What standard of living are we happy with/entitled to?

shortchanged_2

reweird wrote: »

Everyone is entitled to shelter. That is a basic human right. What is not a right is home-ownership. That's always been and always rightfully will be for the privileged.

Put the gimp suit back on and go back in the cupboard.

ILW

annie_tanks wrote: »

Living on the SS Entreprise would suit me..with a holo-deck for all holidays and experiences..a replicator for all drinks and food.. comfie surroundings and work nearby..and no money exchanges hands as every-one works for good of the community.. si fi is not all fiction..I would like to sign up now..

Wonder who would be paying for all this?

chewmylegoff

what are we 'entitled to' - not a lot. food, shelter and running water.

what am i personally happy with? basically just doing whatever i want without having to worry if i'm going to run out of money at the end of the month. luckily whatever i want roughly approximates to spending about a £1,000 a month on going out and drinking myself silly. so, just need another £1,200 or so a month to pay the rent bills and food, and £150 a month for the travelcard and there you go. what's that, about £40kpa gross? easy. make it £50kpa so i can go on a couple of holidays.

Cleaver

I love these threads on here.

"Not only have I never been abroad, I've only left my town once and that was by horse. I own two pairs of socks and the last time I put my heating on was November 1964 to check it still worked. We mainly eat out of bins and I gave my children one letter names to save on ink costs. I don't own a car, but once saw one when I went to London. It was shiny."

Let's look at this logically. The average household income in the UK is £38,500 after tax. So the average house brings home around £3,200 to spend. That list from the OP:

ukonlineshopping wrote: »

- A holiday abroad a year - Around £1,500 should get you a decent one.
- To have a car and do our daily activities without petrol worries - Shall we say overall costs of £3,000 per year?
- To have the heating on when we are cold and not worry about the bill - £1,300 a year.
- To buy a few new items of clothing a season - Are we talking normal high street stuff? So maybe £1,000 for a family?
- To go grocery shopping and buy what we need/want without worry - For £80 a week a family of four could eat very well indeed. So around £4,200
- To have no personal debt except car & mortgage
- To have a couple of months wage in savings
- To be able to rent/own a house that is suitable for our family needs - Average rent / mortgage is around £800 a month isn't it? So around £10,000 a year.

That lot above all adds up to £21,000. This would leave the average household with £17,500 for everything else, which would include savings and investments.

I'd go as far as saying that if you have two people earning £30,000 between the two of them you could do everything in the list above and then some. I appreciate that everyone's circumstances will be different, it depends what you're into.

In summary, any couple earning the average wage or fairly close to it can do everything in your list, give or take.

paulmapp8306

Cleaver wrote: »

The average household income in the UK is £38,500 after tax. So the average house brings home around £3,200 to spend. That list from the OP:


.

And theres the problem right there. Thats not a median is it. Its only that high due to those that ear much much more. Many 100,000 for some.

The average JOB in the UK pays around £21-£24k before tax, with a lot nearer £15k. And thats if you have a full time job.

if you seriously think the average earner takes home £38k after tax your in dream world. There lucky to take home £18k.

sheffield_lad

paulmapp8306 wrote: »

And theres the problem right there. Thats not a median is it. Its only that high due to those that ear much much more. Many 100,000 for some.

The average JOB in the UK pays around £21-£24k before tax, with a lot nearer £15k. And that's if you have a full time job.

if you seriously think the average earner takes home £38k after tax your in dream world. There lucky to take home £18k.

It says household income, so two on £21k is above that.

Anyway, its because we all thought we had to have everything on the list which is why we now find that keeping the car, holidays and cloths meant we forgot about the savings bit and went mad with the credit cards KERCHING!!! and now -£25k and rising we realise the debt orgy is over, we blame the bankers they should not have given me all that money sob but at the end of the day we Mr and Mrs Joe Public are the one's to blame.

Seven years this recession will last, that unless more debt is piled on top in the next few years.

Headache tablet anyone?

Cleaver

paulmapp8306 wrote: »

And theres the problem right there. Thats not a median is it. Its only that high due to those that ear much much more. Many 100,000 for some.

The average JOB in the UK pays around £21-£24k before tax, with a lot nearer £15k. And thats if you have a full time job.

if you seriously think the average earner takes home £38k after tax your in dream world. There lucky to take home £18k.

The median wage in the UK is £499 a week, which is £26,018 a year. So half of earners earn less than that, half earn more. Your view that 'a lot' of jobs pay £15k would appear to be wrong. I didn't say that the average earner earns £38k, that was on wikipedia for the average household income after tax.

The wikipedia article doesn't say whether that stat I used is mean or median. But we can look at where the data is from, which is from uSwitch and based on OECD data:

Income data is net income after taxes (in GBP) for a two-earner married couple, one at 100% of average earnings and the other at 33% with 2 children. Data from from the Taxing Wages reports by OECD (these reports are currently not available on the OECD website).

UK £38,547.00

Wikipedia does give us some median stats too, as above.

April 2010 median gross weekly earnings for full-time employees were £499.

So if we take the methodology from the OECD and the median wage from wikipedia we can get a median household income for working families:

£499 x 100% = £499 per week, or £26,018 a year
£499 x 33% = £164 per week, or £8,586 a year

Median household income = £34,604 before tax.

I agree with you actually, I think £37,000 after tax sounds way to high. But if the median average wage is £26,018 then average pre-tax median household income of £34,604 sounds about right.

Anyway, the exact figure isn't that important. I was just pointing out that everything in that list would cost you about £21,000 a year and therefore the 'average' family would have no real problem affording it all.

crash123

howee wrote: »

Seven years this recession will last, that unless more debt is piled on top in the next few years.

Headache tablet anyone?

Is that 7 years on top of the 4 we have already had? I think so.

Jimmy_31

reweird wrote: »

Everyone is entitled to shelter. That is a basic human right. What is not a right is home-ownership. That's always been and always rightfully will be for the privileged.

Thats good to hear.

Any ideas where i can build this shelter ?

reweird

Jimmy_31 wrote: »

Thats good to hear.

Any ideas where i can build this shelter ?

You can rent one from your local friendly landlord. No need to live at mummies in your nappy and your bosses cellar in your gimpsuit forever boy.