What is a good salary?

[SkyBlueFlux]

Subjective topic, please don't anyone read any of the replies and start comparing your situation to others.

Ultimately, do you earn enough to be able to pay your bills, remain happy in life, and still manage to enjoy the little (often free) things?

If the answer to that is yes then youre winning; whether you earn 20k, 30k, 40k, 100k is largely irrelevant, as it doesn't take into account people's circumstances and therefore disposable income.

Indeed. Comparison is the thief of joy! I might be talking shite here but I heard somebody did a study and the biggest correlator of happiness is not how much you earn, but how much you earn relative to those you are around on a daily basis. Because people are forever comparing themselves to the people in their immediate bubble. It's the old keeping up with the Joneses way of thinking.

I think once your basic needs are met and you have sufficient security, income has diminishing returns, but it's hard to see the wood for the trees when society expects you to have certain means.

 

[chris85mcfc]

Indeed. Comparison is the thief of joy! I might be talking shite here but I heard somebody did a study and the biggest correlator of happiness is not how much you earn, but how much you earn relative to those you are around on a daily basis. Because people are forever comparing themselves to the people in their immediate bubble. It's the old keeping up with the Joneses way of thinking.

I think once your basic needs are met and you have sufficient security, income has diminishing returns, but it's hard to see the wood for the trees when society expects you to have certain means.

That's the one. You may have come across this before, but have a quick look at Maslows theory on the hierarchy of needs.

In my opinion they are the true steps to happiness and wealth (doesn't have to be financial!).

 

[Sky Blue Thinking]

Just getting together my old fellas documents so I can apply for an Irish passport. Was it fairly easy to do online?

I'm just going through process. You complete everything online and need to send off ID docs plus your long birth cert and Irish born parent's birth cert. Online process fairly straightforward. You need to get your photo verified by a witness (form lists who is acceptable), they will ring your witness to check they know you and their profession, make sure you use a witness who can answer a call like this during their working day...mine has been delayed as they have advised they tried several times to contact witness without reply so i have had to get another witness to verify.

 

[DenisLawBackHeel74]

I'm just going through process. You complete everything online and need to send off ID docs plus your long birth cert and Irish born parent's birth cert. Online process fairly straightforward. You need to get your photo verified by a witness (form lists who is acceptable), they will ring your witness to check they know you and their profession, make sure you use a witness who can answer a call like this during their working day...mine has been delayed as they have advised they tried several times to contact witness without reply so i have had to get another witness to verify.

Cheers for that really helpful

 

[Kompany Car]

That's the one. You may have come across this before, but have a quick look at Maslows theory on the hierarchy of needs.

In my opinion they are the true steps to happiness and wealth (doesn't have to be financial!).

The problem is that for many, the second step around security is almost deliberately kept precarious by the wealthy. People on zero hours contracts makes employment uncertain, rents set at the highest that people are willing to pay rather than regulated and property unaffordable on a basic wage puts the "shelter" element in doubt. Unless you're willing to live a rather unconventional existence, reaching the higher parts of the pyramid is just a pipe dream for many as you need increasingly more money to fulfil even the basic requirements.

If Maslows was a true representation of human psychology it does a poor job in explaining the ultra rich who seem to never escape the self esteem stage

 

[Blue Theatre]

YouGov (or someone similar) did a survey a few years ago, asking:

a) which of these salary bands are you in ?
b) which band would someone have to be in for you to consider them "well off" ?

For b), most people chose one band higher than a).

 

[Mr Kobayashi]

The problem is that for many, the second step around security is almost deliberately kept precarious by the wealthy. People on zero hours contracts makes employment uncertain, rents set at the highest that people are willing to pay rather than regulated and property unaffordable on a basic wage puts the "shelter" element in doubt. Unless you're willing to live a rather unconventional existence, reaching the higher parts of the pyramid is just a pipe dream for many as you need increasingly more money to fulfil even the basic requirements.

If Maslows was a true representation of human psychology it does a poor job in explaining the ultra rich who seem to never escape the self esteem stage

Models are meant to represent the Clapham omnibus rider, the ultra rich who still chase wealth are basically sociopathic.

 

[Kompany Car]

Models are meant to represent the Clapham omnibus rider, the ultra rich who still chase wealth are basically sociopathic.

Many of the models and theories that were developed in the 30s and 40s were over simplified and dont take account of the massive societal changes post WW2 and in the later part of the 20th Century.

If you look at Keynes he believed that people would work to a point where their basic needs were fulfilled, with a few small additional luxuries and then stop. This would in turn lead to people working increasingly fewer hours each week, but in reality it never happened. Consumerism whether you buy into it or not has had a significant impact that most failed to foresee. It affected the price of everything even down to the most basic essentials.

 

[mexico1970]

Want less and manage better, once you recognise that you should want very little to get by compared to the need that will put you into debt you'll get through life a lot happier.

 

[I'm With Stupid]

Indeed. Comparison is the thief of joy! I might be talking shite here but I heard somebody did a study and the biggest correlator of happiness is not how much you earn, but how much you earn relative to those you are around on a daily basis. Because people are forever comparing themselves to the people in their immediate bubble. It's the old keeping up with the Joneses way of thinking.

Especially nowadays where you 'immediate bubble' consists of loads of people on social media showing off only their best things. Most people probably go on one or two holidays a year. But if you look at social media, you'd think that everyone is constantly on holiday or doing cool things. In reality, each person is only posting once, but that translates as a constant bombardment of all of the best parts of other people's lives.

But yeah, inequality is correlated with increasing levels of pretty much every social problem you can think of.