are considering kids at some point in the next few years and i'm thinking "where the fuck is the money going to come for that!"

I voted my new salary, as of October, because it made me feel special.

I'm embaressed by the amount I earn. Embaressed over my whole position, truth be told.

I should be on much more than I am for my experience and qualifications but we do okay so I can't complain. Buying our house before everything went batshit mental was a big help though. I'd hate to be getting onto the property ladder now.

I tell you what, I've depressed myself with this thread now.

The next person who looked into the vortex forsaw a terrible event & so scattered a term throughout time and space to warn the The Doctor.

That term? Cibrushsille.

Fuck all. Believe me this is a pattern, even when I was working I made sweet fanny adams but you don't work for a charity if you expect to get rich.

Barely enough to keep you lenses.

God We don't have a house, we don't own our car, he doesn't own his bike. We own our furniture, I think we own all our appliances now, too. 12 months interest free ftw



Don't be, you have don what you can to further yourself and get a qualification you want in a profession you want to be in. The way of the world is conspiring against you. I've said it before but it's worth saying again, the risk you've taken and your achievement and the support you have from MrsA is something to be proud of MaliA. Be a bit disheartened but never be embarrassed.



Did I mention we get taxed 50% less than you higher earners?

I pretend to work and they pretend to pay me

I need to earn more

As I mentioned in the other place,

It's all relative, though, isn't it. For the £23K I earn (which I think is pretty good for the job I do) I feel v grateful and it supports me really well. This is supporting the lifestyle of a (usually) single guy, living in a nice but averagely priced rented flat in Manchester (tons cheaper than London, obv.), no car (don't want one), no kids (don't want them), no desire to spend money on anything expensive other than tattoos (maybe a grand a year) and a couple holidays every year (usually done on the cheap too - backpacking ftw). I have a nice bike, a nice computer and a nice phone. That's me pretty sorted, tbh. Also, when I finally have my Masters Degree debt paid off in 18 months time, I'll feel about 20-30% richer with my take home pay.

What was your motivation for starting this thread, Russ? Just out of curiosity?

You'll have to start paying the exact amount as your contributions when you go out for dinner...What am I saying!? When you have kids, you won't get to go out for meals with grown-ups any more so you won't have to worry!

Testing the water before his 'how big is your cock' poll.

There's never enough money. Well, there is, but the whole human acquisitiveness thing plus envy means that often people feel like they need more. And a bigger house, car etc. I know I do sometimes. I also look back fondly on when we were living in London, two professionals with no kids, no commitments, and a combined take home pay well over £100k. We never bloody spent any of it, mind. I'm not sure we know how to.

Of course it eventually all went on Tumbledown Mansions.

So, single earner household for the last 5 years. Still, kids are expensive, but far less so when you get past the nappy stage. Those things are more expensive than gold.

When Trooper mentioned in the other thread about being asked how much he earned.

Distressingly, we still go out almost as much for food as we did before the child. Which is acebest in terms of still eating lovely food in restaurants, but bad in terms of OMG I HAS NO MONIES!!!1111

I'm a civil servant, so according to the Mail, I earn 150k a year, while the leaders of Industry earn 20 quid a week.

I now tell people proudly the Mail's figure. It's the closest I'll get.

I earn a lot less now compared to this time last year and it makes me very sad thinking about it.

Especially since I hate this job so yeah, thanks for bringing it up Russ.

You are an awful and irresponsible parent.

We take her with us. I've got some great pictures of her sleeping in the wife's lap at an Indian restaurant.

I disagree, I would say the biggest expense of kids is easily the cost of childcare. It's something ridiculous like £35 a day. Taking into account holidays etc, that equates to about £7,000 a year. And that's just for one kid. It doesnt get any cheaper the more you have either.

Luckily, both our kids are now in school and the only childcare we pay (ignoring the horrid school holidays) is £10 a day to a friend to mind the youngest when he finishes school. But even that still costs about £200 a month.

Hopefully both kids will be too thick to want to go to Uni.

God so very

I'm working two jobs and nearly half way through my masters, but by God am I fed up of the situation. The only thing that keeps me at it is the knowledge that being where I am now is the best place to lead me on to something else (through access to internally advertised jobs). Bloody tired though.

Flis is right too.

How much do I earn? Well!

I earn a fairly decent wage, certainly if you'd have to said me in my early twenties how much I'd be earning now I'd be like 'No way!'. (Not that I'm rich by any stretch of the imagination, mind.)

But has it made me any happier? Not at all really.

I think you need enough money not to be poor, if you're really scrimping and saving just to get by, pay the bills, pay for the necessities, and you have no spare money for any little treats, then being short of cash can definitely be a very negative influence on your life, certainly it was for me when I was in that situation. Borrowing off family and friends just to get to the next payday, putting people off who needed paying, blagging landlords as to why I was late with the rent, getting used to ignoring any and all bills until the red one turned up, all that stuff.

Once you get past that though, once you're financially 'comfortable' and not living in a shithole (i.e. getting from one payday to the next isn't an ordeal), I'm not convinced more money equals more contentment or happiness. All that happens is you buy more shit with the extra money you have, and in some regards you actually buy yourself stress. So for example if you're running a trusty old banger that cost £50 (I once bought a car for £50 and it lasted me 12 months), you can be pretty chilled out about it getting scratched or whether the local scallies will take an interest. More cash = nicer car. Next thing you know you've got a big loan for a nice car that is ultimately functionally identical to the one you bought for £50, and you're constantly worrying about it getting damaged or vandalised or something expensive going wrong with it.

Basically your spending grows with your income, so ultimately you're always spent up by the end of the month, whether you're on £15K or £50K.

Personally speaking I'm far happier and content than I was 15 years ago, but I think money has fuck all to do with it overall. Where that's come from is growing up, being in a happy marriage with a wonderful woman and seeing my daughter grow from day-to-day. Forgive the cliché, but you absolutely can't put a value on that.

The point I'm making here in a roundabout sort of way is that money isn't the be all and end all, yes you absolutely need to have enough as an individual or a family unit to be able to afford all of life's necessities and have a little bit left over for spends, but beyond that it's all just shit we don't need and will never make us happy, that comes from inside and the people we spend our lives with. You can meet truly wonderful people and families who are earning modest amounts of money and living modest lives, but who radiate that unique human beauty of happiness with themselves and those around them, and you can meet wealthy, even properly rich people who are fucking miserable and utter cunts to boot.

As an aside, in a country where there are so many milllionaires, fucking billionaires, it's obscene that so many folks, often good, decent hard-working folks, have to struggle to get by and worry about paying for the basics every week/month, whilst living alongside the scum of the earth.

Money doesn't buy happiness, but poverty is a big deposit on misery.

That's definitely mostly the case in practice, but it really doesn't have to be. Crack that and you're away: I live pretty cheaply, and other than an almost disastrous move to Brighton for 7 months last year, when the extra cost of commuting and paying more than half the bills because my then girlfriend couldn't afford it (and as a GP she'd have had to tick the sub 30k box, so I didn't begrudge it) meant I lived a smidge beyond my means for the last couple of months, I fairly often have many hundreds of quidlets free each month. Probably change if I ever get round to buying a house but for now, lovely.

Heh.

Thankfully the kiddos aren't in childcare - we took the decision that one of us would stay home at least until they were both in school. After that we have huge numbers of family members nearby who will help, and my job is flexible enough that I can help out if Mrs K goes back part time to begin with as well. The only reason Mrs K will go back to work is because she wants to, rather than because we need the money - I appreciate I'm phenomenally lucky for that to be the case.

I do have mates who have found it tough with childcare though - you're right, it's expensive. But if you are lucky enough to either not need it or to have people who can do it for free, kids don't really cost that much. The younger one wears all the older ones clothes as hand me downs (they're 4 1/2 and 3), and any toys we buy are now also filed in my head as expenditure on me, as I play with them too.

My wife's brother has both of his tiny kids in childcare whilst he goes to work as a teacher, which is eating all of his salary. Thankfully his money grubbing, kid hating bitch of a wife earns a pile of cash, though. The kids are in childcare even when they're both off work.
Sorry, not relevant, just winds me up.

@Atrocity - I agree with every word of that, except the bit about your spending growing with your income. I still scrimp as much as when I was a student. My dad is of a completely different mindset though. He was baffled as to why I'd leave a law firm with solid partnership prospects and go and work in house for less money with less opportunity for earning 200k a year. The fact that if I stayed at the law firm I'd never see my kids didn't really seem to register with him, when weighed against the money.

The way I look at it, I have more than enough money that we can afford the mortgage and food and bills and to never have to watch the pennies. Although I still do anyway - I only ever buy second hand games/DVDs etc. It doesn't matter how much money you have, there's no point wasting it. One of my trainees had come from a literally dirt poor background, and when she started as a trainee, it was the first time she'd really had money. She was spending so much she ended up in debt even with a 30k salary. She was gobsmacked that I, on considerably more than her, would actually be saving money rather than spending it on, I don't know, condoms and whores.. Anyway, I don't need more than I have now, although that attitude seems to be alien to a lot of people I know.

I am underpaid, even after a significant raise, but I spent the last five years stuck in a hole after leaving school with no real skills or qualifications (bar A-levels), working my arse off to get good at what I do. So I don't earn quite enough to be comfortable, but at least I have a job at the moment, and I'm doing work I enjoy in a field I'm fascinated with. That must count for something.

I think I'd swap some salary for actually positively enjoying my job, rather than just not hating it.

I'd settle for a job where I can actually think and solve problems. Fucking crows in a lab have more rewarding days at the office.