I’m ashamed to tell my friends how much I earn. I think I’m a sucker for them

My name is Ewa, I am 33 years old and, like most people in Poland, I am not satisfied with my financial situation. Even though I love my job and am committed to my duties, sometimes I feel like the biggest loser in the world. I’ve been feeling this a lot lately after hanging out with my high school friends.

I’m ashamed to admit my earnings

We keep in touch, even though each of us has gone our separate ways. We also meet regularly. For many years, the topic of earnings did not come up in our conversations. Recently, however, this has started to change. I was shocked when I found out what salaries they were getting. I never take part in these discussions. I’m ashamed to admit how much money I receive.

There is no denying it – my friends earn very well. Everyone in our group, apart from me, gets between ten and fifteen thousand a month. From my perspective, these are fantastic earnings. I think that if I had this kind of money, I would get rid of many of my worries.

It was downright offensive

I earn several times less. I have enough for food and to repay the loan installment, but it’s not like I can easily save money for a rainy day. Moreover, for some time now I have had to be careful when grocery shopping. Once upon a time, even though I earned even less, I could afford everything.

I’m ashamed to tell my friends how much I earn. I think I’m a sucker for them I’m ashamed to tell my friends how much I earn. I think I’m a sucker for them //SHUTTERSTOCK, gpointstudio

Unfortunately, with the increase in prices, many people’s salaries did not increase at all. I am also in this group. So I felt huge frustration when President Kaczyński talked about the alleged prosperity of Poles. It was downright offensive to many people. For the first time in my life I have to watch my spending at the grocery store, and some politician is trying to tell me that this is the best financial time of my life. It was absurd!

Conversations with friends forced me to some reflection. When we all started our first jobs 10 years ago, while still studying, we earned very similar salaries. At that time, each of us received about three thousand. It was quite good money in those days. Especially since I have always been quite frugal.

I thought they didn’t earn much either

So I don’t know how it happened that my friends received such raises in recent years. To be honest, their salaries are shocking to me. They often complained to me about prices and expenses. So I thought that, like me, they earned little. And here’s a surprise! I even started to wonder when I had slept through this moment. While in my company I often heard about how poorly people were paid in our industry, others received regular raises. One of my friends even told me that she received a raise three times in the last year.

I think that in our country many people often do not realize that people doing similar jobs to them earn much more. Money is a taboo subject, so we don’t talk about it. Because of this, we are often stuck in the false belief that others have the same experiences as us. I’m glad that our approach to this issue is starting to change.