Savings ???

[hadtochangetothisone]

I just want to ask... about 'savings' .

How do people manage this .. I am far from destitute. Earn 42K. Take home £2445. My home costs me £1100 rent. Council tax £217. Commute £345.. (pm figures ) Electric £210 .. Oil ( heating) £145 . Where am I going wrong that there is NOTHING left for savings ?

Where are everyone’s rents so low? That’s standard for a 2bed, gardenless flat where I am.

That’s no far away from a 40 hectare farm where I’m from. A four bedroom house will cost less in private rent than that here. There’s just recently been a 3 bed end terrace up for rent here at 510 a month.

God your rent is so high, why is it so high?

She's probably in the South East, ours is the same and tbh it's a bargain for the area.

Are you married/live with DP? I do save every month but only because DHs salary (just!) covers all the essentials.

Do you have to live and work where you do and live alone?

Your rent, council tax and commuting are the problem, plus your electricity is high for what is presumably a small property.

There's plenty of places where you could rent somewhere a bit cheaper, with lower council tax and electricity, plus if it was closer to work commuting would be less.

But that depends if you're tied to where you live due to work, family etc. Most people have to compromise and cannot have the ideal of living alone in an area of their choosing and for it to be affordable, unless they are a very high earner.

Why is your council tax so high? Why are your commuting costs so high? Is yours the only income?

As usual with these posts you haven't given us the full picture.

Well yeah, higher income or lower outgoings is the only answer really.

Your energy bills are very high for example. Any way you can work from home some of the times and cut the commuting cost down a bit? Although then I guess you'll use the heating and electric more!

Your outgoings are extremely high if you’re paying all bills yourself. When I was on £42k I lived in a shared flat in London. Rent was around £700, bills £100 and maybe another £100 for travel.
Now I earn much more and own a house with DP who also earns over £50k so even though our mortgage is £1,400 there are 2 of us contributing equally so I’m easily able to save £1,000 a month.

Plus we’ve made a decision not to have children for another few years so it doesn’t impact us too much financially which makes a huge difference. We enjoy a very lovely lifestyle with multiple holidays a year which is easily done in a 2 person household with two good full time salaries with no dependents.

I don't have figures to hand, but am pretty sure the majority of people aren't able to actively save anything each month, so you're far from alone. Not to say that's not a shit situation, but sadly the norm not the exception.

Your commute is insane. I commute 1hr to work, like well over 30 miles, and a public transport pass costs me £80 a month. I wouldn't accept a job that was going to cost me £345 a month to get there unless the salary was a lot higher than £42k. £345 x 12 is over £4k, factoring in tax, and NI you need to earn probably £6.5k a year extra before tax to cover that - you aren't really on £42k you are effectively on £36k + travel and actually £36k isn't a lot to be paying that sort of rent, electric and oil costs.

Your bills are very high eg nearly 50% of your wage is on rent and 345 on commuting costs. Can you live closer to work so you're not spending a combined 1500 ish on rent plus commuting ? I've never spent more than 35% of my income on rent or mortgage and my commuting costs have never been more than 200pm (currently 20pw) I wasn't living an easy life on that either.

Basically OP what you are paying in rent and bills is the same as my family of 4 pay for mortgage and bills and our household income is 3 x yours. You're living a lifestyle you can't afford on a salary of £42k with huge commute costs.

We have 2 incomes, a mortgage which is far cheaper than your rent, and our electric and commute costs are about half of yours.

OP not coming back? I was going to add my bit but if not coming back I’ll just sa6 living in the south east has many good points but you do pay for them :/