To think it’s crazy that National Minimum wage is £27k

I compared my bills earlier this year to what they were when we bought our house 25 years ago.

If salaries had kept up with the increase in my council tax and utilities, I think I worked out that minimum wage should be around £37k.

How much of the difference is being subsidised in universal credit, saving billionaires and costing taxpayers?

Sad that she actually believes that!

Haha, the amount he earns completely matches the annual personal allowance, so he doesn’t have to pay tax. I bet he gets a lot more cash in hand. Ask him about it.
I guess my own income wohld be higher if I didn’t have to pay tax

Possibly 🤷‍♀️

@mindutopiahow did you buy an 800k house on that salary?

Think it’s particularly hard for young folk especially in London. DD on minimum wage paying £1000 a month rent plus bills and travel costs etc. I’m incredibly proud she’s supporting herself but it’s fairly stressful and challenging. Yes she could live in other parts of the country but the field she works in would be pretty difficult to find the same opportunities. (Not living in a palace either, a fairly average house share with 4 people in a pretty downtrodden area).

So most of the earnings are undeclared for taxation?

Guildford is notoriously expensive

Just within the amount not to be taxed. As a tradesman does he often get cash jobs?

My DS is paying £1000 per month in rent in Guildford for a house share. On top of that are council tax and utilities and food, and travel to and from work. On NMW, that doesn't leave anything after tax. So we help out. We can so we do. Surviving youth and training is uphill and arduous. So we help out.

Our combined income is only a tiny bit short of that and we wouldn't be allowed to buy an 800k house because of affordability rules - feels like there's some info missing here! How big a deposit did you put down (and, I suppose relevant, did you save it yourself or was it a gift?). An 80% LTV mortgage on an 800k house would be 3.5k a month - I assume you're paying nowhere near that now as you're close to paying it off (and assume maybe bought when interest rates were lower?), but was one of you earning better earlier on?

Well bloody hell, how very lucky! Just skimming the tax threshold - phew!

I earned £25k or thereabouts from my first proper job in the 00s. I could get a mortgage on a family house with my salary alone. Totally unimaginable these days.

£27k is not a lot to live on these days.
With rent and bills you can easily pay £1500 a month.

Obviously if you’re in a couple then things are much easier because you can half the rent etc.

@mindutopia , could you explain why you can manage on so little?

I worked in 1996 for 12k i think, and that wasn't loaded by any means.

When was your 7.5k?

£38k for working households, £32k for retired households excluding housing costs. So for a retired couple on state pension of £12k each, they each have a private pension of £4k a year. It includes benefits like attendance allowance for disability costs.
And it's because housing costs are so high. Working age adult households obviously have much higher median income than £38k, but they have to pay housing.

Genuinely curious- no criticism intended at all- do you not get benefits on top of the £20k if you have kids?

It’s interesting because Dh and I are very middle class and live a very middle class lifestyle: £800k+ house that we’ll be mortgage free on in hopefully another 5 years, 3 cars and a couple motorcycles between us (none brand new or on finance), 2 kids, I have a horse I keep in full livery, we have nice holidays, we eat nice food, kids do lots of hobbies, Dh and I do lots of hobbies.

Yet, I earn about £24k a year right now, PT self-employed, Dh takes about £50k a year, also self employed. So our total household income is about £75k ish or maybe a little more each year.

But we live a very comfortable lifestyle (in the south west in a nice area). Yet I hear that people are on £100k+ and are struggling, and I think, but how? You don’t even have a horse or your husband doesn’t spend £5k a year on new mountain bikes. Where is all your money going? Because neither of us works FT and we live a very nice lifestyle.

But FT MW is £27k so how can your family income be £20k?

Yeah that's what my ex tells HMRC /child benefit.

Meanwhile he has a brand new van. Several holidays away every year. Loads of work done on the house , all then usual cash in hand /tax dodge clichés

How?!? Or are you mortgage-free or in council housing?

But you dont work full time so no comparison.

we haven’t seen this level of inflation for hundreds of years

You should have seen it in the 1970s - just 50 years ago. It hit 27% in 1975.

Also none of them inherited either, they’re all in the same family (except spouses) and grew up on a council estate. The spouses all have living parents bar one who also grew up on a council estate. No homes being left to them, or big bank balances.

You're not allowed to have this opinion on MN