How much do you earn to live in nice area in a 3/4 bed house and drive a ‘nice’ car?

[BraOffForTea]

Just wondering. I thought I earned enough and having had a look online it seems I am in a high percentile of earnings. But I am unable to live lavishly at all - old car, small but nice home. Absolutely nothing special. I don’t necessarily aspire to have more things but I do wonder what you need to earn to drive a new Merc and so on. If I can’t do that in the top 8 percentile how do people manage it?! I worry about bills and often have beans on toast for tea!

Interesting post.

Joint income around £90k
Tiny terraced 3 bed, only master bedroom can accommodate a double bed
Small garden
SE London zone
High mortgage which will end when I retire
One car 8 years old

Decent size 3 beds cost £450k/£500k, 4 beds go for £650k upwards. We cannot afford to upsize.

Terraced 5 bed house in Zone 2 London. Teeny garden. Have a non- flash newish car- had the last one for 12 years. Combined income of around £450k a year.

Yes

..22 plate SUV..

There must be some scriptwriters out there really relishing the thread. I notice that the OP hasn’t returned here.

Oh I love Manchester but realized quite quickly the nice parts are verging on nice outer London/SE prices.not quite there but getting there if you know what I mean!

Depends where you are and how much deposit. Here a 3/4 bed townhouse by the beach is £450k. We have 5 motorised vehicles and 2 bikes, mine is newest at 5 years, dp owns the rest, classics and motorcycles ... we earn a lot but need to save for retirement in 5 years

Definitely. Makes me laugh when people say "north England is cheap housing". Some bits are, but Manchester, even the rougher parts are higher than average. Cheapest place I've ever loved in England was the Midlands (Coventry, I appreciate there's expensive midland areas too).

Pointless. Friends have all of that and the majority is debt. "Managed debt" according to them. Funnily enough, when the pandemic hit it wasn't "managed" any more.

For me, where I live I would need about £65k minimum.

It depends where you live plus the permutation of choices and luck.

My friend and I earned the same sort of salary in our twenties. She actually ended up on a higher salary than me. She refused to share housing, I shared and ended up buying housing young because I shared and saved a deposit.

Also it depends on age I’m in my mid fifties and have this set up. DH and I recently worked out that on the same grade and with the same deposit we would not be able to buy our house now. Same house next door sold last year and had risen in price by 400%. Starting salaries for our old jobs were 22k now 28k and 28k now 35k. We bought our house in 1999 and those were our salaries.

Yes and before that I drove a 2006 Fiesta for 10 years until I saved enough for a ‘SUV’ for a 5 person family - not for status or image to ‘keep up with the Jones’s’, but for reliability and size. Some people will always see the worst 🙄

Most of my friends with expensive new cars are on a company car scheme. DH drives a brand new electric car because it's a company car. He still pays for it but not nearly as much as he would if it was on a lease or PCP. If he was paying privately he'd have something cheaper.

My dad has always told me 'all that glitters, isn't gold'

Just because other people have good cars, and fancy houses, doesn't mean that they are happy.

Since taking this on board, and getting older, it really resonates.

We are in “naice” market town in SE. Late 20s/early 30s. One 10 year old Audi and 1 2year old Alfa Romeo (top spec, small loan on it) and just about to buy a 3 bed detached for half a million.

We earn £140k between us though we are not selling current house to buy the new one (renting out to family).

I have no clue. Midlands, single mother of 3, 30K, I work in Tech, about 25 hours a week.

I don’t own because I cannot save enough before the prices go up again. I rent a “naice” cottage in a “naice” village, but it’s not as expensive as when I was living in a City, it’s a mates rates rental and DDs health issues meant that moving out of the City was necessary.

I have a decent car, however it’s a Motability car as middle DD is disabled.

One of my siblings thinks I’m “loaded” (I fucking wish) and I cba to correct them

I can’t earn more money (yet) due to middle DD and her health issues/needs fluctuating wildly.

Well surely it depends on the area you live in
Even in nice areas you can get considerably more for your money here in the Northwest than London and the South East.

Oh and we live in a shit area but have a nice car as its a mobility car .

Always south Manchester, you can get considerably more for your money in North Manchester, and much nicer scenery imo

I live in a really nice suburb of Manchester. Our house is worth about £575,000; It's a 4 bed semi. We have one new, nice car and one car that's falling apart. 1 holiday abroad every year. The kids don't go to private schools. Joint income is about £100,000 but my parents help out with big household things like a new bathroom, new roof etc.

Oh, my first house was bought in the late 1990's for just under £100,000. And my husband had something similar but worth a bit less. Property prices shot up just after we both bought.

Depends what you want though. Schools, socio-economic deprivation, transport links and job opportunities are all poorer in most areas in the north of Manchester, certainly anywhere scenic.

It depends so much on where you live. Two lower middle class incomes (say teacher married to police officer) will sustain that lifestyle where we live. Probably not so much elsewhere.

I think the whole 'nice area' thing is very subjective too. I would say I live in a fairly nice area but I know some people would think differently of it because all the houses are terraced, it's near a town centre and some houses are ex-council (Gasp! The horror!).

I grew up in Bury we were the first place to get the tram, we had decent schools thanks ,I think you will find Greenmount is not very deprived .

A house like that where I live would be around £1.5m, completely unaffordable for most people.

Where I live to do this without family help for first deposit etc would be about 120K and I don't live anywhere really pricy. House prices are ridiculous for most people. Even those in professional occupations would need help from parents to get through the early years of parenting.

Greenmount is lovely (fellow Bury resident for 8 years) but no tram and a journey in to central Manchester on public transport will take over an hour.

You'll note I said "most" areas of the north of Manchester. Bury is one of the less deprived northern Manchester boroughs, but Bolton, Rochdale, Oldham. All considered deprived in the index. Yes, they have some lovely bits but it doesn't change facts.

What constitutes a “nice” car anyway? Isn’t aspiring to Merc/Beamer/Audi ownership just a status symbol? It’s not a barometer of achievement in life when you could get an average car that does the job just as well, and spend that money on other things.
In my area high value cars get nicked all the time which must surely be an added level of stress most people could do without.

(Nice 3 bed house in a cheap area of the midlands, earn £32k. Ford Fiesta all the way).