What's it like having and earning loads of money??

Flatulentoldgoat

One of my friends has been bragging about how he just got a job paying £45k! He's only 19 and has been going crazy posting all this stuff he can now afford, it's like he won the lottery. Wow. To be fair I think hes spending a lot on his girlfriend and she's not really worked much before. Neither me or my social group can really fathom making so much, everyone I know is either on minimum wage or around 18-20k per year (full time)

It must be amazing earning that much, I'd probably spend it all on clothes or something.

oh_really

It gets swallowed up in the costs of living, just as it does with everyone else. Same debts, just proportional.

TELLIT01

45k isn't a huge amount, but it sounds as if your friend may be spending beyond even his higher income.  It's certainly better to have and earn good money than to be skint, but it isn't the answer to everything.

KatrinaWaves

45k is nowt to be sniffed at, but its also not like winning the lottery... I think someone's exaggerating slightly. I'm not gonna get into comparisons but between me and my partner we earn a fair bit more than that between us and we certainly arent living like we wont the lottery, far from it

ssparks2003

The more you earn, the more tax you pay, the more your employer expects of you, the more responsibility you carry for both your performance and those who work for you. 

theoretica

Any increase in earning comes with a big risk of trying to spend it more than once - you feel you have lots of money so stop budgeting. I can now afford this AND this AND this, when really the ANDs should have been ORs.  Good on your friend for earning more - but even lottery winners end up in trouble when they find they have spent it all, so I hope for his sake he has a decent grasp on the reality of the numbers.

AskAsk

if you have a lot of money, it just makes life easier.  however, a lot of people work a lot harder to earn more money so they sacrifice their time to get the higher salary.

Dox

Given how you felt about work in a previous post (https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6212004/despising-the-idea-of-work-after-everything-that-has-happened/p1) maybe your friend is trying to help motivate you and might succeed where everyone else has failed?

John_

Flatulentoldgoat said:

One of my friends has been bragging about how he just got a job paying £45k! He's been going crazy posting all this stuff he can now afford, it's like he won the lottery. Wow. To be fair I think hes spending a lot on his girlfriend and she's not really worked much before. Neither me or my social group can really fathom making so much, everyone I know is either on minimum wage or around 18-20k per year (full time)

It must be amazing earning that much, I'd probably spend it all on clothes or something.

My first job in banking paid what would now be £70,000 per year. I was 25 when I started, and it went rapidly up from there, and now, twenty-something years on it’s a lot more.

How is it? Well, I’m sitting here having my Tesco meal-deal, rather than making my own lunch, I’m having it in a nice house, that’s warm and dry, and the nanny is giving my children their lunch, as I’m working.

In most respects my life is the same way it was when I didn’t earn much money. The big difference is that it’s a choice to keep working, not a necessity.

74jax

Earning a fair chunk allowed me to stop working this year.  I stopped in the summer for what I planned as a 3 - 6 month career break, I love it so much I'm not looking for another job yet - I will next year.....maybe.  I'm volunteering for 3 places so doing around 30-35 hours a week, but the time of 11+ hours days are long gone.  
My husband is in a job he absolutely loves and earns around 4x what I did, but he loves it and doesn't want to give it up just yet.  He has the flexibility to have as much time off as he wants, so if we have a nice summer he can take extended leave etc.
I have never been one to strive for something a friend has, so a friend saying they earn x amount wouldn't mean anything to me. I also have never longed for the flash car or most uptodate phone.  We live well within our means, saving 3/4 of our income even with me not working, but still don't live extravagantly.  I recon the neighbours would get a shock if we parked a flash car on the drive and think we'd won the lottery not used savings....  It sounds daft, but we are just 'happy', yes we could have more or do more, but we are content.  We do love our holidays though - and if we had the choice of rooms would always take the upgraded suite.  But other than that you'd never know what we earned or how much we had.

Potbellypig

Whether you have too much money or not enough, it always causes problems.