3.5 k a month? For uk

[Earteill]

In the UK is this a lot for one person household? How good a standard of living would this be? It’s taking ages to research online when outside of London

I bet nanny and John really regrets suggesting little Tarquin is living hand to mouth😂😂😂

I bet he even has a gym membership and meets his mates for a few drinks once a week.

We have a joint income of £50k with two kids and live reasonably well.

We live in North Wales.

Even your location is a choice. Despite what people say, there are jobs and good places to live outside of the South East.

@Ideasplease322

I bet nanny and John really regrets suggesting little Tarquin is living hand to mouth😂😂😂

I bet he even has a gym membership and meets his mates for a few drinks once a week.

I was merely trying to point out that a higher salary does not necessarily translate into a higher quality of living.

But nanny - your son cannot possibly be living hand to mouth, he maybe doesn’t have the lifestyle he aspires to - or indeed believes should be achievable at his salary level, but he is well above the poverty line. It is crazy to suggest otherwise.

Indeed he is making choices which impact on his lifestyle.

A car and maximum pension contributions suggest an okay quality of living. I assume he can afford a home, food and basic living expenses.

It's enough for a good standard of living IMO, but not as lavish as it feels it should be with that sort of money.
We're a family of 4, just north of the home counties with around £4k net/month and living in a (mortgaged) 4 bed semi. After all of the essentials are paid for, we can afford basic luxuries eg eat out/get takeaways a couple of times a month, pay for swimming lessons etc for DCs, have a pet, run a car each plus works vehicle, have a cheap 2 week Eurocamp Summer holiday plus one or two weekends camping a year. We have to save for the big holiday and any home improvements, but it isn't a problem if eg DC's feet suddenly grow and they need a new set of shoes (although that still feels pretty ouchy and we'd have to cut out a treat that month). I would say we are comfortable but not well off.

It does all depend on circumstances though. If you are on you're own in a 1 bed flat, it's tonnes. If you have 2 DCs in unfunded ft nursery plus student loans and a huge mortgage, not so much!

[quote NerrSnerr]@PolkadotFlamingos if the person I quoted was genuinely living hand to mouth they wouldn't be paying the full pension contribution. I think it's insulting to use phrases like that when they actually mean 'it's a bit tight'.[/quote]
Pension contributions are essential, because the state pension is unsustainable in its current form.

@Ugzbugz

Anyone could end up hand to mouth even on 50k a year. A person could end up single parent with 4 young children in childcare with a high mortgage or rent if a partner died etc. Yes they could have had many comfortable years but anyones circumstances can change in a flash.

This. Believe me a single mother with two kids in nursery and a mortgage to pay could not survive on the amount the OP state, in much of the SE. I think on these threads people massively underestimate the difference in cost of living in different areas. Housing costs and childcare especially, but even food is marked up in different areas! Just the same as it's meaningless to compare the cost of living in absolute terms in India to that in Switzerland. It is the ratio of income to living expenses that is relevant. To look at income alone and say "oh that's loads because I earn half of that and manage", ignoring the higher costs that most of those who earn higher salaries have because living near those jobs is expensive, and the higher percentage of tax they also pay on their income, seems very naive.

I live in the middle of England, we earn 3.7k after deductions, we have 2 houses (2 mortgages) , two newish cars, eat well, international holidays twice a year, plenty days out and meals out, plenty online shopping, and still build up a chunk in savings.

I would say 3.5k is quite a wealthy income outside of any city in the UK where rental/housing prices sky rocket in cities, are often hugely cheaper just a few miles outside of a city

On £3.5k a month you probably won't have enough money if you want to live in central London in a spacious apartment in the most expensive area, and eat out or get deliveroo every day and have lots of expensive holidays and go to the theatre every night and buy lots of designer clothes and have all the grooming available and run a fancy car but you will have plenty of money to live in a perfectly nice place and have money over for living a good life.

Honestly, what?? I do none of those things and earn more than this and it IS a struggle. Mortgage and childcare eat most of my wage. I could move to a cheaper area but then I couldn't earn this salary as my job doesn't exist there. I could take my children out of childcare but then I couldn't earn this salary either as I'd have no job. Surely it's not that hard to understand that in many cases to earn more you also have to then spend more of that on necessities, in many (not all) cases. I really don't understand why people have to be so bitter and judgemental when we're all just trying our best. I started off with nothing at all, no home. Then a "home" with damp and no heating and often had no food. I get it. But that doesn't mean that everyone who seems to you to have a high salary has pots of money left after paying for basics, or fritters it away.

@BarbaraofSeville

But the person who said that was talking about a single person, so totally different circumstances.

Of course it's hard to support a family on even £50k in London when you're paying childcare and rent, which you'd probably be entitled to help with btw, but it's a totally different situation when you don't have childcare costs, only need to feed and transport one person and don't need a 3 bedroom house.

Nope. You aren't entitled to any help really. The 20% discount on chilcare and a small proportion of child benefit perhaps (which vanishes entirely at £60k I believe - even if it is a single parent earning that rather than two parents each on £30k who already pay less in tax than the single parent despite the same overall income!).

Pension contributions are essential, because the state pension is unsustainable in its current form

Of course but why would you max out your pension if it leaves you living ‘hand to mouth’? As a pp says nobody’s poor if they’re choosing to run a car in London where it’s a liability.

@ClarisseMcClellan

I said just under, and he puts the max possible into his pension (very sensible)

Do you mean the maximum of £40k pensions contributions @NannyAndJohn ? If so I don't think that's at all sensible if he's stuggling to live on what's left.

Surely it would be much more sensible to reduce to half that and not have to worry about basic bills. He is still young so even £20k a year has got a long time to grow before he retires and can always be increased when he has salary rises

I assume by "maximum pension contributions" the PP was probably referring to the level at which his specific employer will match his personal contribution - usually a percentage somewhere from 8-14% for a good private sector employer - not the maximum that HMRC will allow as a tax free contribution in a single tax year. But I see how that wording could be confusing.

It would be virtually impossible for somebody earning £50k to put £40k per year into their pension.

@Blossomtoes

Pension contributions are essential, because the state pension is unsustainable in its current form

Of course but why would you max out your pension if it leaves you living ‘hand to mouth’? As a pp says nobody’s poor if they’re choosing to run a car in London where it’s a liability.

I must have missed something. I thought the OP was talking about living in the middle of the UK, not London? And nothing about running a car or pension contributions?

Originally I tried to answer the OP to give them a relevant response to their question. My subsequent responses to particular posters have been about their silly generalisations that were not relevant or helpful in terms of the OP's post and seem to be more about certain personal issues/ chips on shoulders.

@NannyAndJohn

Highly depends where you're living.

DS (26) is on just under 50k a year (£2,600 take home a month) and is having to live hand to mouth.

He was overall better off when he was on half the salary but living in a cheaper location.

@NannyAndJohn

Hand to mouth means only just feeding yourself and paying rent and bills. It means worrying that if something goes wrong financially you could loose your home or not be able to feed your kids properly. It does not mean that you don’t have a whole bunch left over after max pension, car etc.

Have some perspective, ffs

I'd say it's reasonable (midlander here). The biggest Cost people forget is childcare which is hideously expensive, we had to have a nanny when DTs came along and it almost bankrupted us at £2k a month. Three kids though and taking home less than you.

Our joint income is approx £4k in the North West and we feel pretty comfortable. We have 2 young kids, 1 still in private nursery so have childcare costs. Small mortgage as we bought a doer upper and didnt want to stretch ourselves as we were planning a family. 2 cars, a holiday every year plus enough to not worry about buying small treats etc. If we had bought a bigger house with a bigger mortgage the treats would have to stop or at least reduce. It really comes to to what kind of lifestyle you want.

@Pea1985

Our joint income is approx £4k in the North West and we feel pretty comfortable. We have 2 young kids, 1 still in private nursery so have childcare costs. Small mortgage as we bought a doer upper and didnt want to stretch ourselves as we were planning a family. 2 cars, a holiday every year plus enough to not worry about buying small treats etc. If we had bought a bigger house with a bigger mortgage the treats would have to stop or at least reduce. It really comes to to what kind of lifestyle you want.

All very well until you become a simgle parent. I'm sure most families in the NE or NW on £50/60k are better off in terms of spare money than I am as a single parent in the SE on a the same household income. They have two of them to share work but I have to do all of everything at work and home and:

1. start paying tax at half of the income that they do;
2. lose child benefit at a level where they could earn another £40k first and still get the full amount;
3. lose "tax free childcare" and the"30 hours free childcare" at a level where I earn nearly half of what they do;
4. be discriminated against on state pension
5. Marriage "tax allowance"
6. Expected to be grateful that I pay 75% Council tax alone even though one adult lives here.

Etc

It's an absolute joke, the discrimination against single parents. Even those who are entirely self-supporting and have claimed zero in benefits. The whole system is stacked against us and unless other women stand by our sides and say no, it will never stop. Where is the solidarity?

That's all very interesting @PolkadotFlamingos. But absolutely no-one has said that a single parent on £50/60k who lives in SE England and pays childcare, is financially comfortable, no-one.

The person in the OP, does not have DC and does not live in SE England, so an entirely different situation with basic living costs being a fraction of yours.

@BarbaraofSeville

That's all very interesting *@PolkadotFlamingos*. But absolutely no-one has said that a single parent on £50/60k who lives in SE England and pays childcare, is financially comfortable, no-one.

The person in the OP, does not have DC and does not live in SE England, so an entirely different situation with basic living costs being a fraction of yours.

I know. And my original post to the OP was asking exactly those questions: middle of the country is vague. Whereabouts? How much is housing there? How much is childcare and commuting? Precisely because it's impossible for anyone to give an informed and realistic answer about whether X amount is adequate to lice comfortably "in the UK" without knowing more precisely where than "in the middle" and their situation in terms of young children needing childcare, etc.

My subsequent posts were to posters that apparently were ignorant of the above variables and this because X wages they earn means they're comfortable where they live, in their particular family circumstances, then it must be the same for everyone and anyone saying otherwise is frittering their money away on deliveroo or theatre tickets or putting £40k per year into a pension.

@Ijustreallywantacat

This place is nuts sometimes.

'Depends on Mortgage/car/lifestyle' comments make me too. These are all things people CHOOSE. it's not as though they just happen.

I lived on much less than that, in London, and did just fine. Hand to mouth indeed....

Yeah. We all chose for houses to be very expensive where we live do thag we can actually work in our professions.

I earn about that, I pay a quarter into my pension and a quarter on the mortgage and have 1 big holiday a year. I spend and save money, just more slowly than I would if I had more.