To ask what your life would look like on 60k

[Thecherryhotel]

What do you think your life would look like if you and your partner earned around 30k each per annum? Would you both work full time or would one of you be able to go part time? Would this be enough to support you and the children you have? Would it be impossible? How would you feel?

I do earn just over this on my own so probably similar take home .

I have 2 adult kids currently not charging rent etc but they do pay own personal bills so do I count ?

We do ok , slightly overpaying the mortgage , have savings pots and do 3 reasonable holidays a year ( Easter weekend Europe , Uk cottage week July , and week September all inclusive wherever is cheaper )

It would be doable, we would just have to budget more closely and limit days out/takeaways.

Thankfully we could still cover our bills on c4k per month.

Well considering me and DH don't earn 60k between us and now ean even less as I've had to give up work yes it's absolutely doable. We have 3: children and it's still doable.
That's why I get so annoyed by people claiming they can't cope on 60k. It's not impossible to do.

The OP didn’t ask if it would be ‘doable’ though, she asked what your life would be like. What sort of lifestyle would you have?

We’ve done it on £60k with three children and a mortgage. We are a single income family though, so take home is a lot less than a couple on £30k each, where you have two personal allowances, no 40% tax rate and you’re still entitled to child benefit. A couple on £30k each like in your example would be significantly better off.

I would be glad that my pension income was about a third higher than median for the UK, and I'd be able to afford considerably more (including decent heating in winter, even though I'd be losing the fuel payment)

But I'd still shake my head a bit theatrically when the ageist stereotype of "rich pensioners" is glibly trotted out, especially as those near the median but not on pensions credit are going to find things quite a bit tighter (Martin Lewis has been talking about this)

This is what we earn PA, the split is slightly different (partner earns more and I work 4 days a week). Perhaps we are not that great with money as we don't often have funds for extras like holidays, days out etc (we do have them occasionally but have to think carefully and not been abroad since 2016). No savings for doing things around the house etc. but I would say we are fairly comfortable, children don't go without and do extra curricular hobbies and always clothes and food on the table x

We wouldn't be able to pay our bills.

Are you writing an article?

This was mine and my DH’s joint salary when we left university 23 years ago and were trainees. It was fine then but I couldn’t do it now.

Oh yeah forgot to say we are in south east - anywhere else and we could make it go much further

It would be doable, but we'd have to have less days out and maybe drop some extra curriculars for the DC.
It would be hard to save much, whereas now we put away a bit each month.

We bring home £4k

Last year we had seven weekends away
One 10 day holiday in Croatia
Partner had two separate weeks away with friends abroad
We have two teenagers who do hobbies
We live in the south east
We don't have money for home improvements or to save but don't struggle with anything else
Our mortgage is £900

I'd live like a king. Honestly, I can't imagine such riches!

So we earn around £68k combined at the moment. We live in Sussex with a 1.4% mortgage til next August. We have two children (3 and 0) and life is comfortable just by virtue of luck really. Son became eligible for 30 free hours childcare in Jan which improved our situation massively and by the time daughter needs to go in Feb next year she'll be eligible for 15 free hours so we'll not be paying full whack for childcare ever again. We have no parental help re childcare so it's currently full time for son until he starts pre-school in Sept and will be full time for daughter until school too. Thankfully she is a spring baby so we've saved ourself a year's extra cost there. Son will be nearly five by the time he starts.

We go on two foreign holidays per year, take the kids out at the weekend, have savings... We don't buy much otherwise though. Holidays and days out are the priority. I get my hair cut four times a year, I make rather than buy myself new clothes. Kids stuff comes from Vinted or eBay.

We couldn't afford to not work full time though.

That's give or take our income.

We do ok. Mortgage paid, we afford treats and holidays. No savings though really. But both have pensions and we have been doing bits about the house

Our combined is around £100k… our mortgage is 2/3rds of one wage- we’d be able to cover bills, however nothing else. We both work full time as it is so we’d have to look for better jobs if we earnt that much

We’d be fucked.

We’d have to sell our house. Probably get rid of the doggy fostering we do. No holidays.

Live well within our means as it is (£1-1.5K savings a month between us), but £60K wouldn’t be viable and that’s with 60% equity in our house that isn’t even big.

It really depends what's your outgoings, and I mean necessities. In London it would be a struggle, but in different parts of U.K. it would be easier as your rent/mortgage wouldn't be as high.

We’d struggle to meet our costs so we’d probably have to move to reduce our mortgage

Dh and I earn this. We still get tax free child care which helps, but generally we have to watch the pennies. All the bills get paid and we are clothed and fed. We save to overpay the mortgage by 5k a year and have a caravan holiday a year.
However we rarely buy new clothes, own our car outright and rarely eat takeaways. One tv subscription service at a time, a bank account which gives us cashback on utilities and no overdraft. I never get my nails done, botox or extensions or highlights. All these things our friends and colleagues get, so their budget must be bigger/tighter.
We have a small 2 bed semi with no drive. South east is rubbish!

Bills wouldn’t be paid. One of us, or both of us, would have to take a second job.

The day to day wouldn’t need to change much but there would be less money available to put in savings.

Our school fees, school trips and holiday camps for 2 DC come to £45kish. I don’t know what everything else adds up to. DH and I are equally matched on income, but finances are his department. Life would look wholly different on £60k gross.

Edited as I forgot after school care is another £6k a year 🤦🏼‍♀️

Skint. One or both of us would have to find new jobs and our lifestyle would dramatically change. School fees, food shopping, holidays and our mortgage would become unaffordable.

We would be significantly worse off.