Minimum salary to rent/buy and live

nuseryame

Hi,

I wonder if anyone can direct me to a resource or provide a guide yourself that will give me an idea of a salary range that is required for the purpose of paying:

1. Rent
2. Food
3. Bills
4. Other required to live alone?

I am not employed at the moment but I am thinking of a career change to an electrician but need to find out if the salary during training (4 year apprenticeship) will allow me to rent.

I am 26 and have always wanted to rent but never been able to find out if my salary was enough.

I quit my I.T job last September for personal reasons and I was on 15k per year in the West Midlands in England.

I did once read in a newspaper some time ago that you needed a salary of between 18-20k in order to buy or rent alone and pay for all of the necessary bills to live, plus food and car etc.

Ideally I'd prefer to rent a furnished place and I'd appreciate if someone can give me a breakdown of their costs (if they are living alone) and their salary range, for:

1. Mortgage/Rent
2. Food
3. All Bills
4. Tax
5. Whatever else I have not thought of.

Thanks for any help






qui

The_Fat_el_Hombre

I'm a FTB (I'm guessing you are?) and I asked my sister for a list of her bills, she gave me this:

£ 37.95 Mobile phone £ 38.37 Mobile phone £ 11.95 TV Licence £ 33.82 Life insurance £ 78.00 Council Tax £ 647.52 Mortgage £ 63.50 Sky TV £ 49.60 Home Insurance £ 25.50 Water £ 30.00 Gas £ 58.00 Electric £ 18.00 Phone/Broadband £1,092.21


That's for her and her husband (Sorry - it doesn't paste from exel very well!)

From that I estimated by expenses at this:

£ 37.95 Mobile phone £ 11.95 TV Licence £ 100.00 Council Tax £ 450.00 Mortgage £ 25.50 Water £ 30.00 Gas £ 58.00 Electric £ 18.00 Phone/Broadband £ 731.40

mlz1413

if you go to the home page of this site and scroll down to mid way on the right hand side there is a link for a bugdet planner - you really need to know what you spend now and how necessary each outgoing is.

Then the budget planner will have boxes for all other expenses possible. You could fill in simple ones just by looking at what the rental of a 1 bed flat is and ringing the letting agencies to see what the council tax would be.

I'd say that 75% of your take home wage would be the maximum to spend on all bills, food and travel to work as this then leaves you money for car repairs, home repairs and general spending.

~Beanie~

I don't think there is such a resource. Surely it would depend on how much average rent was in the area you were interested in? For instance, someone on 15K could rent quite comfortably where I live but probably would't be able to afford it in London. As for the newspaper report you read, I don't earn £20K and used to rent and have now bought my own house.

You will be looking at paying the following bills: figures in red are what I currently pay

Rent
Council Tax (you will get 25% discount if you live alone) £54 pm
Water £25
Gas £35
Electric £20
TV Licence £12
Contents Insurance £12
Food £100

Then you have the 'optional extras'...

Mobile phone £10
Land line £11
Internet access £14.99
Car expenses (Insurance /tax / mot / maintenance / petrol) £100
Satellite TV £19.50

Hope this helps x

sarah_elton

I paid the following per month before OH moved in with me:

£560 mortgage + leasehold service charge
£80 council tax
£70 electricity (no gas)
£35 water
£57 Sky TV/broadband/phone
£11 TV license
£12 contents insurance
Plus you have your mobile phone and any car running costs you might have.

I spent about £150 a month in Morrisons on food, but you can spend less if you're careful.

So total of all that lot is in the region of £1000 a month. It will be less if rent in your area is cheaper. It's also a lot cheaper to have a room in a house share, rather than rent a place by yourself.

With buying, the bills would be the same so it just depends on your mortgage amount. Obviously you'll also have to pay for any house maintenance that's needed.

This website can tell you what you'll earn after tax for a given gross salary:
http://listentotaxman.com/

I would say that in my experience, after paying all your bills and food, you really want to have at least a couple of hundred quid a month left over, to spend on non essentials like going out, clothes, everything else you buy except food, and to go in savings. If your budget is too tight and you have an unexpected expense it's very easy to start getting into debt.

As a rough guide, if you want to have £1,200 a month income after tax, that's a salary of about £18k. If you can find cheaper rent and trim your bills, then a salary of £15k would give you around £1,000 a month income after tax.

When I first moved out of home and rented alone I was earning £26k and it was a bit tight, but I was repaying my student loan and some credit card debts so that was taking up a few hundred quid a month.

sooz

it very much depends on where you want to live.

If you were looking to rent through an agency, the standard reference/credit check bit would need you to have an income of 30 times the monthly rental to pass.

Have a look at your local rents pcm, & multiply what you like the look of living in by 30.