Do you earn enough for a minimum acceptable standard of living?

PasturesNew

marklv wrote: »

my job is brutally demanding of my time and energy.

Obviously not THAT demanding if you can take a lunchbreak at all. Think how much more satisfying your job would be if you stayed at your desk for more brutality and ate dry bread jam sandwiches you'd made at home!

treliac

PasturesNew wrote: »

Obviously not THAT demanding if you can take a lunchbreak at all. Think how much more satisfying your job would be if you stayed at your desk for more brutality and ate dry bread jam sandwiches you'd made at home!

Yeah, and he might just keel over from malnutrition pn!

Doom_and_Gloom

26K! 26K! We as a couple aparently need 26K a year!
I don't see how 2 people could eat £76.17 a week for a start. We could happily feed 6 people with that amount.
Nearly £15 on drink a week - only if I want my partner to get through about a litre bottle of southern comfort a week!
Over £15 a week on clothes :eek:. £400 each per year!
There again the real shocker is £64.83/wk for social and cultural activities for two people. I don't know why anyone would spend that much.

We live on alot less than the 26k it says and that's adding in my partners wage, LHA, CTB and my DLA (which isn't supposed to be counted as income) for income. It's sick what some people think a minimum income should be. Although saying that 26K would be about 2 people on minimum wage so I suppose it kind of works in that respect.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

It won't do the full calculation for higher rate taxpayers.

PasturesNew

treliac wrote: »

Yeah, and he might just keel over from malnutrition pn!

Yes, but feeling brutalised is clearly important to him.

PasturesNew

I had one job where coffees HAD to be bought from the canteen, at 40p/small cup for plain black instant coffee. 3-4 per day that's £1.60/day, £8/week. I stopped off and got a flask, a small plastic lidded pot and a jar of instant coffee. Next day I took in a flask of hot water and the coffee in the plastic pot (with spoon inside it). Great. I was ahead by the end of the first week! Although about 2 months later they did send an email round saying people were not allowed to do this and had to buy their coffee at the canteen, but I'd left by then (temping's great with bad employers).

LilacPixie

£519.26 per week
Breakdown

show details Food
105.45

Alcohol
6.49

Clothing
35.26

Water rates
8.62

Council Tax
21.66

Household Insurances
2.63

Gas, electricity, etc
20.49

Other housing costs
9.43

Household goods
27.35

Household services
6.08

Childcare
0.00

Personal goods and services
47.00

Travel costs and motoring
34.91

Social and cultural activites
116.64

Rent
77.25

Mortgage
0.00

thats mine. Some of it is laughable some ok.

£6.49 for alcohol well not for me i'm pregnant. OH has 3-4 bottles of lager a week usually on a friday night while he shoots people online (big kid) we bought 3x15 bottles for £20 in Tesco last month. Mortgage is higher than the rent figure. Gotta love how the calculator assumed 2 adults x 3 kids under school age meant we must rent.

I am a lazy lunch maker. I either have a roll with grated cheese and a spoon of pickle or handful of salad and a tin of tuna in a tupperware box. In my office I have tea bags, coffee, hot chocolate, salad dressing, tins of diet coke, random bits of cutlery, a bowl, 3 tins of soup (chicken, lentil and tomato) chicken noodle cup a soup and some oatcakes.

neverdespairgirl

Doom_and_Gloom wrote: »

Nearly £15 on drink a week - only if I want my partner to get through about a litre bottle of southern comfort a week!
Over £15 a week on clothes :eek:. £400 each per year!

I don't spend £15 on alcohol per year, I reckon.

I do comfortably overtop the £400 a year on clothes, though. Just work clothes are more than that.

C_Mababejive

Yes..:)

Having said that,what we NEED is often rubbish.

Look at what the social security system says people need.

chewmylegoff

Doom_and_Gloom wrote: »

I don't see how 2 people could eat £76.17 a week for a start. We could happily feed 6 people with that amount.

i don't see what all the shock is about 2 people being able to spend £80 a week on food.

our last 6 weekly grocery spends for 2 adults, almost all at sainsburys, which only covers evening meals and all meals on weekends, came to:

70.78
88.40
47.60
75.22
57.12
68.54

this includes things like toothpaste and bog roll, so not all on food, but food is the majority of the total cost, and meat is the majority of the food cost. e.g. 2 decent rib eye steaks cost £10. add lunch on to that and i reckon our total food bill excluding eating out is around £400pcm.

it's pretty easy to walk around a supermarket and rack a food bill like that. it's not unbelievable at all. yes you can eat for less if you want to, but it's not mind boggling or even particularly excessive to to spend that much on food if you want to and can afford it.

in my view eating is a pleasure and whilst i could spend much less on food by cutting out expensive meat and vegetables and buying whatever is on special, then having cheap bread or rolls with tinned sandwich filler for lunch, i don't want to as i'd rather spend money on eating well than eating becoming a means to survival.

on another point, i reckon i also push close to £3k a year on booze. but that seems to be because the cocktail guzzling mrs never buys a flipping drink.