My standard of living falls below the acceptable standard.

[Sirbendy]

I might use the car a lot less if we had a much better public transport infrastructure which was truly integrated.

 

Here bloody here. Ours is OKish...I can get a bus at 7am to get here (well, to our old site) for 8ish. if I got it back, I'd need to finish early or wait until 7pm though - not happening.

 

Plus the walk from the old site to here + my legs/disability - I'd be dead by the weeks end.

 

I suppose I could take my mountain bike on the bus..not sure if that's allowed though..too many big hills between here and home for my knees to cope with.

 

Re: Holidays - we always do the Sun bargain ones to campsites in wales..good fun. Shell Island last year, in a tent, in a gale with a heavily pregnant missus with morning sickness..that was good fun too! I'm happy enough doing that, especially with littley..looking forward to taking her to the beach for the first time at some point..

Edited July 7, 2010 by Sirbendy

[Polski]

This is why it rubs me the wrong way when teachers (especially new, young teachers) bitch about pay.

 

They earn buckets more than i do and yet i manage to live a perfectly happy life.

 

Without knowing your work situation first hand, it is hard to comment, but I personally have spent six years working in and around various schools and would NOT want the job of a teacher, under any circumstances.

 

When I fix a PC, I sometimes have some other user that come up to me and accuse me of favouring someone elses PC at the expense of their's, that it was a case of priorities. They accept that. When my other half is confronted by parents with a simular critisim about her teaching, they frequently do NOT accept it and become insulting and often offensive.

 

They frequently complain that their child is NOT progressing as they had hoped and this is down to poor teaching.

 

Pretty normal for a run down inner city school you would say? Well she teaches at a private, fee paying school. And the parents are sometime the worst you could ever meet. Nothing is EVER their fault.

 

Stand in front of a class of 13 - 16 year olds and hold their attention for 40 minutes, then moan!

[Rydra]

The difference in cost between a UK holiday and some holidays abroad can only be a couple hundred at times. If you want a full holiday to Florida or LA including Disney staying in a Hilton hotel, well expect to spend ££££.

 

And as an ex scout leader, as much as some might enjoy a nice little camping holiday, it really doesn't appeal to me as my main holiday for the year. I can handle a weekend of it, even a week with enough things to keep me busy. But I go on holiday to relax. Not live in a canvas box with an uncomfortable bed, with my clothes shoved in a bag at my feet, and the nearest toilet a 5-10 minute walk through the dark away.

 

Btw, I don't count caravans or campervans as 'camping'. Camping is in a tent, cooking on open flames (either fires or gas stoves), and spending every night sat round a campfire with a couple of beers in hand, watching the stars. If bad weather, you move the discussion inside a tent with a lantern, and continue as normal till you run out of beer or things to talk about.

[Greenbeast]

Yes it's definitely about personal choice and priorities, i don't mean to come across as preachy or holier than thou.

 

And i quite agree about teaching, i've been in education over 4 years now and definitely wouldn't want to be a teacher.

[witch]

I wouldn't want to be a teacher either, and as I have said, I do think that they have a tough job - but it IS quite well paid and presumably they chose to do it as a career.

How many times have teachers said to you 'Oh, I'd HATE to do your job - it must be so difficult and stressful!'

Teachers are always saying this to me - so it is just horses for courses AFAIC

[Polski]

Yes, it is all about choices.

 

When I came into IT in 1997, I got a job at a "familiar software supplier" in Bedford, on a six month maternity cover basis, at £13k. I guess I impressed them so much that I was made permanent after four weeks. A year later I took the opportunity to move to their regional office in Essex. At a fair old increase in pay and doing what was more 'core skills' work.

 

From there I moved back up to Suffolk, another pay rise and another set of skills. Now I am doing stuff I knew NOTHING about five years ago. Suffice to say bank manager happy as well.

 

My point being, if you want to move up, look across. Think outside the box. Does your local law firm need IT support? Where are your skills respected financially? Certainly not in education. We all know that.

 

Are you happy in your work? Fine. But more pay means more stress or more responsibility. Those are the facts of life. Even managers in the outside world are on a paltry sum now. Its life I am afraid.

 

(As an aside, my last three cars have all been bought cheap with over 90k miles on them and have done well over 200k miles before giveing up the ghost, I don't own a Playstation, X-Box, Wii, Tom-tom, I-Phone etc. We have just upgraded to a nice new TV as the one in the property I let out failed, so they got ours! Funny how that happened JUST before the World Cup eh?)