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

What's even crazier is that a lot of professional jobs are now near minimum wage. Unskilled work in many cases pays more nowadays.

Your geography skills seem lacking.

I live in Scotland. The country. You live in England. The country. I think you don't know that the UK isn't England.

I do think we have higher lifestyle expectations. If I think what I pay for that my parents never did, I start to see where my money goes..

TV streaming services (Now TV and Disney+ regularly, Netflix and things without ads on and off)
Broadband
Spotify
Audible
Books
Microsoft 365
McAfee
Apps
Holidays (one abroad plus a weekend or two in the UK - as a child we averaged a week in Mablethorpe in Sept when half of it was closed - some years we didn't go and once or twice we managed to go in the factory fortnight)
Concert tickets (once or twice year)
Takeaway monthly (although they did get fish and chips occasionally)
Wine at home
Mobile Phone monthly
Purchases like ipad, mobile phone, computer, smart TV (they rented), tumble dryer, Ring doorbell etc
Meals out (maybe monthly often treating my son and his gf)
Insurance and vaccinations for pets
Coffee/lunch (maybe monthly)

And that's just off the top of my head.

Edit to add

Pretty sure the only thing they did that I don't is smoke.

I reckon minimum wage is doable if you live a more basic lifestyle. I earn around 40K, I am a single mum (son at Uni) and have a big house with a small mortgage (partly due to being in my 50's and getting on the housing ladder early and partly due to some inheritance). I manage to do the above (just). Obviously if I cut these back I could manage on less.

Ah right. We are at 100 but only have two mobiles and don’t have sky. We have Netflix, Amazon and Disney plus. We do have a landline and broadband.

Housing is the biggest issue IMO. Until we can get that under control the paltry wage rises we have had just won’t cut it. It’s the same with all these threads - - lot of the people claiming to be okay on very low wages have little to no housings costs.

This exactly. At least you acknowledge it.

It’s not too bad until DC come along.

Wow that's high. I just added mine up.

At the moment I pay
£3 Now TV entertainment
£0 Disney+ (used Tesco Clubcard)
£8 Prime
£45.00 mobile phones
£30 Broadband (reducing to £26 next month)
No landline.

Thats £81. Sometimes I add in Netflix at £13 or pay for ad free at £3-4. This is probably only 4 months of the year. I watch what I want and then cancel for a bit. That takes the total to about £85. Curious how you are managing to pay £230!

Have you seen the state of the job market these days?

It's difficult and challenging but hey at least try?

Many will only leave a large inheritance due to the price of the property they lived in sells for. They are not necessarily rich themselves.

We do not have a large house. But we will leave a much larger inheritance than my parents did in their rented council house. We are not rich by a long shot. But when we die and our house sells it will provide a decent inheritance

You clearly know very priveleged pensioners. The ones i know live in small flats, small terraces or semi's.

If you are estimating housing costs to be 20k a year, that would be 20k take home.

41k take home per year, that's a gross annual salary of 51k. And remember, you're saving for retirement. The 21k is what you choose to live on. Those of us really living on 25k per year (each) don't also have a pot building up that you can dip into as needed. It's not the same.

How the hell are you paying £750 on phones etc? Must be a big house you live in. With such high bills

I’m adding mine up now!

£1800 c tax
£900 gas and electric
£346 water
£780 internet/streaming/phone (in contract, I’m changing as soon as I can)

Those are annual numbers not monthly.

Annual figures.

No just normal ones

Well that can't be true unless you're being topped up money wise somehow.

I’m not a pensioner but I think it’s only a wealthy few in the Mumsnet bubble that can afford to pay for their grandchildren’s private schooling and go on multiple holidays a year. They’re not typical of pensioners everywhere.

Pensioners are the “wealthiest” demographic because of the values of their homes. They can’t eat the value of the house they live in or pay their bills with it. Wealth and income are two completely different things. The average income of a pensioner in the UK is £17,240 pa. Just because their house might be worth £600K, doesn’t mean they’re living like kings.

Sometimes I think the younger generations won’t be happy until all pensioners hand over their homes and pack themselves off to Dignitas. Maybe we could look at it another way. We had incredibly indulgent childhoods compared to boomers. Perhaps we should consider ourselves lucky that we had warm homes, lots of toys, tech, hobbies, holidays, and may one day inherit a big chunk of cash. Boomers never had those things.

Spending £230pm on phones is a luxury level of spending. If you were on NMW, you wouldn't / shouldn't expect that.

Well surely it depends where you live. My DS was only on slightly more than that 2 years ago when he bought a house with a mortgage on his own. He runs a car (paid for) and has a hobby( for which he buys equipment) and has a holiday abroad every year.

Three mobiles. Sky package with Netflix, Disney, Sports, Cinema, loads more, ad fast forwarding.Fibre broadband with high speeds for gaming, Amazon prime. You name it. We have it.