My salary as a trainee journalist was £9,100 but now I'm not telling you- here's why

Ever wondered how much I earn?
Would you share your salary details?Would you share your salary details?
Would you share your salary details?

Probably not , though you may be curious now.

Well - that figure you have in your head - halve it.

I’m just too British to tell how much, obviously. I mean, how much do YOU earn?

Money is something we are simply not happy to share with each other.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

We like telling each other how little we have but rarely how much.

Even best friends reluctantly share - unless they are both on the bottom rung and earning similar.

I am quite happy to volunteer, for example that my starting salary as a trainee reporter was £9,100 which barely kept me in instant noodles - it’s gone up a bit since then (I’ve graduated to the ones in Pots) though probably not as much as you are thinking.

This week our colleagues at the i newspaper ran, as part of a regular finance column, a piece with a London woman in her 20's who earns circa £70,000, and how she is cutting her cloth to save money for a house deposit.

Cue absolute jealousy-fuelled internet outrage.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

How dare a young woman talk about her efforts at savings when she earns that much?

Never mind that her salary is well above average - but to get on the housing ladder to buy a one bedroom flat in London for around £380,000 she needs to save whopping deposit of around £60,000 (again this is for a ONE BEDROOM flat).

She opted to save by giving up her expensive gym membership and going jogging, as well as eating vegetarian food, which well and truly lit the touch paper of rage about millennials.

This came mainly from those comfortably esconced in their four bedroom detached properties with gardens around the UK, who would absolutely not divulge how much they earn, or have saved, or how much they spend on food, let alone consider cutting their little luxuries.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

There’s an irony somewhere in the venom spilled for an accomplished young women who was not complaining at all but is probably heading back to her native Australia to escape the British outpouring of green-gilled bile.

And yes, she earns more than me too.

But it goes some way to explain why we are reluctant to share matters of money.

Because we are all jealous monsters, who absolutely begrudge others doing well?

Related topics: