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?

That would be a monthly take home of about £3.5
We have
Mortgage 1.5k a month
Council tax £300 a month
Electric, water gas and Internet £500 per month
After school club/holiday clubs £300 per month
So that would leave us 900 a month for food, insurances, phone bills, petrol, our girls extra curriculars (dance, Brownies, Rainbows,swimming lessons, drama).
I think it would be doable, but no holidays, meals out, no new clothes for adults

We earn a lot more but save 50% +. So we would save less I guess

It's over 20k more a year for my house hold of 4 children and a smallish mortgage.
I'm a carer for one of my dc so I'm at home with him as a sahp.
My dp is working his way up in work and is now on the management team, the pay isn't wonderful but we manage successfully.
Holidays are UK based because of dcs needs, clothes are vinted, meals are planned out, days out we take picnics etc instead of meals in restaurants unless a special occasion.

It's not enough to be frivolous by any means but our dc have a lovely life and dp and I are very happy.

If our lifestyle was skiing in the alps, we enjoyed pricey hobbies, beauty treatments or had a huge mortgage we'd have to sell a few kidneys but luckily that's not an issue for us 😉

It would be a struggle for us. I currently earn almost that (£27k) working 3 days a week, DH earns a lot more.

We absolutely could survive on it, especially as DDs are now at school so no nursery fees but probably not in our current house which is a large house in an expensive area (South East England.) If we downsized and cut our cloth to suit, of course we could manage on it but we'd be losing lots of things we enjoy and find important (foreign holidays, savings and investments, lots of space in the house etc.)

We don't have children and earn approx. that amount between us and manage just fine 🤷‍♀️

Now it would be fine- but twenty years ago we wouldn’t have this house.
We were both high earners, only LA jobs nothing spectacular but we started young and worked our way up. I hated my job so recently took a huge pay cut, sideways step and down. On around £40k plus now (at the top of the scale).

DH wants to retire at 55 or go part time and do his hobby which is well paid.
I’d stick at full time for now.
Mortgage is done. Will probably both get sizeable inheritances at some point in the future.

If we were both young and on £30k I think we would be ok, smaller house and not such a nice area but still comfortable I think. Could probably still retire early ish. If you throw in children I’m
not so sure.

Similar to curent income slightly more. Life is ok mortgage was fixed so not crippling us. 2 teens not at uni yet.
Can scrape to for a holiday abroad but all organised ourselves so cheaper than package.
Run 2 vehicles but struggle if major problems to pay for.
No savings for things like new boiler or car if needed that's where I struggle.
Yes we could save instead of a holiday but want a family holiday whilst teens still keen.
Things like clothes and redecorating or home improvements are low on the list but do bits when money allows.
Will probably need to cut back when DD goes to Uni as need to support living costs part.
Can afford cinema or takeaway and odd theatre or shopping trips.
Good equity in house if ever needed to downsize.

Not good for us as it would represent a huge paycut for us both.

That would just cover our bills. We both have second jobs for this reason.

I’m single on £21k so earning £60k would be a massive improvement to my quality of life if nothing else changed such as housing, outgoings. I’d actually be able to afford to have holidays though!

DH and I earned that when we bought our first house and didn't have children and I agree, it was fine. But throw two children into the mix and it gets a lot more expensive. Our nursery bills at one point were £1500 a month, then we bought a bigger house as what had been lovely for DH and I was starting to feel cramped for a family of four.

If we hadn't had the children and stayed on that income we'd still be in our little house but probably with the mortgage paid off by now.

Well, that’s slightly more than I’m bringing as sole earner, so I think we’d be better off given lower tax rate and full child benefit.

I’d be able to go part time at my current job and bring in £30K, don’t know what DH could do though as his health means he can’t work more than PT but I don’t think there are many options to that earn that much part time he could do. I’m 20 years into my career to reach this salary. But as we’re imagining I guess we’d have to imagine either his health improved and he did full time or he found some amazing online PT job for that.

I’d feel slightly better not being the sole income. Our life would be pretty much the same, but less money worries and maybe we could save some (as it currently all goes back out). Our holidays are always visiting family abroad, which is high cost on the long haul flights but low once there as no accommodation costs and we usually just eat in and contribute to a bit of groceries. So I imagine cheaper overall than most. We might be able to add a small UK nuclear family holiday which would be nice.

We earn more than that, I was going to be embarrassed to admit we couldn’t manage on that, but when I took out the things below we get back to £4k a month, and we could have almost the same day to day lifestyle:

• extra pension contributions
• saving the £1k a month we used to pay for childcare that we now save to pay down the mortgage when the rate goes up
• fairly expensive life and critical illness insurance
• savings for the DC for uni
• other savings
• DH couldn’t get a new car like he’s planning (mine’s quite old)
• the occasional really nice holiday (could still do our usual one week in the U.K., we do a special holiday every few years though).

However - we don’t have a huge mortgage, we don’t have childcare anymore, our DC are not yet at uni age and we already have savings.

We'd be about £10k per year better off. We probably could earn that but I would have to go full time and we'd probably end up spending most of it on childcare so I'm not sure we'd feel much benefit.

Oooh, are you offering us both a payrise?

That would be nice, especially as Support Staff never get the headline increases.

Money would be tight and we would have to watch what we spent. It depends on outgoings, if a couple had no mortgage or kids, I expect they could manage ok.

That would equate to my husband not working and me reducing my salary by about £10k so for us we would need to downsize, lose a car, not go on holiday etc. doubt I’d be going part time. Our household income is around 2.5 times that.

it all depends on your lifestyle. Cutting out the things we like but not the things we actually need to survive and I’m sure it would be fine

Tight given our mortgage is £1500 on its own (3 bed semi nothing fancy) we'd be looking to increase our income. We wouldn't save much, i grew up on the bones of my arse so I'd manage and did when I was young and first working , bought my first flat in 2010 earning 24/25k , but it wouldn't be a lifestyle I'd enjoy at this stage with DC. It would be a significant pay cut for our household income and we don't feel flush as it is. I

Between myself and my husband that is probably around what we have earned ever since we met. Live in SE, one son, husband has 2 older children. We paid off our mortgage around 5 years ago. I'm 59 and he is 63 - we both still work. We paid for our son's uni accommodation, and split his daughters accommodation costs with her mum.

This would be amazing for me, I'd be able to afford a mortgage on a little 2 bed, and buy extra food and book my two little ones in for weekly riding lessons. I'd feel more secure re pensions and the future too.
I'm a single mum on 22k currently, but paying high rent and I can't see a way forward. I hope labour really do help with the housing crisis, its awful here, but we live in a nice area with a good school and a good quality of life, despite being on the poverty line. I work and am in the last year of my degree.
Would definitely consider 1 person part time and spend within our means.
I would be happy with this amount.

We would have to move house.

DH is £100k pre tax. I'm £20k pre tax. This would genuinely hurt a lot. We have 3 DC and we aren't Richy rich. Yes we don't struggle, but we still have bills to pay.

But presumably you own a car to drive to the site and have anyway spent hundreds on the kit. We'd have to camp within taxi/bus ride of a station, so the pitch wouldn't be less than 30pn, then the train, bus, taxi...

That’s around our current joint income, but I work part time and so earn half what DH does.

We have a mortgage, savings, car, children, manage house maintenance, eat out, go on holiday yearly, it’s manageable for us, I feel we are comfortable.

Surely it depends on what part of the country you're in? Our household income is roughly £60k and we have quite a comfortable lifestyle. We live in a cheaper part of the UK although in a slightly more expensive area. I bought my house literally just before prices rocketed so my mortgage is minimal. I have one DS and was extremely fortunate to be able to take a year off for maternity and also hands on grandparents, nursery fees here are not astronomical. My income wasn't affected by COVID. So many factors.

My mortgage is nearly paid off, we're going on 2 holidays this year though that isn't the norm and I drive a decent car.

Our finances are separate but we pool money for bills etc I have always been lucky enough to be able to save so I'm reaping the rewards of that now. At the moment I wouldn't go part time but if I could I'd retire early and enjoy my 50s and onwards.