To ask about London and money

[Maisy313]

How much do you think you need to earn as a working couple to support a family of four (one year old and reception aged child) in London and have a reasonable standard of living? Would just be really interested in your thoughts... Someone told me it was impossibly to survive on less than a joint income of 100k in London which seems exceptionally high to me...

As I said you'd be comfortable.

A two bed flat starts at £300k, so not cheap either. And then there's the consideration of making sure you are in catchment for a school that you can walk to both the school and the tube, to get to work in time...

Me and my husband are on a combined income of about £60k and live in a 2 bed flat in a decent part of Zone3. We don't have kids and as we're late 40s/early 50s and I'm having a hysterectomy next week we're not going to be having any! (We're not childless by choice).

I think that we're lucky in that we bought our flat in the mid 90s when property prices were expensive but if you had a reasonable salary still affordable. We bought on a shared ownership (we were priority as we were in council accommodation before and we're both in nursing). At the time the HA we were dealing with had a scheme where you could find a property on the open market and the HA could go into it with you so that's what we did.

Since then, my parents both sadly died and we used the inheritance to buy out the HA and pay off the mortgage.

I would really, really hate to be a first time buyer in London. I've lived here all my life and I think it's really sad that those younger than me don't have the same option and also can't get social housing because there's practically none left.

We spend about £1,000 per month on our mortgage and council tax and consider ourselves to be pretty comfortable on a joint income of about £90,000 ish (varies due to being self employed). We have two secondary aged children and no childcare costs.

I find it hard to understand why you feel you live a "basic London life" on £120,000 vulgarbunting (sorry to mention you in particular, but your post really stood out to me) as you have no children.

£1000 per month on a mortgage is really not much these days, though. I'm guessing your mortgage must be around £150,000? Anyone who has recently bought won't have a £150K mortgage unless they had an eyewateringly large deposit. It would not be unlikely for someone to be spending at least twice that on housing costs per month.

Indole, I was addressing my question to a poster with a joint income of £120,000 whose rent is £1,350.00 per month and who has no children.

But thanks for pointing out the perfectly obvious!

To say £100k is a very high salary is misguided. If you are living in London it is a pauper salary. Just as $250k a year income in NYC still qualifies you for buying affordable housing units if you are supporting one or more children. Yeah you can move out but when your job has odd hours public transportation doesn't provide options that are viable.

I think people posting on here who are living in London on less than £40k a year either bought years ago, inherited a home or live in a housing authority/ receive housing benefits. There is just no way someone on such a low salary could support a child in London let alone two.

£100,000 is a very high salary. The cost of living is high in London, but that doesn't mean £100,000 isn't a high salary. To say it is a "pauper" salary is ludicrous.

Yeah I do look around and I see those who are making less than that struggle. They have 2 kids to a bedroom through necessity. They have to watch every penny like a hawk and school is a big issue.

Now our income is higher than that. We could live in Manhattan but choose not to because living just over the water in NJ offers us a much higher standard of living. I think the same applies in London. Given our impending family size of 2 adults, 3 kids under 5 and a golden you wouldn't see me living in London but much much further out in surrey, Essex or Kent.

I think that what I meant is that a comfortable standard of living to me is having a family home, with a garden, in a nice area, where each child has a bedroom and each adult has

I've just used the Institute of Fiscal studies income comparison gizmo thingy and put in a household income of £120,000 and council tax payment of £200 (that's a guess by the way) and only two adults living in the house, and the result was that the people living in that household have an income higher than 98% of the population.

The population as a whole...not the population of London

Ah, I'm beginning to see. Yes, we have a nice house with a garden in an attractive London suburb (which ... yes, we bought years ago!) but our children had to share a bedroom for about 5 years and we can only afford one foreign holiday per year and we have much longer than 45 minutes commutes too. We go out for dinner as a family about 8 to 10 times per year. Still feel very lucky and well off though.

Cactus how much is your rent / mortgage?

Yes, the population as a whole.

Really, the only thing that is more expensive about London is housing though, isn't it? I know its a massive thing.

Your joint take home pay must be more than £6,000 per month? After you've paid your rent you've got £4,650. Presumably you're saving like mad for a deposit?

At Charing Cross Hospital it's a 10 min walk from Hammersmith tube, or more helpfully from a housing perspective 15 minute cycle/30 minute bus from Shepherds Bush overground which connects to some cheaper areas. West London is pretty much the epicentre of the London property and schools crisis so I'm not sure I would even start with the notion of walking/short commute to the hospital.

I guess I am just angry that I have an income that, yes is large compared to the rest of the population, but I am being essentially kicked out of a city I love because it is impossible in our situation to find a family house in a nice area with a decent commute.

My DH does crazy hours. To add an hour each way commuting just seems like we would have no quality of life.

All our friends (similar incomes) are leaving London.

Mintyy...to be fair we have just paid for a wedding so feeling a little poorer than usual. And yes, desperately hoarding money for a deposit.

Can you not buy a 1 or 2 bedroom flat, rather than rent?

You could save £40,000 in a year on your salaries.

We want to start a family in the next couple of years, so need to buy more than a one/two bed. With stamp duty it doesn't make sense to buy small and then sell again in a few years time, as the house won't have increased enough in value to justify it.

There are other (nightmare inlaw related) factors which I won't go into but also have affected us buying.