Cant live on 50k? (article)

[BlancheBlue]

I know these sort of things are designed to annoy and are probably twisted but families with £50k + income complaining about "no foreign holidays" and "oh my god I buy clothes in supermarkets" need to realise they are pretty lucky

www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-3759081/Why-families-earning-50-000-broke-end-month-figures-say-couldn-t-pay-unexpected-bill-500-four-explain-money-goes.html

[LurkingHusband]

These are brilliantly efficient articles, as they can hit two demographics at once:

1. the uber-rich, who can read them and think "gosh, some people do have it tough."
   
   
2. the uber-poor who read them and think "I can't even afford money for they meter. I must be really scummy".
   
   Best tackled by - radical suggestion - ignoring the Daily Mail (the paper that supported Hitler).
   
   Funny in an age of almost infinite news sources, the mainstream has become even more monolithic

[Birdsgottafly]

I live up North (Liverpol) and a lot of these articles normally annoy me. However their income is eaten up by housing, transport and childcare costs, so all necessary expenses.

Property and commuting is silly money, 'Down South', ours isn't, but work is less stable.

Life will get better, as their children grow and their mortgage is paid off.

What's your issue with the featured families?

[VladmirsPoutine]

There's something very unsettling about the way they're all posing in that article.

[originalusernamefail]

The article is confusing me, the couple with the highest overall salary £65000 have the lowest individual take home pay, how does that work?

[Nanunanu]

Lurking. There's the third group. People on similar incomes who go 'see I'm not alone. .... wait why do they spends so much on (whatever. Be that find sky etc). At least u dint do that. So I'm better than them' even if they do not save much more money each month.

The poses are daily mail 'look sadly at the canera' poses

They are mostly doing OK. Have little savings. Could cut spending. And mostly struggling due to cost of childcare as both parents work. But would struggle more (financially) if one parent stopped work.

[StepAwayFromTheThesaurus]

They hit more than 2 demographics. They are brilliantly calculated to hit the people with similar incomes who can look at it and feel smug because they've made better choices/manage better etc than those featured. They can read it and say, "Well, you don't need that gym membership/you shouldn't drive a Mini Countryman/you should have stopped at 2 children/why are you spending £300 a month on going to weddings, and so on'.

This also works for people earning a bit more or less than the featured people. It's an ingenious strategy to get just about everyone frothing.

What I don't understand is why people agree to be featured in them. I'd imagine the mail lie through their teeth to get them to agree, but they can't seriously think it could possibly end well for them. Surely they've seen these kind of articles before.

[nightandthelight]

I imagine The Daily Fail pays them...

[Dragonglass]

The biggest issue for all of these families seems to be housing and childcare costs and there is not much they can do about those, but the the first family need to look at their spending. their mortgage is low but their bills are astronomical. That plus expensive gym membership and high car costs indicate that they are living beyond their means.

[BlancheBlue]

Maybe they agree to get featured as DM will fund a year's yoga?

[Spraoi]

I haven't read the article but can imagine that for a family living on £50k in London would be very hard. Our rent, commuting and childcare costs (for one under 2) came to £4000. That's before any discretional spending. We could of course economise by renting in a less pleasant area etc but then commuting costs would rise so it's difficult.

[hazeimcgee]

"Financially, it doesn’t make a lot of sense for me to be working, but I wish to be a good role model to my children "

Had empathy up until that point. Cos those SAHM are terrible parents teaching our kids to be lazy.

Also kids get second hand clothes kff eBay but neither can compromise on their gym membership

[LurkingHusband]

What I don't understand is why people agree to be featured in them.

Andy Warhol did - 50 years ago.

[Fairylea]

They lost me when they started banging on about "only" having a holiday in the uk and the horror of supermarket clothes.

They do realise lots of low income families, as we were last year, struggle to eat and heat their homes?!

[jay55]

How do you spend a grand a month on utilities?

[SerenDippitee]

There's another thread about this.

[Caipora]

I don't live in the UK so I'm a bit out of touch with the cost of things there. But...(including gas, electric, home phone, mobile phones, broadband, insurance and council tax): £1,180 seems way too steep. What are they doing, burning smartphones to heat the house?

In my experience when I visit family and friends in the UK, they have houses that are so full of toys you can barely move. Every trip to the supermarket they come back with more than just food. I have no doubts these two little girls have more clothes and toys than they probably need.

[hazeimcgee]

And the cash in hand!

I thinl people don't always appreciate what they have. I own my own home, we're a two car family, we have gym memberships, we get a couple of weeks away each year by the sea, i get my hair trimmed proffesionally once a month and if we ever do need extra money, there's someone to lend it us - why is life so hard??

Ha, i wish!

[gonzo155]

They lost me at yoga and gym memberships. Yes, a lot of people in the middle income bracket with kids have very little spare cash and yes, you can spend your money on whatever you want including gyms and yoga but don't then go complaining to Daily Fail.

I feel sorry for the people who have £20-30 a week to spend on food and have to decide between clothes for the kids or paying the utility bill.

[Just5minswithDacre]

Meh. When you're scrapping along on £20k, £50k sounds like a lot more.

It genuinely isn't that much more after tax, NI, student loan contributions, slightly smarter clothes and maybe a child or two more than you had when you were on £20k.

But you'd never have believed that when you were on £20k.

Hopefully the big difference @ £50k is that you're not actually robbing Peter to pay Paul any more, if you're sensible.

4 or 5 people living on £50k, who bought their house relatively recently probably can't afford a standard package holiday without being reckless, for example.

[StillDrSethHazlittMD]

I had a huge laugh at that article. Some of the spending was laughable, and I just don't know how they can say those things with a straight face. I also found it interesting that two of the families had one "surprise" pregnancy...

I earn £20,000. I live quite nicely on that, including a mortgage. I have a small pension, I manage to save and have a couple of weekends away in the UK each year and manage a week abroad every other year. My utilities plus council tax, come to £120 per month. What the hell are some of them doing???

[BarbaraofSeville]

The £1180 pm on bills has to be a mistake, or include mortgage or food.

Even allowing for what I thought were ludicrously high amounts for each bill and including water that wasn't mentioned, I couldn't get to more than about £800 pm.

[titchy]

Not defending them all but, just wanted to point out that my council tax is almost £300 a month, my gas and electric are £180, 4 x mobiles £100, water rates £35, broadband £60, TV Licence £12, home insurance £20, Car tax and Insurance £200 (have a 17 year old insured), so I can quite understand spending £1100 a month on bills.

[Boleh]

Still I think it depends on the area of the country you live in, my council tax alone is £248 a month on a 4 bed house and that's not even London or South East, my previous flat it was about £150 a month - the only way to cut that is to downsize. Yes, you can shop around for utilities and be sensible with how much you need the heating on/run the washing machine or dryer and so on but again to run a family home will still cost more than a smaller property with less people in. Broadband, mobiles, landline and TV again you shop around (and cut what you can't afford).
That said, the only way I can see it being over £1k a month is insanely high council tax.

[Caipora]

BarbaraofSeville glad it wasn't just me. I thought the price of utilities must have gone through the roof since I last lived in the UK. They must have the heating up really high or not insulated their house properly or maybe they are constantly on their phones.

[heron98]

Oh cry me a fucking river. 50k? I'll never earn even close to that, probably not even half.