Sufficient income for a couple

[Isaidwhatisaid1]

A couple in the North with no children, rent and bills is £800 altogether. How much combined income would you say is needed to live 'reasonably', not a champagne lifestyle but not the bare bones either.

I put away £30 a month for Christmas (no children) but that is for the extra food/booze as well as presents.

My rent is 500, my bills are 300, so very similar outgoings to you. We are comfortable on £23k and don't feel like we are going without anything we want.

DH and I both pay £1.2k each into joint account. This pays for everything.
Mortgage (£1k we overpay)
Food
Electricity
Gas
Water rates
Council tax
Life insurance
Fuel for car
Dentist
Vet for cats/dogs
School trips/uniform
Takeaway
Child's activities
Car mot/bills
TV Virgin entertainment package including Sky Sports and BT Sports

We pay for gifts, mobile phones and holidays out of our own spending money.

£20k is very low, especially for 2 incomes. I'm guessing one of you doesn't work or you're both very part time.
Are you able to increase work hours? Do you have children?

Sorry just noticed you said no children. Are you students?

Hi OP
We still have a dependant and manage quite well on anything 16k+
Also NW, so a lot cheaper to live up here.
My food shop is around £50 per week, as eat fresh everyday.
Household adds up to around £50 a month inc toiletries.

So if you are currently making £20k
Is that enough? What are you going without? How short are you every mont? What would you like to add you your lifestyle that you can't currently afford? I think that will tell you more than us telling our own numbers.

@borntobequiet

Then add on an amount per month for "gifts"

Really? It’s never occurred to me to do this, and I’ve never needed to.

Do you not think it makes sense to add that to the budget?

It's a regular outgoing for most people, I'd think.

A few birthdays and Christmas presents to buy could easily be at least £25+ per month through the year. I expect for many people it's more than that.

To live comfortably your mandatory spending (housing, light, heat, council tax, water) should be about 35% of your take home pay each month. So if that's your 800, I'd be looking to have a net total pay of about 2k a month.

@borntobequiet

Then add on an amount per month for "gifts"

Really? It’s never occurred to me to do this, and I’ve never needed to.

In that case, it's likely that you've got plenty of slack in your budget that you can cope with ups and downs in expenditure.

However, if you don't have a decent amount of spare money, it's good to think about such variables, so you don't find yourself short at Christmas, because you haven't saved for it and you don't have enough spare to pay for it out of December (and possibly November and/or January) income depending on when you buy things and overdraft/credit card usage.

Also, the cost of Christmas isn't just gifts, but extra food and drink, maybe a Christmas Tree, work meal out, possibly a new outfit, charity and/or food bank donations and probably other things that will stretch a tight budget if you haven't planned in advance.

I object to these folk that say £20 is a lot on food, how why, I average £40 with cst and I, and semi veggie.
I want to eat well

Eatwell study a couple of years old said that to eat healthily in the uk would typically cost over £40 per week per adult

It also said that a very large.., perhaps 1 in 4 ... people basically couldn't afford this

I would probably need at least 3k a month take home pay to feel somewhat comfortable and maybe be able to put a little away for a rainy day. Actually that would even be a bit tight some months. It really depends on your own spending habits and needs though.

Well a couple of years ago DH was unemployed and we lived off my salary of £15.5k and paid £600 a month in rent (North West). And we were fine and enjoyed a nice lifestyle although the issue was mainly that we couldn't save on top but in terms of just living it was fine.

Our bills total around £1700 and between us we take home around £4300. We probably have the nice level of life you are talking about. So, £2500 left approx after bills.

Oh and that's with saving around £1000 a month.

Oh and food on top of that bills figure. I'm getting there lol... so around £1000 left to spend after ALL bills, food and savings.

I think 'sufficient' is a very unhelpful word. It can mean 'can pay for everything I need' or it can mean 'can buy lots of nice things'.

OP - you need to do your own budget!

If you've an extra 300-600 to play with after ALL necessities (food, bills, transportation ect) each month then you should be able to live comfortably. Though an extra grand would be great.

Similar outgoings and 2 people have been living on 15 grand a year for more than decade. I would suggest a bit more as funds for holidays and house fixing have been short. 40k would definitely be enough and even 25 would suffice I think.

I lived with a combined income of around 24k (some months were different as I worked sporadically- only up to 200 quid extra a month) with a £750 mortgage and 2 kids. In SW which was similar to Northern living costs at the time. We lived comfortably but no holidays. Just about £1000 a month for food and other expenses.

Before kids our income was about 60k combined, which gave us enough to save for a home and mortgage. I can't imagine 20k goes very far, even for one person.

@shivawn

I would probably need at least 3k a month take home pay to feel somewhat comfortable and maybe be able to put a little away for a rainy day. Actually that would even be a bit tight some months. It really depends on your own spending habits and needs though.

That’s about what we earn and still manage to save a fair chunk of it, go on long haul holidays, buy what we want, even living in the southeast with a mortgage of over £1000 a month. MN really is a different world sometimes!

MN really is a different world sometimes!

It's the world of extremes where people either spend £5 per person per month on food and anything over is indulgence or they spend £500 and anything below is subpar quality obviously.

I think you need to be clearer in your mind what you will need to spend.
So not just your monthly standing orders or direct debits, but all the irregular things you pay too
Things like your TV licence once a year, but I think you'd need to budget in about £13 pm to pay that once a year.
Then things like getting your hair cut. No, you don't need to spend vast amounts on it, but at some point most people do get a hair cut.
Someone mentioned presents. True, if you are down to your last pennies, they aren't 'essential' , but, most people get someone something for Christmas / birthday.

You mention in a post "all except electricity which is on PAYG". Well that is the most expensive way to have to pay for your electricity, so you need to budget a regular amount for that. Difficult for anyone on this thread to guess how much you will use.

Then you make decisions like not taking out insurance for things to save money, but then you will need to have savings to cover replacements of those items you consider essential if lost / stolen / broken - be that your fridge or your mobile phone.

If you are saving for a 'goal' for a set term, then it is okay to go to the bare bones of your spending, but if you are talking about long term lifestyle, then you need to allow yourself 'treats' - be that a short holiday or something much smaller like a night out or even a takeaway coffee.