Is £40,000 really a liveable income for families in the UK?

movilogo

£40k (for husband + wife + 1 or 2 kids) is not bad unless you live in/around London. You can have a very decent life with that amount in most parts of the country. If fact, it is possible to have a decent life in £30k as well (many people earn this and still maintain a family without external help).

And if you are member of MSE, then £40k will go even further

The BBC article is !!!!!! though - at £40k income, one should not dream of buying a new car every 2 years neither one should dream of living in a £300k house with that level of income.

wymondham

£40k would be very nice. We manage on less

[Deleted User]

michaels wrote: »

Strange, we live in the SE have a 250k mortgage and run 2 cars and 3 kids on 25k pa and still save a couple of hundred each month...

OK.. so one person earning £25K a year would have a net wage of £1,613.53 per month. A £250k mortgage (3% interest rate estimate to be generous) would mean repayments of £1196 per month, giving you £417 to pay for gas, electric, water, home insurance, food, transport, petrol for 2 cars, insurance + road tax for 2 cars AND saving £200 a month.

Wow, that's an impressive feat of budgeting (or lying). Or you're forgetting to include things like tax credits as a source of income

shortchanged_2

ringo_24601 wrote: »

OK.. so one person earning £25K a year would have a net wage of £1,613.53 per month. A £250k mortgage (3% interest rate estimate to be generous) would mean repayments of £1196 per month, giving you £417 to pay for gas, electric, water, home insurance, food, transport, petrol for 2 cars, insurance + road tax for 2 cars AND saving £200 a month.

Wow, that's an impressive feat of budgeting (or lying). Or you're forgetting to include things like tax credits as a source of income

I would think Michaels is probably on a low rate BoE tracker, interest only.

Either that or as you state ringo, he is not being fully truthful about his income or is being sarcastic.

Norfolk_Jim

silvercar wrote: »

I suspect that anything much lower than 40k gives you access to Working tax credits, child tax credits, childcare tax credits, child benefit, etc etc to bring your income roughly upto 40k.

(I know that you need children to get these benefits, I'm generalising).

certainly that isn't remotely true in my case, 2 children, about half the income you are suggesting

andybenw

Me and the missus are on about joint £51k and I manage to put away 2k a month. Lodgers and not splashing out on fancy goods. Not super penny pinching either, lots of takeaways etc.

And once the mortgage is paid in a few months even better.

If you've no kids you don't need anything like 40k to live on.

[Deleted User]

shortchanged wrote: »

I would think Michaels is probably on a low rate BoE tracker, interest only.

Either that or as you state ringo, he is not being fully truthful about his income or is being sarcastic.

Well, you might also question how they managed to achieve a x10 mortgage multiplier...

My family income is well over £40k, yet we're hardly wealthy, run only 1 car to save money (although it's a nice one). I have no idea at all how you could live in the SE on a £25k family income. We do have 2 kids though. I've not figured out how we're going to pay for nursery fees yet.

LilacPixie

3 kids and 2 cars on my 37k here, we cope fine, belts are being tightened though as hubby just got made redundant so we have dropped about 20k net.

Lokolo

The thing is, everyone has a different interpretation as to what's a necessity and what's not which will largely play around with figures.

Nowadays Sky, a 42" TV and a car seem to be a necessity!

ruggedtoast

MrRee wrote: »

That is the question posed by the BBC.

Just £40,000 is the average that families have to live on per year - I cannot believe it is that little ...... it must be a struggle if it's true - maybe the information is a couple of years old?

Anyway ... interesting read:-

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15197860

Many people have to get by on much less than that.

As you well know.