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

I can’t remember if I said already but when I moved from a one bed flat with £1200 rent to a 2 bed flat with £650 rent my life totally changed financially !

Same job different area - this is why I will continue to defend remote working!

It all comes down to housing for most people!

I don’t know the answer to it - maybe much more social housing and ending right to buy in England like Scotland have done?

But either way I really hope something can be done to bring rent down. Landlords are being disgustingly greedy now. Not all but many.

I stayed in Brixton for 6 months , my rent for one bedroom in a lovely ex-council house was £800pcm. The whole flat rent was £1400.

The entire 2 bed property was going to be let for just under £2k when my housemate left so I wasn’t able to stay on - as £800 was the max I could pay back then. This was 2012.

I asked the landlords dad why his daughter was raising the rent so much, especially as she had no plans for renovation and the flat had been kept in great condition and was only getting cleaned for the next tenants but no other work was being done.

He basically said that his daughter who now lives in Australia hadn’t been paying much attention while her long term tenant (my flatmate) had been there for years . However now she was moving out, the landlord had did her research and noticed rents on that street had increased sharply over the past few years so she was basically joining in the cash grab.

I know from zoopla that she had bought that house cheaply in the early 2000s and the previous owner had bought for it for even cheaper in the 90s from the council. I can imagine her mortgage payments on it was tiny and she was making a huge profit even without raising prices further.

It’s just shocking that houses built in London designed for social housing were sold for a relatively small amount, then subsequent owners get to make a massive profit of it. Often at the cost of the taxpayer where housing benefit is involved.

Absolute madness! Thanks thatcher!

Thanks for replying with these additional details. As it seems all this is crucial to why you get by on 30k, yeah I think it would’ve been worth mentioning in the first place.

I’ve said multiple times upthread housing costs are often the main reason why low wages make it so hard to live on so if you’re paying £600 less than the typical rent in your area you’re definitely winning and in a completely different situation than most people.

This is my point when you get folks saying they are okay with low salaries often if you look into it further they have various financial advantages that aren’t the norm.

It would probably be more than enough if people lived the way we did years ago. Nails coffees takeaways etc take a huge chunk of incomes.

And my take home pay for full time work is under £2k a month - not much difference in cash and when you look at the additional costs of fuel to work , prescriptions etc - I can see why people don’t bother working ! It just doesn’t pay - unless you are on a high wage .
when you’re just scraping in above benefit levels - it’s very disheartening.

Wow

i just rem her post on the preg moving thread

They have seven young children, in fact.

Bringing the NMW up is clearly necessary, because it is still not enough for a good standard of living

Should NMW be aiming for a "good' standard of living? I expect it to be a minimum standard of living, not good.

For a good standard of living, it's necessary to get some higher level skills and experience and, consequently, a wage that is higher than NMW. Isn't that how the world works? Some roles warrant NMW, a business would be foolhardy to pay more.

I take it @MyFairLady27 isn’t coming back to answer - unless it was a typo

also guessing rent is paid via uc

i read a comment yesterday from her about her having twins - so even more amazing they cope on that low salary

def some tax fiddle as @intrepidpanda said

So you don't get by on 30k at all! You are subsidised by your MIL and the taxpayer, probably to the tune of another £30K pre tax salary. Also, you don't have to pay for 5 people as the older two are working already so you are actually only supporting 3 full people on this amount.

I do wish people would stop posting totally misleading things as you did.

My parents live in a 5 bedroomed house in outer South London, its not worth anywhere near a million.

When they were first married in the 60s, they lived in a room, by the time they had me in the 70s, they were living in a one bed flat.

Well I'm not the only one who thinks your post is unclear.

What do you mean by 'And get around £20k a year between us as I'm part time atm dh full' if that's not your earnings?

UC on top of pay at NMW? Gifts from relatives?

You are correct. We are not living on 20k
Never said I was if you read the posts correctly

Poor @intrepidpanda getting 20 pages of notifications from people who cant read and follow the thread properly

I probably should have added our rent is low because the house is owned by a friend of MIL so we only pay £900 a month rather than the £1,500+ it would cost otherwise.
I don't currently work as I get CA for caring for our son. Car expenses are pretty low as everything is in walking distance (apart from DH work but he often gets a work van).
Food is pretty low as all the children get free meals either at work or school so they often don't want another cooked meal in the evening.
Obviously things like this do make a difference and we're lucky with costs in some ways. Everything is going up though so I appreciate we may not be in such a good financial position a year from now.

Mmm, you're not correct. Clearly I'm older than you but we saw enormous inflation in the 1970s and I recall my mortgage interest rising to over 13%! That said, I appreciate it's tough but, on the other hand, the notion of "normal" now includes many things that some of us would consider to be luxuries. I reckon it is perfectly possible to live on < £27k but the luxuries in life will be few imo.

That's not strictly true. You can claim universal credit if you are unemployed and looking for work.

Yes. Shocked face. But when was the last time you actually saw someone dressed in rags? Or barefoot? (Other than a crackhead who lost his shoes for a few hours). It's a good thing that it doesn't happen.

If you’re working full time earning minimum wage the child element for 1 child is around £135/month for a single parent with a child living with them full time

Only for the people actually entitled to tax credits and benefits. Many people aren't.

Eg if they have no DC, or even if they have DC, if their partner works and earns more than a minimal salary, they won't be entitled to much, if anything.

It's simply not a given that people on NMW receives top ups.

😱

Even the homeless dont dress in rags in the UK. Nor do they appear malnourished. Thankfully.

You wouldn’t be able to - you can’t just claim all benefits and not work unless there are reasons you cannot work.

And as a single person your benefits would be capped to just under 15000

Not old enough to remember it as such, but from what I know of it not sure if I agree with that either.

Personally I think number of working adults AND total income/wealth should be taken into account for council tax.

So you don’t get a situation for example 3 adults in a house on a low wage, paying more than one person who is a multi millionaire. But also you don’t get 4 adults On a low wage paying not much more than a single adult across the street on an even lower wage.

as I said, I don’t like the current system of council tax either for various reasons. I am no tax expert but I am sure smarter minds than me can figure out a fairer system than either the present council tax or the former poll tax.

I could go on but I will stop there 😆 because I know I was the one who mentioned CT but I’m not wanting to derail the thread any more than I have done lol

Remember the poll tax?

Except the homeless...