With the cost of living crisis, how much does a family of 5 need to earn a year to be comfortable?

booksandbikes

£61k-£70k

Nearly impossible to answer as living costs vary hugely depending on where you live. Mortgage payments alone can vary between a couple of hundred points to several thousand pounds a month. Also, people have different definitions of comfortable.

Having said all that, with my current circumstances, I reckon £61k-£70k would easily be sufficient.

Martin_the_Unjust

<£50k

housebuyer143 said:

Not sure why all your options start £50k+. Family of 3 here living on £21k nicely and could probably get two more kids for not a huge amount more.

Everyone is different though, and largely depends where in the country you are amongst other things.

I suspect the OP was trying to score political points.

Nebulous2

<£50k

I left school in 1980 and a family friend took me aside and said: -

"I want to tell you something. It's not what you make that is important, its what you do with it. One man will earn £120 a week and spend it all himself, with nothing to show for it. Another man will earn £80 a week, keep a wife and children, and manage to save something." 

I haven't always followed his advice, but some people will live on remarkably little money. We have some people in the pension forums reporting that they are living on sub- £10k as a single person. 

I once gave up a reasonably well paid job to start again in a different field. We went from two cars to one, cut out the foreign holidays, ate out less and made significant cuts to our budget, without it feeling much of a hardship. 

theoretica

If you want to see analysis in this area, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation website would be a good place to start.

Headline 2022 figure was £43,400 for a couple with two children (and in 2020-21 29% of people lived in households with less than their minimum income standard)

https://www.jrf.org.uk/report/minimum-income-standard-uk-2022

housebuyer143

Nebulous2 said:

I left school in 1980 and a family friend took me aside and said: -

"I want to tell you something. It's not what you make that is important, its what you do with it. One man will earn £120 a week and spend it all himself, with nothing to show for it. Another man will earn £80 a week, keep a wife and children, and manage to save something." 

I haven't always followed his advice, but some people will live on remarkably little money. We have some people in the pension forums reporting that they are living on sub- £10k as a single person. 

I once gave up a reasonably well paid job to start again in a different field. We went from two cars to one, cut out the foreign holidays, ate out less and made significant cuts to our budget, without it feeling much of a hardship. 

My husband always tells me if you want to have more money the easiest way is to spend less.