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

michaels

Net pay is just under 1600, as anticipated I get 300 wftc and 200 child benefit. Expenditure: 2.5%, interest only (=£525), £100 petrol, £400 food, £150 gas and electric, £150 council tax, SAHW so no child care...and I exaggerated as I boost my income by a few hundred tax free via stoozing, matched betting, cashback etc.

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

chewmylegoff

i wouldn't want to even try bringing up a family in london with less than £100kpa personally. i'm sure it's possible on less, but that's not how i want to live.

michaels

There are many bits of London where I would be uncomfortable with my kids going to the local state school in which case 100k income to pay for private education despite my strong ideological objection would probably be needed

chewmylegoff wrote: »

i wouldn't want to even try bringing up a family in london with less than £100kpa personally. i'm sure it's possible on less, but that's not how i want to live.

Jimmy_31

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

Dont worry that 40k a year will substantially increase pretty soon.

Either that or house prices will drop.

buzzhoney

Well, this thread is a bit of an eye-opener...

chewmylegoff

yes, school fees would be the main driver. plus the housing costs are likely to be at least £2k a month, so £40k gross needed just to pay them alone.

nickj_2

quantic wrote: »

Our household income is £45k, we have no kids and live in the North East so house prices are relatively low. It amazes me how people can survive on less than this living in the south and with kids too.

Also, says a lot really that the family in the article has a house "worth" £300k and earn 40k, while I could only dream of owning a house for half that.

me and my wife have a joint income of around 25k and we get by very nicely and we live in the east , 20 mins from cambridge , which is nearly south east;) ,
we don't live in a huge house, it does have 3drooms , have 2 kids(teenage and expensive to run ) , run a car and van have a couple of weeks away each and generally don't want for anything .however my mortgage is for only 36k and costs 200 per month , this is our only debt , so it can be done

thescouselander

By the sounds of it the people in the article must have bought their house a long time ago - they probably paid a lot less than £300k and I would assume a lot of their mortgage will be paid off. That being the case I would have thought £40k should be plenty. On the other hand people who were not able to buy houses before the housing boom will have much higher housing costs and would need substantially more to have the same standard of living.

quantic

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, I don't know the ins and outs of your finances so lets make some generous and low assumptions:

£25,000 = £1,613.50

- Mortgage (250k over 30 years @ 1.75% Mortgage rate) £898.53
- Gas and Electric £90 per month
- Council Tax £120
- Food £200
- House insurance £20
- Internet, phone and sky £30
- Petrol £150
- Maintenance on cars and house £50
- Car insurance £35
- Car tax - £25

Total £1618

That does not account for many things, such as having a life. I suspect you are either quite heavily in debt or you are talking rubbish?

michaels

see my post #22 above

quantic wrote: »

OK, I don't know the ins and outs of your finances so lets make some generous and low assumptions:

£25,000 = £1,613.50

- Mortgage (250k over 30 years @ 1.75% Mortgage rate) £898.53
- Gas and Electric £90 per month
- Council Tax £120
- Food £200
- House insurance £20
- Internet, phone and sky £30
- Petrol £150
- Maintenance on cars and house £50
- Car insurance £35
- Car tax - £25

Total £1618

That does not account for many things, such as having a life. I suspect you are either quite heavily in debt or you are talking rubbish?