To think that 60k is a lot of money to earn a year?!

[MinkSlink]

I think it is a lot of money to earn per year but it seems a lot of people on mumsnet don't think so, am I in the piss poor minority here or what?!

And how much does your brother spend to commute to London Bridge?

I tried for 2 years to live in London. The cheapest place I could find to rent was £800 pm. Nursery was £880 per month. Can't remember how much I paid for travel, but the further out you go, the more you spend. I didn't run a car - couldn't afford it.

Maybe I am just a blinkered privileged fool, but I just couldn't see how I could make it work. So I left.

so because footballers earn huge amounts people who earn more than 95% of the rest of the uk arnt earning much if it took them a few years of study?

out of intrest kensington how much exactly do you think a unemployed lone parent with 3 kids gets?

In 2010 there was a freedom of information request asking for the 20 highest benefit claims in my local borough. I have cut and pasted the results, but if you google you'll find the link.

-L-4,225.00
-L-4,225.00
-L-4,225.00
-L-4,225.00
-L-4,192.93
-L-3,965.00
-L-3,683.33
-L-3,520.83
-L-3,520.83
-L-3,466.67
-L-3,466.67
-L-3,401.67
-L-3,396.99
-L-3,313.92
-L-3,228.33
-L-3,223.91
-L-3,217.93
-L-3,033.33
-L-3,033.33
-L-2,990.00

Do also note that rents have risen between 10-15% in the borough since then.

Also consider the well-known case of John Hutton, the former MP, and his wife. They are must earn the best part of half a million quid a year and have a 5 bed house. Who lives next door, for free? Abu Hamza's wife and her one child.

These people are laughing at us and we're paying for it.

spero - I'd have to ask him, but obviously he can afford it. They don't earn anything like 40k. They just had to decide how to balance living costs and travel costs.

I'm not saying it's particularly easy or fun, but some people obviously do make it work. Families do live and work in London. They do not all earn a bomb.

And the point I keep making is that I just don't understand how someone can afford to rent/buy, pay for travel card, nursery fees, council tax, utility bills and food in London on much less than I earned.

I kept adding up my outgoings and they came to same enormous figure. Even if I had rented one room in a shared house, nursery and travel fees remain the same.

I had very little to spend on anything not related to running my home, travel or childcare.

My brother and his girlfriend are in their 20s and probably earn about £20,000 to £25,000 each. They rent in zone 2 and have a large 3 bed flat that costs £1400 per month. They let one of the rooms to a friend. The rent is very cheap for this area because it is a rather shabby unfurnished flat, with tiny kitchen (no dishwasher) above a takeaway shop. They have begged, borrowed and freecycled all their furniture and have decorated and improved the flat as much as they can. They use the bus, not tube to travel. I think all of this is perfectly fine and pretty much exactly the same kind of lifestyle and level of income I had when I was in my 20s all those years ago.

I live in London so I understand the issues around housing costs.

However, around 7m people live in London which means that about 50m don't. So even if some people find living in London hard on £60K it is not representative of the position in the UK as a whole.

Oh and shared ownership - Notting Hill Housing incomes are
£19K - single
£21K - couple
+£2,400 per child

There are only 3 kinds of families living in London, LRD

Those with a household income that exceeds six figures
Those who bought their family homes before the early Noughties
Those on benefits

In giving the example of your family member, you're also failing to acknowledge the small savings when there are two of you - you can split the bills between you. Council tax only discounts 25%; petrol costs the same whether there are 2 of you or 1 of you.

LRD where does your brother live? I need to know how to reduce my rent!

Mintyy - so they could never afford to have a child?

They will probably have to wait a few years Spero, or move to somewhere cheaper. As I said, at the moment they are in zone 2.

Bollocks, kensington. That's just a lie.

ethel - East Molsey. Other mates found Tooting is good for cheap rents, and that's much closer in.

Of course £60000 is a good whack. Our household income is about that, and we don't live in luxury because of where we've chosen to live and the fact that we have no handy, free childcare. Those two things have cost us, but the first one is a choice. What we have is financial security of sorts, and enough of what we need to not have to think about it too hard.

I was born into a complete lack of wealth (though not poverty) and I feel incredibly privileged every day not to be going to bed in a room with mouldy walls, to have enough clothes that I can miss a day of laundry and we'll be fine. That said, the jobs we do now would have given us a totally different lifestyle thirty or forty years ago. Think huge house in the country and a flat in town for work, a couple of months in Italy for the summer, private education for the children...I could not possibly complain, though I do get a bit irked when people assume that we live like that now. (Has happened.)

It's very clear you don't live in inner London, LRD and therefore you're the one talking bollocks.

When you've tried living here on £60k, then you can come back and tell us all how rich you felt and how wonderful your life was.

kensington

since last year there has been something called the local housing allowence that limits the amount housing benefit will pay, so a person with 3 children in kensington will only be able to recive a max of £340 per week towards rent so 1473.33 a month and 17680. a year, if they have more rooms than 3 and the rent is more no more will be payable so.

Unless someone can actually break down some figures for me rather than saying a member of their family lives in a shoe for 50p I agree with Kensington.

The further out you go in London, the more you pay for travel so I am not sure you save much on slightly cheaper rents.

What do you mean by inner London kensington?

We have a household income of quite a lot more than £60,000 but we don't expect to be able to afford to live in zone 1 on it, not in a house anyway.

That doesn't mean £60,000 isn't a good salary [hconfused].

Mintyy, you are so right about the scrimping in your twenties. We did the same: lots of borrowed furniture, we did get gifts from people sometimes (eg a new sofa) and that made a huge difference, finding the cheapest way to rent, not having children (didn't want to until my 30s), also working in the evenings for extra money on top of ft jobs, backpacking holidays in hostels not hotels.
I look back quite fondly to be honest. I never felt hard done by but if I ever filled in a survey that asked about income, I was always ticking the box at the bottom of the list.

Nor would I call tooting close in. I would rather commute by train than do the northern line.

What do you mean by inner London kensington?

Zones 1-3.

I'm peeing my pants at East Molesey being conflated with London.

sorry it should say if they have more rooms or the rent is more its a case of tough.

kensington - no, I don't, and I never said I did.

It doesn't prevent me being perfectly well aware that many people manage to live there on less than 60k.

spero - well, if you can afford to choose, choose!

Most people do not have an income of 60k. Most people do not get to choose.

Some people work bloody hard to make things work, and it'd just be nice if they got a little recognition instead of the rich complaining that they don't get to live in Notting Hill and buy the Bentley.

Spero
The rents aren't just slightly cheaper though are they. The difference between zone 2 and zone 3 can be fairly large. The difference in annual travel costs between zones 1-2 and 1-3 is £200. So for a couple even paying £50 pm less in rent between zones 2 and 3 would save you money every year.

Well I'm on 3/4 of that and in Greater London that doesn't go a long way at all. We do scrimp and save and we are certainly not comfortably off by anyone's standards.

£60,000 seems like a lot but it depends where you live - this is my bugbear with the whole Children's Allowance debacle. If you live in some parts of the country (which are cheaper than London and other major cities) and don't have childcare issues, £45,000 - £60,000 I'm sure would seem like riches but truly in London it is not!

kensington - I said it was the suburbs. It is.