MSE News: Millions struggling to pay basic household bills

FredaJones

binaryuniverse wrote: »

Even 39 hours on minimum wage isn't enough to live happily. It's about just enough to survive. But barely save or plan for any kind of future.

That is £15,879.24 a year, £14,178.76 after tax and NI.

As I am mortgage free, I live comfortably on around £10,000 year and that includes bills, food, running a car, entertainment and hobbies. So that income would be allow me to save £4,000 a year for luxuries and for replacements and repairs.

It is all down to personal circumstances.

fatbelly

Stepchange assisted 350000 people last year; Citizens Advice dealt with 1.5 million debt 'issues'

There are other free organisations dealing with smaller numbers: Payplan, CAP, National Debtline.

There are fee-charging services.

There are IVA-pushing sharks.

There are a lot of people in a lot of trouble. Local authorities in England and Wales alone refer 2.3 million debts to bailiffs in a year

masonic

eskbanker wrote: »

The StepChange report itself makes it clear that the 3m is an extrapolation from a YouGov online survey of 5,052 adults last December.

That's a pretty small sample size. less than 0.01% of the population being represented, but at least it's not just a survey of clients of StepChange, which would have skewed the results very severely. Sloppy journalism not to highlight how the number had been arrived at.

Owain_Moneysaver

FredaJones wrote: »

That is £15,879.24 a year, £14,178.76 after tax and NI.

3x that annual income would be about £45k which will buy a 2 bedroom flat in places round here. (If you could stretch to £48k you could get 4 bedrooms at the moment!)