To ask how much you think a family of 4 need to earn ...

[Jesscarbqueen87]

Minimum for a decent standard of living.

We live a pretty simple life and spend around £22,000 a year with the rest going into savings, which means that we now don't have a mortgage, and have enough saved that neither of us need to work full time, which is lovely. Our house is only half decorated, because we do it up as and when we have surplus spending money, but it's getting there, and the process of gradually making it nice is fun. We eat well, the kids go to excellent schools and have music and sports lessons, we are warm and dry and while we don't go out a lot, we have enough in our budget to do the things that are most important to us. I wouldn't have the self-discipline to live like this alone, but DH is naturally very frugal and has converted me to his ways.

@tabernacles

Well if you count the dog as a child (he does cost about the same), we are a family of 4 with one full-time income of £17k plus tax credits. And we do have a decent standard of living in the sense that all our food and clothes are organic, but we don't really buy anything else. And we save £100pm.

But it does feel like we are struggling all the time, so it would be much easier on £20k+.

How much do you recieve in benefits per year though which is a more accurate measure than "17k is fine". Also of your income goes up 3k your benefits will come down too so of you need 3k more per year, you probably need to earn more like 5-6 given the benefits balance

Yes, I thought rent was ridiculously low. But you can tweak it. I switched it to show our mortgage rather than rent, and changed a few other things. Still came out a similar figure though.

We bring in just shy of £50k but we are in the north so probably makes a difference. Lovely 3 bed detached house in a countryside location. Car each and a holiday every year .. this can range from Devon to Disneyland. I imagine down south the 50k would not go as far.

Week that calculator concisely sums up why I don't work ...

Tweaked to our actual costs, but the first had childcare

Calculator is ridiculous... who has such low housing, energy and childcare bills, and where do they live?? I want to move there!

It went from 22k to 34k for us.

Also, I reckon a "decent" standard of living doesn't mean that your "disposable" income is swallowed up every single month by some thing or other which is needed. We never get very far without someone needing a new coat, shoes, washing machine, phone or an unexpected bill appears or whatever.

80-100k joint income id say

wow, me, DH and 2 kids managed ok for many years on 12-15k

For a decent lifestyle I would say 60k minimum, that's in the SE though and I know other areas are generally a lot cheaper.

@youkiddingme

wow, me, DH and 2 kids managed ok for many years on 12-15k

Is that with HB, tax credits, other benefits etc though You? If so, what was your family income with that on top? We manage on 21k with 3 kids, bit that's because of benefit top ups

I earn £53k, plus decent maintenance, for myself and 2 kids, but live in London and I doesn’t feel like enough for many extras.

Well, we have a combined income of about 75k euro. But we also get over 500€ per month in child benefit, so another 6.5k.
It's enough to save quite a bit as well as not have to worry about fixing the car or what have you.

We managed just fine on about £50k joint income when my husband was at the top of his freelance game. We have a nice house, one car (I use public transport), great holidays and privately educated our sons. I think the clue is that we live in the North East. . Our income now is much less as the DH had to change jobs because of ill health and our joint income in now about £37k but we have paid off the mortgage and certainly don't consider ourselves on the poverty line.

@DTIsOnlyForNow wow that's a lot of CB

I did the income calculator thing, and with no rent/mortgage or childcare, it gave me a minimum income of £10, 500 for a comfortable standard of living. But that's probably a bit generous, because we don't have a car, so don't have those costs, either, and we definitely spend less than the car costs on public transport/taxis/bike maintenance each month.

We have two young DC, a joint income of just under £50k and live comfortably in the South East. We have a car each, a fairly ok holiday once a year and a few day trips, treats, etc. I guess one of the reasons we can live comfortably on this income is that we don't have childcare costs (juggle childcare between my full-time and dh's part-time job) and our mortgage payments are reasonably low. Looking at rental costs for comparible properties in our area, and nursery/after school club costs, we would really struggle if we had to pay for these.