40 grand a year

This.
Assuming you'd be a basic rate tax payer and thus £40k us net of pension payment at 5%, this would equate to a gross salary of around £53k, for comparison with the national average of £37k.
We live comfortably but not lavishly in Sw London off £3k per month and that includes holiday fund but no mortgage/rent so it's too tight incl the rent if you don't have any other source of income such as rent from your overseas house.

No. Two DC. DW is a SAHM. One cat. No dog. Wiltshire. Mortgage.

Not this again. It’s only true if the work carried out by the lower-paid has no value in itself. And I think the economy and our quality of life would soon suffer if the supermarket workers, healthcare assistants, cleaners, refuse collectors, food factory operatives, crop pickers etc. went on strike. Also, low paid workers tend to pay most of their income back into the UK economy. How many of them have off-shore bank accounts, do you think?

That's ridiculous to be barely comfortable on £80,000 with no dc, you must have very expensive tastes.

The fact is. This is above the average household income of 37,000, so many people are surviving on this and many people are surviving on less.
On MN there seem to be a lot of people on over £100,000 who won't understand how you can survive on this.

It’s only take home of about 2600£ a month

if the rent is 1900 then that only leave 700ish for all bills/food etc seems tight to me

I think it would be very tight. I earn more than that part time and I don't think I could run a home and family on it.

If you are single a 40k wage sounds good to me.

If you have a family and this is your total income then it would be tighter.

But also it completely depends on where you live and what your outgoings are.

Jesus wept no. This is why public services are suffering, too few net contributors. Which means you’re taking more than you are putting back.

The struggle here is understanding what OP means by fairly comfortably.

to me that means being able to go out to dinner once a week, the odd family take away, a relatively new car, pet insurance so no stress over vet bills, a holiday every year, being able to replace appliances or the boiler if they break, new clothes and shoes regularly.

oh and savings. Living fairly comfortably means contributing to a pension and being able to save at least 10% of take home income a month.

but it will mean something completely different to other people.

Honestly I think a lot of what it comes down to is that prices have gone up very steeply recently across the board and lots of salaries have not. Pretty much no matter what you earn you’ll have noticed a pinch and naturally it will feel a little uncomfortable to suddenly find you can’t afford the same this year as you could last year. I know there isn’t an objective measure of what comfortable is but for most people it amounts to having a reasonable proportion of their take home pay as disposable income. Some people on higher incomes essentially choose to be a bit uncomfortable by their choices in terms of what fixed costs they sign up for. Others are just stuck with high fixed costs because of a combination of where they live/work and what housing options they have.

Basically, that income would be about UK average for a family that size, which means able to manage, but without much room for extras or savings (they own a house elsewhere anyway, so have something to fall back on). The rent, bills (don't rent a freezing cottage with an immersion boiler) and distance from work (bus services aren't usually great in rural areas) will make it possible or not.

That sounds like enough money, to me. I'm single with one child and manage to live comfortably on around £300 a week after rent etc., with one holiday a year and eating out etc..

I don't have a car, though. It would make sense for OP to rent close to the job, as it's in a town.

All I can say is that I would love to see some people's budgets and spending on here on people who claim to be hard up on high incomes.

Depends where you mean by South West. It's a large area with huge disparities in living cost. Central Bath, that's not going to go far. Normal town like Taunton or something, better.

That's crazy unless you have a huge mortgage.
We are post tax on £58k (3 adults 2 teens 2 dogs) NW sizeable mortgage and do well. Holidays twice a year.

Not sure. I earn 50k, no partner or kids, and while it’s enough it’s only just enough. I live in London though.

I'm sure OP posted almost this exact thread a couple months ago right down to the same locations.

No one said struggling. The OP asked if they'd be comfortable. To me, scraping by is not comfortable

We live inthe north earn around 75k jointly and have £600-£800 spare a month after all out goings. One child (school age) two adult children (nominal rent) and a dog.

Surely depends on when though. If this was last year then comparable but if it was 20 years ago then absolutely not as prices have increased so much

*Relative in terms of outgoings what's left over for leisure. And savings of course.

I don't know if owning other property, especially if providing a rental income, will affect UC entitlement.

Also you need to be clear if it's a salary of £40k so take home of about £2.5k pm or take home of £40k, or £3333 pm which would make a noticeable difference but require a salary of over £50k.

But you might struggle to be accepted for a rental that takes up such a large proportion of your income.

Yes, very doable. We earn less than that, gross, in London, and do fine. So does my sister, a single income household in a different part of the country. None of us claim any benefits. She gets council tax reduction for sole occupancy, that’s it.

And I’ll just add that we save as well for emergencies incase anything goes wrong.