Could you live decently on £14,400 a year?

Upsidedown_Bear

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation have been doing this research ( A minimum income standard for the UK) every year since 2008.

The figure for a single adult in 2014 is £16,200.

http://www.jrf.org.uk/publications/minimum-income-standard-2014

dodger1

Can only speak for myself as a pensioner on benefits. My total package including pension, pension credit, housing benefit, council tax benefit, warm home discount and winter fuel payment works out at £14,787 which would be £17,400 gross if employed. Strangely enough that is about what I was earning prior to retiring and I live pretty well on that.

sax11

I could only dream of £16200 before tax

after all bills i survive but have no decent standard of living/social life

missprice

Depends where you are and what you call home.
But yes I think its a lovely amount to live in.

Have posted this before but the figures are out of date now, so with new figures

Mortgage 133
CT 109
Water 58
Gas/leccy 125
House ins 10
Life ins 6
TV lic 13
TV/bb/phone 45

Total of 499 a month.

May have missed a bill off that list but can't think what.

So yes easily, and the above includes full CT cos its a full house.
The food bill comes in at around 200 month avg ish.
And the TV/bb/phone could be a lot lot cheaper but I am not renewing/signing up for 18 months cos me and OH moving out soon.

dori2o

andrewf75 wrote: »

I think the idea that people on low wages should be able to afford to buy a house is crazy. We should focus on regulating the rental market in favour of the tenent and building more council houses. This has been one of the really damaging legacies of the Thatcher government.

Why?

It was never crazy in the past, the aspiration of most was to get on the property ladder, and even the low paid had an opportunity.

My house is currently valued at £95k. I bought it 11 years ago for £45k

So even on NMW 11 years ago a working couple whose household income was £15k-£20k would easily have me the 3x annual income test.

It's yet more proof of how the NMW has not kept pace with the true cost of living, and also a legacy of the bad decisions made by all governments over the past 25 years to not invest in housing, or regulate certain aspects of the housing market, especially from the income received from Right to Buy, and the disasterous HMR scheme championed by 2 Jags Prescott which knocked down thousands of perfectly decent and suitable homes which were supposed to replaced with new eco houses.

There are examples across the country of derelict properties, plots of land where terraced houses used to stand, now standing empty, no new homes, and for a lot of those plots no imminent plans to start building.

There used to be a term used for houses like mine, they were starter/bottom of the ladder homes. Now even these seem to be out of reach, especially when you see terraced houses, smaller than mine with less land than mine going to auction or being sold in the SE for £250k, £300k, £450k.

The world has quite simply gone mad.

I do agree with your second point however. At no point should renting a home be more expensive than buying one. That is the situation many people find themselves in now, despite the fact many of those cannot get mortgages due to what the banks now say are affordability issues, despite the fact that a mortgage in most cases is cheaper than the rent they are currently paying.

I've said for years that there should be controls on the rentable value of properties. Not only would it make renting more affordable, but it would also vastly reduce the HB bill.

Secondly there has to be a better form of tennancy contract than the standard 6 month contract that is used.

How can anyone hope to set up a home, get kids settled into school, keep and maintain a steady job, have a reasonable quality of life if they have the uncertainty of where they are going to be living 6 months down the line.

Minimum contracts should be at least 2 years IMO, with the possibility of increasing security of tenure for those in private rents.

Landlords already have sufficient options to terminate a contract if the tennant is not fulfilling their obligations and so I wouldn't accept that as an argument.

andrewf75

dori2o wrote: »

Why?

It was never crazy in the past, the aspiration of most was to get on the property ladder, and even the low paid had an opportunity.

But at no point in the past have so many people bought as they do currently - or in the last deacde or so. 2001 was the peak.
http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/census/2011-census-analysis/a-century-of-home-ownership-and-renting-in-england-and-wales/short-story-on-housing.html

The whole notion of the "property ladder" is unique to the UK and people aspire to it because renters get a rough deal and because of our crazy house price inflation. In countries where house prices aren't overvalued and the rental market is well managed and controlled many people are happy to rent long term.

I don't think it is realistic for the whole population to be home owners.

System

I could probably manage my only real outgoings is my rent (which includes gas, electric, water, internet, tv licence and council tax) which is £280 a month

However that is living in a shared house. Would still have quite a bit left over

rageagainstessays

Considering I managed to spend £150 a week last year as a student, after my accommodation was paid- I'm going to say no

wellynever

Most posts are not what i expected tbh, i thought most people would be posting i could live like a king/queen on that sort of money, i know that it was out of date but looking it now seems that it's about £16000.00/£17000.00 range,

As i've said in the opening post we as a couple ( me in support group and also claiming DLA ) get just over £14000.00 i know this as we have had to make yet another I.E for the discretionary housing payment well the lady at the local council office did this for us,

I don't want this turning into a benefit bashing thread, more of why are people not paid a living wage and why have most people become brainwashed into thinking such low wages are a good thing in this day and age, as i've said i feel sorry for all the hard workers out there grafting day in day out just to make ends meet ( i was one of the hard workers for 25 yrs before becoming too disabled to work )

We in the UK seem to have gone from fighters to wimps, again no political parties as they all seem to be the same, i think to me and me only it seems people have lost all hope as in no or very little job security not much chance of getting on the housing ladder, what is there to look forward to, ok i seem to be going off one one but i had my 25 yrs what about all the other people with the next 25 yrs infront of them.

System

If I lived alone yes.