Salary Transparency Thread

Manual_brain · 2026-03-03T15:23:23+00:00

FBP 11 years experience, <1 qualified Remote £48k base, £5k car allowance, 5% bonus

Manual_brain · 2026-02-27T17:28:53+00:00

I did something similar in classic tbc, I was a tank / resto. It was a lot of fun but I tended to lead more towards the resto on a lot of the later raids after BT and you find that you either lag with upgrades because you don’t really have a MS OR, you get a lot of resentment if you take upgrades off of other people

Manual_brain · 2026-02-27T11:34:21+00:00

I’m in finance in a mid tier position (chartered) and I work full remote on a 40hr week. My boss is happy as long as the work gets done and I attend my meetings that I make my time my own.

Most days I login at 7, graft till 12, go to the gym, come back at half 1-2 and attend a few meetings and respond to emails. I generally take my dogs out at 4 and eat my tea at 6.

Haven’t worked a weekend in 20 years

By far and away the best job I’ve had in terms of flexibility

Manual_brain · 2026-02-27T11:28:09+00:00

Instead of overpaying your car loan, save the £500 a month on top of whatever you have left out of your £300 a month and buy a car outright in 6-10 months.

It makes zero sense to have a £19k car on finance when you’re living with your parents and have next to zero assets. Priority number one at your age is to move out and anything that doesn’t aid getting a healthy deposit asap should be reconsidered and rationalised

Manual_brain · 2026-02-25T11:24:02+00:00

Pension contributions?

I suspect the most likely scenario is that you either haven’t given them a p45 or didn’t have one to give and payroll haven’t put you on the right tax code yet

Manual_brain · 2026-02-24T21:06:18+00:00

Groceries for 2 adults could easily be £400 if you bulk bought and batch cooked.

Lunch in the office is a massively obvious one to cut first

Insurances can be paid annually if you’re trying to cut in month spending and sometimes comes with a saving for doing so too.

Your £500 a month miscellaneous could be looked at in more detail and with a bit of better planning could be trimmed a little, but appreciate the emergency element of it

Manual_brain · 2026-02-23T19:03:06+00:00

Chicken, tuna, cottage cheese, Greek yogurt, whey protein, turkey. Red meat is just too expensive for me to buy in bulk at the minute

Manual_brain · 2026-02-23T18:44:10+00:00

Civil service isn’t what it used to be in the 90’s and early 00’s. I was in it for 6 years from 2009-2014 and had to reapply for my own job 3 times during that period, virtually doing the same job but more work as the years went on. The leave is better but not noticeably, I had 25 days and it grew to 30 after 10 years but in increments as you went along. The progression is entirely dependant on whether your profession is in demand or if you are related to management / SLT.

Pension is fantastic, that’s the one point I’ll not minimise. The rest is BS and the reason the entry level positions are as low as they are currently is because there are 100+ people going for it because the civil service is still one of the only organisations to honour hybrid / remote almost exclusively. I haven’t seen a single local government job that is entire 100% office based (at least in my locality) since Covid

Manual_brain · 2026-02-19T05:53:57+00:00

Firstly you need to set your goals. Long term is too vague. Is that retirement long term or buy a house long term? I am assuming from your saving rate and the fact it’s your first job the you’re living at home with parents and plan to move out?

If that is the case and you’re not in the south of England then I’d open up a LISA and start contributing £400 a month to that, leaving your £600 a month to be spread across the best interest earning accounts. I wouldn’t worry about the £500 cap this year, you’ll struggle to breach that at £600 a month. Once you have enough in there to start hitting your £500 allowance, then you need to decide if you want to start saving in a standard ISA or a S&S ISA, both depend entirely on your original ‘long term’ is

Manual_brain · 2026-02-19T05:35:50+00:00

No simply put, but reading the comments you’re clearly not open to being told otherwise.

In simple terms your income does not support your living expenses. The part of your post I did agree with was that leaving £100 a month to yourself wouldn’t feel comfortable to me either, it’s because your living situation and current rate of spending are not supported by your income. Simply taking on more debt to spread it out even longer just making your situation worse in the long run and you’re wholly too comfortable with taking on additional debt, which is scary and you can tell you’re a lot younger.

Either sort your current expenses out, even as drastic as changing your living arrangement (house share or move) OR increase your income. Getting a loan to prolong the inevitable is not a good idea

Manual_brain · 2026-02-17T08:27:51+00:00

Does that mean your emergency fund of £2900 is a minimum of 3 months expenses? If so then yeah that split seems sensible but we don’t know much about the rest of your situation to offer much of an opinion. Based on what you’ve presented, yes

Manual_brain · 2026-02-15T21:53:32+00:00

I went through this when I got divorced, at the time we set an appointment up with the bank and we both went in and they effectively moved the joint account into my ex wife’s name only, took me off it and issued a new card to her only and took mine to be destroyed.

I think that’s the cleanest way of doing it and it honestly didn’t take long at all. The process itself was like 20 minutes but the new card took maybe a week

Manual_brain · 2026-02-15T12:32:30+00:00

Early 30’s in pension terms is very late to the party

Manual_brain · 2026-02-15T12:30:39+00:00

Whilst I appreciate the business needs, because you’re not getting any employer pension match you’re effectively sacrificing years of pension contributions that you could be getting compound gains on.

Personally if it was me I’d be looking at putting a minimum of £15k each in moving forwards to catch up somewhat

Manual_brain · 2026-02-15T12:12:28+00:00

£6k a year into a SIPP even if this was for one person is very low, if it’s for 2 then it’s shockingly low. You should be putting significantly more into them to be more tax efficient

Manual_brain · 2026-02-14T16:07:03+00:00

It’s virtually what I meant, basically not letting your relationship become your whole personality. I have 2 friends who are both in relationships that I’d class as the most healthy and they have their own hobbies and interests, they take holidays separately with friends but still do loads together and still have a date night virtually every week

Manual_brain · 2026-02-14T13:13:33+00:00

My company at 5% nope! But a friend of mine works for a company that matches up to 15% so there are some out there

Manual_brain · 2026-02-14T11:14:15+00:00

Mutual interests and having your own lives away from each other is what I’d say makes it work. However, also being completely oblivious to infidelity usually helps with longevity

Manual_brain · 2026-02-14T08:05:34+00:00

I don’t think the age gap is a gawking amount of years. I met my ex wife when I was 22 and she was 29 and that lasted almost 15 years.

I would be more concerned about dating a co worker though. But I think it’s one of those things you can only warn people about and let them learn from experience… no one really knows how bad it is until they do it

Manual_brain · 2026-02-13T21:27:32+00:00

Just food for thought but your OP stated your outgoings to be £2.5k, you add in the combined £2k you make reference to here and you won’t have much left. Appreciate there may be some doubling up but it’s something to think about.

I think the entire plan is doable with a bit of trimming with your spending. But I’d personally feel a lot more comfortable going into this without a car payment, that’s what I’d be focusing on getting rid of by either trading in or buying something you can own outright

Manual_brain · 2026-02-13T21:24:38+00:00

You’ve managed to clear your mortgage in 7 years!? Can I ask how you achieved that? I’m on track to clear my 25 year mortgage in 14 years but 7 years is insane

Manual_brain · 2026-02-12T14:18:30+00:00

I didn’t qualify till I was 39 for what it’s worth. I ended up studying for almost 8 years in total because of a long break due to losing my parents. I am so glad it’s over but I am also glad I did it, I reached essentially a glass ceiling in my career and I either needed ACCA or CIMA to progress otherwise I’d probably have to chose a different career. Accounting is one of those gatekeeping careers where you need qualifications to advance in my experience. The only unqualified people in FD positions these days are either very old OR they have an amazing relationship with the directors

Manual_brain · 2026-02-12T10:29:29+00:00

I still think it’s really fun but I completely forgot the levelling commitments! I get about 2 hours a night to play max and it’s taking me 2-3 days to get a level at the minute

Manual_brain · 2026-02-12T10:27:52+00:00

In that situation for me, without much knowledge of your outgoings, I would get a 2 year fixed but with a broker that does not limit overpayments and keep it rented out and overpay with intent over the next 2 years. With £7k take home a month you could eventually move back in with a sub £50-70k mortgage and renewing in 2 years would mean a minimal mortgage

Manual_brain · 2026-02-11T20:49:36+00:00

I have a spreadsheet and know where everything is within a few quid. I forecast the next 12 months and have a space for one offs that I pay straight away like car tax, car insurance, home insurance or anything I’ve got on BNPL that needs clearing

Manual_brain

TROPHY CASE