What do you consider a 'decent' salary (non-London)

santacruz_2

Having read the title I was thinking about 30k...then I actually read what you earn!

So I'm unhappy because I work 6 days a week and earn around 10k a year and you're unhappy because you earn 50k a year.
Clearly there's a problem there, you either need to change your lifestyle or change your job...as do I!

And kudos on the 'what do you do to get the 50k a year?' question.

bristol_pilot

As a single person you are taxed to death, not entitled to any benefits and if you live on your own, apart from the lodger, that is a very expensive luxury.

All these people posting saying that £50k is a lot and they live on £12k or whatever are forgetting that they are often getting loads of benefits so that the state picks up their housing costs / C.tax etc. Couples have TWO tax allowances and TWO higher-rate tax thresholds. Add a few kids and we all know how much the government stuffs your mouths with gold and all tax free to boot. So a single person on £50k could easily be taking home little more than those in other circumstances getting £12k or whatever.

I passed the £50k mark a while ago OP, trust me it all goes in tax and you will be no better off as you earn more unless it is very substantially more.

Beast

bristol_pilot wrote: »

As a single person you are taxed to death, not entitled to any benefits and if you live on your own, apart from the lodger, that is a very expensive luxury.

All these people posting saying that £50k is a lot and they live on £12k or whatever are forgetting that they are often getting loads of benefits so that the state picks up their housing costs / C.tax etc. Couples have TWO tax allowances and TWO higher-rate tax thresholds. Add a few kids and we all know how much the government stuffs your mouths with gold and all tax free to boot. So a single person on £50k could easily be taking home little more than those in other circumstances getting £12k or whatever.

I passed the £50k mark a while ago OP, trust me it all goes in tax and you will be no better off as you earn more unless it is very substantially more.

Sadly you're too right.

You only have to take a very quick browse around this forum and the amount of money being given to people in the non-single, working demographic is absolutely terrifying.

sharkie

bristol_pilot wrote: »

As a single person you are taxed to death, not entitled to any benefits and if you live on your own, apart from the lodger, that is a very expensive luxury.

All these people posting saying that £50k is a lot and they live on £12k or whatever are forgetting that they are often getting loads of benefits so that the state picks up their housing costs / C.tax etc. Couples have TWO tax allowances and TWO higher-rate tax thresholds. Add a few kids and we all know how much the government stuffs your mouths with gold and all tax free to boot. So a single person on £50k could easily be taking home little more than those in other circumstances getting £12k or whatever.

I passed the £50k mark a while ago OP, trust me it all goes in tax and you will be no better off as you earn more unless it is very substantially more.

For starters I am also single and living well on half the ops salary. Secondly once you get into the 40% bracket there are other thing you can do to make yourself 'poor' like (a) put that 40% into a pension (b) buy a house and rent it out (c) think this is now illegal but you could have bought insurance policy and then cash in the policy - you did loose some money, but gained more than the tax rate. I'm sure there must be many other schemes out there.

theoretica

If you want to retire at 40 you will have 10 years more working and probably a life expectancy of 80. So, assuming you have no current savings, you would need to earn in 10 years enough to sustain you for 50 - or spend only about 1/5 of your salary. It could be done, but I don't think you want to. Alternatively, looking at the savings you say you want how are you ever going to save 1 million (over 10 years, so 100k a year) on a salary of 50k.

If you did move home how much might it save you? 850 rent (but remember you can't count the lodger's 450 twice so this only saves you 400) £200 council tax/utilities + whatever small things your parents would pay. This is in total £600 a month. However, unless your money management skills improve I would think this would get frittered away too along with the £500 surplus that you should have, the £300 entertainment, £150 clothes and £500 holiday. I don't think that it will be a cure all for your finances unless you are lonely and want to move home for that reason and the money is only an excuse.

bristol_pilot

Retirement at 40 with a current income of £50k is a non-starter, I didn't take that part of the OP's post seriously. I earn quite a bit more than that and am expecting to retire at 65 on a modest income. You need literally millions to retire at 40.

As for other suggestions:
(a) paying into a pension scheme is tax efficient and would probably benefit the OP over his lifetime, but he would not be able to access the money until age 55 at the earliest and the payments would decrease his net income now which seems the opposite of what he is looking for. Paying the full amount taxed at 40% into a pension has the effect of reducing his net income to around £2000 per month.
(b) buy-to-let - rental income would be taxed at 40%, interest on a BTL mortgage could be offset against this but not against income from employment; depending on house prices / rental levels in the OPs area, it is unlikely that BTL income would provide a decent return relative to risk for a higher-rate taxpayer. House prices may rise, in which case the OP may have an opportunity to use his capital gains tax allowance and have any remainder taxed at 'only' 28%; this potential opportunity must be set against the risk of house prices falling. The OP is already doing the most tax efficient thing which is having a lodger.
(c) there are still tunes that can be played with life-insurance based investment bonds for higher-rate taxpayers who will be basic rate taxpayers in retirement, but again the benefits are long-term and you can end up fouling up your age-related tax allowance in retirement.

GEEGEE8

Person_one wrote: »

Sainsburys basics olives, 99p a pot and not that bad actually!

You lie!

FATBALLZ

£30k is a decent salary which you can live a nice life on. You can live comfortably on quite a lot less than that too. If you're struggling and on more than this you probably can't budget for toffee.

Metranil_Vavin

<sniff sniff>...this thread smells of Angel!

getmore4less

You are going about this the wrong way.

Set goals and work back to decide what you have left to spend.
then prepare a budget for the full term.

A good rough guide

To retire in 15years debt free. (15y-20y depending on how good investemets and safety net you want)

1/3 spends
1/3 savings
1/3 house(interest and capital)

To do it in 10 years will be almost impossible without major cutbacks.

Spending won't make you happy long term you need achievable goals.

A 15year plan on £50k should be acheivable, better to over save early, with a fall back of 20y will still have you retireing/down jobing by by 50.