Is £1k a month enough to live on?

[EL8888]

I was debating with my mother whether it was possible for a person to live on £1,000 per month. Bearing in mind there is no rent / mortgage to pay (house is paid for), no debts and they own a newish car plus they have a Freedom card to use. They live alone with no dependents or pets. I said it was enough and she said it really wasn’t

Well yes, it is most definitely liveable on.

But, if they want holidays, meals out etc it could be tough.

DH’s salary covers all of our essential household bills (on paper, we do split them in reality) and I earn roughly £1750 a month after tax which is what we have for everything else (including food, holidays etc.) It sounds like loads but it really isn’t TBH. We do have to have 2 cars as we live rurally & both need to drive to work in different directions at different times with no public transport.

@coffeerunner It is loads

My bills (approx) for me & 2 children:
Mortgage (IO) £260
Gas & Elec £120 (includes some debt)
Water & Sewerage £50
Phone/Broadband £60
Mobile (x2) £20
House insurance £35
Tv Licence £13
Pet insurance £40
Children's clubs £14
Children's savings £20
Savings for xmas/bdays £20
General savings £20
Groceries £120
Debt £80
Travel £40
Overdraft fee £8
£920
Leaves me about £45 a week for clothes, shoes, toiletries, presents for lots of kids parties(!), house maintenance, leisure activities, books/stationery for home ed DS, sundries. I find it very tight.

Bills are the thing. Council tax varies, electricity and gas bills depend on how large and efficient the house is, household and car insurance need to be kept up and a car isn't free to run!

These days, Internet connection is pretty much an essential and let's not forget water rates and drainage.

After that you look at what you can afford to eat, wear and do!

DH and I are mortgage-free and we put £1000 into the joint account for all the above - no debts to pay, just bills and running costs for two people. It doesn't include insuring, taxing and running cars, either. Things would be very thin if that £1000 were all we had, but there are two of us, I guess.

What would happen when the car needed new tyres or the fridge broke down? A holiday now and again woukd be out of reach, or even eating out now and again.

Before you decide, look at the current bills.

Absolutely enough, that's £250pw

No. It's on average £230 a week.

Only one month a year has four weeks in it.

Depends how much bills are. The big factor is whether you pay council tax or not.

Plus money aside for hair, dentist, replacing household items, clothes.

It is doable but I think you would need to look at how you shop for food- homemade meals go a lot further.

is this a joke?

i have about 300 to buy food and petrol once my bills are paid.

and kids.

cut your cloth.

@carly2803 sadly not. I completely disagree with the viewpoint it’s not

I wouldn’t want to do it. No holidays, no meals out, worrying about unexpected bills. A couple on just state pensions would get £1300 every four weeks.

Op, I know it's not your mum. Your mum thinks that your relative has it hard and that it is hard to live on 1k?

@flirtygirl yep she thinks she’s got it really harsh. I wanted to check on here but it seems people on the whole share my opinion

For one person with no rent / mortgage, pets or debts then yes it should be. However you don’t give much info on the car and whether the car is on finance or owned outright, how much the finance is and how much tax and insurance they pay, is it a fuel efficient car or a fuel guzzler. If the car is owned outright then they should be able to live reasonably comfortably on that but if they pay a few hundred pounds in finance and have a high insurance and tax rate and possibly high fuel costs then its probably enough to just about scrape by.

1 bed flat in the SW

£500 rent
£100 elec, oil, water
£100 CT
£35 car ins, tax
£80 fuel
£30 landline/internet
£10 PAYG mobile
£6 Now TV
£100 shopping

£961 per month.

I earn approx £1100 PM (a bit more in the summer months) self employed as a cleaner/dog walker/animal carer. My choice to live a very frugal life and work within my 'MHand energy' limits (I'm certain it's HFA).

It's tough and can be a bit stressful when I have to pay for anything other than those needs above but it can be done.

And yes, I'm registered HMRC and paid £450 NI contributions in Jan, didn't earn enough for tax.

Yes definitely enough

To exist on? Yes, in the short term.
To live on with all the unexpected expenses life throws at you? I know I'd struggle.

If you have no rent or mortgage, then, yes.

Does your mother know what the so-called "flat rate" pension is? Or jobseekers allowance?

Of course people can spend more if they have it.

Of course most people would like to be richer than they are.

Depending on exact hours worked, the Living Wage for full time employment is around £20k per year in London and about £17k elsewhere. But obviously that includes the cost of a mortgage/rent and is before tax and ni is deducted. So if you look at the take home amount of the 17k a year outside London figure it's around 15k a year. So unless your mortgage or rent is less than £250 a month or £3k a year (which must be the case for very few people), then that leaves you with less than 12k a year (1k a month) to live on. So the Living Wage foundation are basically saying, yes, you can live on £1k a month:
www.livingwage.org.uk/calculation

It's lucky your mother isn't a Tory. She wouldn't get on with Iain Duncan Smith.

www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/apr/01/iain-duncan-smith-live-benefits

We get £974 per calendar month, no mortgage. Admittedly I sell on eBay etc to earn a little extra. It will be another year for our pensions to kick in.
We own our car but still walk a lot, get cheap rail tickets, not big drinkers, cheap cinema tickets. Hunt for the best bargains. We have more clothes than we need.
We don't feel as though we deprive ourselves.

@PigletJohn no. Despite being from “the generation that had it hardest” (her words, not mine 🙄) then no, l don’t think she does

@GlitteryUnicornSparkles like l said it’s owned outright. Plus being blunt why get a fuel guzzler and then plead poverty -but l know people do that

For me yes. However I am single and childless and still live with my parents so pay a minimal amount of rent. My only big outgoing is my car which I only use to drive to work and back so a tank of petrol lasts 4-6 weeks. I also have no social life so that helps 😂😂 so it is possible but depends entirely on your circumstances.

OP, I’ve lived on the equivalent of less than £1000 in the past, but the big difference was that I was young. I cycled or walked everywhere, cooked all my food with cheap market vegetables, made sandwiches for lunch and lived in cheap flat shares.

By middle age I didn’t have the energy to do all that any more. OK I was working and pensioners aren’t. But I see how much my older relatives and inlaws have slowed down and I really feel for those on tight pensions.

Sounds like plenty to me, but I live up north and am a bit of a homebody so that may skew things. My monthly take home is £900 - £1000 ish. Half goes to household bills and mortgage and I always have enough left over each month to take care of several pets and the odd unexpected bills/car maintenance and some towards saving 'for a rainy day'.