To ask your monthly household income, and how much you save, on average per month?

[NeverGuessWho]

I am BU to ask, I know.

I am a lone parent, earn a low wage, and am on UC, with three teenagers living at home.

My total household income is £2,740 per month (net).

Currently, saving is sporadic, but I need to change my mindset so that saving is prioritised and can be maximised.

I'm just looking for some inspiration and to gage an idea of what's do-able on my income.

Thanks.

All that aside. The point is you are ‘topped up’ to way beyond the average salary. Your income is that of someone who is on just over 45k before tax. You admit yourself you work reduced hours - understandably so.

Long term how is this sustainable in this country? It’s the government’s fault 100%. UC is a racket which allows many employers to pay lower wages. However, it also encourages people to not better themselves and hampers productivity. Yet the ‘middle’ are often squeezed and squeezed to pay for this. Often taking home less than those with top ups. People are getting angry and they are getting fed up. The actual rich with millions in assets are left alone. The people who have worked and got a decent job are the ones paying for it all.

Something has to give; I understand why people get cross. We are an extremely high earning household pay much more than that in tax a month. It is what it is. The people who I feel for are the ones on here who are salaried at 40k-60k and are often a lot worse off than if the dropped hours and went on UC.

If everyone does that - what then?

Either she is and choosing not to claim (and then being a d*ck to those that do for some reason), has teens who are no longer in education and should perhaps be paying their way, she is BS for reasons I don't understand, or has a chunk of change in the bank.

I would rather claim UC to top me up than make my life harder than it needs to be just to be a martyr to complete strangers on the Internet. But we are all different.

We save 20% as a minimum each month but renovating the house has meant this hasn’t happened last 2 months and we have interest free credit cards with £6k on them. Should be paid off by Christmas before the interest kicks in.

€7k a month if you include the child benefit. Usually save 2k a month but currently 3k a month because we're sale agreed on a house (upsizing) and cutting back on miscellaneous expenses to save like mad for the next few months.

A wind up thread. Ignore.

I was also wondering about this.
I appreciate that you said this tongue-in-cheek, but you would be much worse off if you quit your job. In fact, you wouldn't even be entitled to UC if you did that.
It's shit that teachers' wages are so low.

🙄 You didn't ignore though, did you?

@IsitChristmasyet23
I get what you're saying, of course. The system is flawed.

The system is 100% broken. Housing for example has become a source of income for many (including lots of MPs), a lot of people claim housing benefit because rents have become unaffordable and private landlords are laughing all the way to the bank with their wallets full of public money. But none of this has anything to do with the people who are forced to pay high rents on low wages. Getting angry at people who do claim benefits does nothing to change the situation, it just shames those who have to claim to support themselves and their children.

Personally I think we need to tax business more as no one should be getting large dividends when their workforce out earning so little they are subsided by UC. If they don't want to pay proper wages they can pay for them via taxes.

But again no one who is using the system as the government has designed should be shamed in away for doing this. Just like those claiming 30 hours of free childcare or tax free childcare or winter fuel allowance shouldn't be shamed for it.

Carers are mostly minimum wage. Who work full time. People who work in supermarkets, shops for example...

@Runningonjammiedodgers
I agree re huge dividends being paid when the workers' wages are having to be topped up with UC - it's just wrong.

Wow this thread has been an eye opener. I live in a notoriously expensive country and our monthly income is about £5,300.

We‘re classed as a low income family.

We save about £1,000 a month.

You shouldn’t need your wage topped up. You should be paid enough in the first place

I don’t disagree this needs to change. It’s all broken and op is doing no wrong what so ever.

The issue this country now has and it would worry me - if I relied on the state. The people who are paying for it all (not businesses) are getting fed up and their behaviour changes because of it. I don’t begrudge the eye watering tax we pay much higher that op’s take home. However, we can afford it and it’s just a case of working full time in good industry with good qualifications. Generationally, our families are very poor - so no money that way. However, many people in our fields aren’t here anymore - they are in the US. Those that are, will plough pension with bonuses because they are taxed at such a high rate. Less tax for all.

The real issue is that you have people on 50k who are thought of as rich and start to be penalised at every turn - who reduce their hours and start putting more into pension. Most of the time their disposable will be less than someone who gets all their income from top ups and child benefit etc. With more and more people being dragged into higher rate tax, more people are changing their earning and PAYE behaviour. With almost 50% of adults not earning enough to pay tax - the people who are doing the heavy lifting are beginning to refuse and get cross. I don’t blame them and I can’t see why they are called ‘haters’. They are just fed up of putting so much in and getting nothing out. Something will have to give soon and we are seeing this in the state of our NHS and schools.

To answer your question OP, I earn £24k (39 years old), take home about £1600 a month. Mortgage and bills come to about £900. I spend about £250 on 'living' (food and petrol), repay a loan £200 which will be clear in 2 years, and try and save the rest - but it's all easy access and regularly eaten into for Christmas, car insurance, going to a wedding, etc etc. I currently have £800 savings to my name. My income will go up to £28k next month and I'll be definitely saving more rather than spending more.

I'm extremely lucky my parents would bail me out (with repayment in due course!) if I had an unexpected major issue like needing a new boiler. Otherwise I would be extremely worried about how little buffer I had.

I imagine 3 teenagers eat you out of house and home and there's pressure for tech gadgets etc. As a rough guide, from my limited knowledge of friends and family in similar situations, if you could save close to 10% of your income I think you're doing much better than most.

Household income is just shy of 6K after tax. We never manage to save anything! We do have good pensions though.

At the moment only £50 a month, as a direct debit to buy premium bonds. But if you haven't got one I highly recommend starting a government help to save account. You pay in £50 a month and the government puts in £25 bonus. Its locked for 4 years but you get you're 1st bonus paid after 2. Mine closed in January but it's made a massive difference to my financial security knowing I have some emergency cash set aside. https://www.gov.uk/get-help-savings-low-income

How many kids do you have?

I’m a lone parent but get just under £1800 a month which includes UC.

I don’t have much savings and things are tight but we manage ok.

If I was getting an extra £1k a month I’d be laughing.

I think it's an absolute joke that people earning over 50k can't claim child benefit. There is no other logic behind it other than it makes it easier for HMRC to police than using combined income. Universal benefits are really important as it makes everyone feel like they are getting something out of the system and helps prevent the kind of ill will you refer to. Wealth distribution happens through taxation and high earners put more in by way of taxes. It makes sense to me for them to get some universal benefits to.

Exactly - however this country is blinded by the politics of envy and its short-termist. You saw the outrage about the pension breaks. That was to encourage the highest tax payers in the country, to earn more and therefore pay more tax - even though the headline rate was less because of pension break. Also - we are not distributing wealth. The rich with millions and billions are getting richer. The people with decent jobs, who aren’t often materially rich because they’ve just done well career wise. They are taxed to oblivion.

The minute someone on here says they are reducing hours at 60k as they are worse off. People scream that they are rich and selfish when often- they won’t actually be clearing much more (if at all) than some topped up families. Due to child benefit, tax, etc.

Then, those people on 100k who explain that they work less because (with children) they will be roughly 10k per year, per child worse off for every penny over £99,999. This is withdrawal of free childcare, loss of personal allowance on top of tax. They are told they don’t need it and they shouldn’t get these things for free. Problem is - they say fine - and reduce their hours to stay under 100k. No-one is going to work for free and to be thousands worse off. Many will need a 50k pay rise to break even at this taxation level. Often justified by many on here. Tough - they are rich. It’s temporary. Problem is, these people change their behaviour, reducing productivity and they pay less tax than they could. It’s one of the biggest jobs given to accountants - keep me below 100k. Especially between 100-150k. This was part of the issue with consultants and them capping pensions. Oh and dentists.

If a tiny slice of the population are being taxed to oblivion and abused for not paying enough, even at marginal rates which can exceed 100% - they stop. Especially if they are getting nothing in return.

Until this country can respect people in professions and people who earn a good salary through a days work without wanting to take it all - then it’s going to get a whole lot worse. People on really middle incomes - some 30k above average are often better dropping hours and paying less tax. If everyone does that - who is funding the huge percentage of the population on benefits? It’s short term economics. I see the welfare system, NHS and education system changing as we know it within our lifetimes. Which is why I’ll make sure our children are supported to get a good education because we certainly were not.

Take home is £7500 pcm.
£2000 on school fees.
£1200 on mortgage.
£800 on bills
£2000 on savings
£1500 on food, holidays, fun etc

That’s marginally less than our household income for two. One full time one 25 hours

we manage to save about £600 ish a month however we had a great long term fix on the energy thats about to run out so going to be reducing that down significantly. Most of that goes into saving for a house, the rest for emergency expenses like white goods breaking, car bills, extra school clothing for the LO etc

Where do you live that 5,300 pound/mo. income gets classified as a "low income family"? That is really high!

You will be entitled to UC if your income is that low. Mine is higher than yours and I only have one child and I get UC.

Then maybe check your universal credit before judging the op. You are entitled to it too and if not, then there is a good reason for it.

Err, I'm not judging OP in the slightest - just said that her income was not low. I am no entitled yo UC as I have just over the threshold savings (which are earmarked for replacing my heating system & will probably use most of it so, naybe, after that, I will be able to claim). Giving an opinion does not automatically nean you are judging someone. As OP said (?) in a previous post, MN is full of aggressive responses.