How can I realistically live on a £15k/25k salary?

LarchMan

Hello, this seems like a great forum for advice about money so I thought I'd make a post about my situation and how to plan for the coming years.

I have been living at home all my life (25 years, fortunate enough to have essentially no living costs), and I am about to start a career which has an entry salary of ~£15-18k. After 3-4 years experience I can expect to earn ~£25k (£30k+ if things go perfectly but that's an outlier salary in the field). I will soon be finding a place to live with my girlfriend who earns £17k.

I want to carefully plan my future in terms of what house I can afford, what car I can afford, costs of having children(!), and what savings I can expect after household bills, insurance, petrol, food (I think these are the main big ones..) are all paid for.

Hopefully this isn't too vague but can anyone here please advise where to start with all this?

Thanks

colsten

It's very good to see that you are thinking ahead .You could start by filling on an SOA, and then take it from there. Plan to track your actual spending and compare it with your planned spending - - you need to be able to spot problems before they become big issues. Find a personal finance app that helps you doing this.

In an overall answer to your Q whether you can live off a £15k/25k salary, especially if you will be living with your girlfriend who is also earning: millions of other UK people do, quite comfortably, so don't be afraid.

Robin9

How good have you been at saving while living at home? Make sure you have an emergency fund of £1000 + to allow for the unexpected.

Are you intending to buy or rent ?

Do you really need a car ?

masonic

The cost of living varies greatly in different parts of the country - especially housing costs. Your 'starting' household income of >£30k between you is not far off the median household income in the UK, so a large proportion of UK households get by on less.

Cash-Strapped.T32

As above really - depending on where you are, you can easily manage, and manage quite well on that income.

I try and do the same as you tbh, I like to know that everything I *need* can be afforded before I commit to it (too meany years spent living the opposite way! :cool:), so fair play to you for starting early mate.

So you can begin to answer your own question, I'd suggest starting a very simple spreadsheet;


Top line, plug in your expected take-home pay (use a tax calculator along with your stated salary & tax code).
Then, each line below, minus-off your regular expenses (rent, utilities, other bills, a realistic food & household budget etc..

(you can catagorise these as much as you want, to give you fine control to tweak how much you want to prioritise expensive food over say, budget house-cleaning products, etc..)

Then below that add in some quality of life spending (eating out, going out, etc...)

And then you should an approximate budget for a month, give or take.
You can copy-down thise representative month over say, a year, putting in each month's ending balance into the next month's opening balance (above your income), to give you a picture of a year.

And then finally, you can begin to tweak values of how much you can afford to put into each category - which will then have knock-on consequences on subsequent months - to see how much you think you'll be able to afford, say if you decide to go for a finance car over a cheap banger, or when winter means utilities will be higher, etc..

You'll need a bit of info obviously - avrage rent prices in your area is vital for the rent field - you'll likley know roughtly how much your insurance is likley to be, or what savings (if any) you put away each month.

Don't forget - girlfriend's birthday month - you'll need extra then, plus november/december will cost more - but this is basics really.

Just a thought anyway, when I took the plunge & decided that I never again wanted to be the guy who if someone asked me, didn't know how I was going to afford to live next month, this is how I did it.

zzzt

You didn't say where you intend to live/work. This really depends on whether you are in the South East or not.

staggered

It's good that you're asking yourself this question but it's not one that we can reasonably be expected to answer. There are too many things you haven't said - where you live, whether you're looking to buy or rent, what your commute is etc. There are a lot of budgeting tools on the internet to help.

enthusiasticsaver

That is a typical entry level salary and with 2 of you it should be affordable for you to live but it depends on lifestyle, circumstances and financial discipline and also whereabouts in the country you live. London and the south east is most expensive. Living in the midlands or north is cheaper generally.

Download an app on your phone to track your spending. Get into a savings habit so you have money for deposit or rental. Don't take on unaffordable debt particularly cars which many people seem to fall down on. Save for annual bills, holidays, gifts and Xmas. Don't overspend on groceries and entertainment and don't forget your pension. The earlier you start the better.

Kernel_Sanders

Cash-Strapped.T32 wrote: »

Don't forget - girlfriend's birthday month - you'll need extra then, plus november/december will cost more - but this is basics really.

And Valentine's Day.

And maybe the anniversary of the first time you met/got off/had sex

Cash-Strapped.T32

Kernel_Sanders wrote: »

And Valentine's Day.

And maybe the anniversary of the first time you met/got off/had sex

Oh, don't get me started...

little_green

Well if it helps ... I graduated almost 10 years ago and still don't earn 25k.
I get by ... Somehow....
So it can be done. Let us know how you get on