40 grand a year

[Howmanytimeshasshesaidimnotgonnalie]

Would you consider this a good wage?

Could you live on it fairly comfortably?

Two adults, one dc and dog, South west, renting

£1500, for rent, out of a monthly income of £3333 is quite high. I don't know about council tax costs in the south west, but if they are similar to up north, and then adding on all other bills, that could be about £600. That leaves £1233 for food, transport and anything else like savings and socialising.

Someone with a household income of £80k and who can afford to go abroad twice a year is not someone I would say is struggling.

Yes you can manage. Comfortable for many people in the UK means pretty well off e.g. holidays abroad, meals out, children attending lots of after school activities. So by that definition, you will not be comfortable.

"In the war ......"
All relevant in terms of lifestyle.

I work 1.5 jobs (full time job plus 3-4 night shifts a week with part time job) and am on a little bit more than that, 47k last year. My partner also works and is on about the UK average wage.

and no, you can’t. And I don’t want to cause offence I know there is people worse off than me. And I own my own home, so actually am going to be paying ‘less’ per month than you are.

We go on a nice holiday every other year, we can go out to a nice restaurant once a month, or we can have a take away once a week, the kids get to go their hobbies etc. But we have nothing left at the end of the month! Like literally nothing…

I hear you @Okonomoyaki it is all about how you interpret comfortable, which to me implies you live a life beyond having to choose between heating and food and that you are quite comfortable with what you can afford.

Personally, I would want more than a long haul every 5 years, so personally despite appreciating it's not on the breadline, wouldn't be comfortable with only two European city breaks.... maybe sounds bonkers to most but that's my opinion and the beauty of forums like this is the variety of perspectives.

@Rav3 sorry I just think people like yourself are bad at budgeting.

£40k after tax I’d say if pretty good, so £3,333 a month which is maybe around £55k gross?

That’s good and above average by quite a bit.

We are north west (not city) and our household income is similar after tax and we live very comfortably. (No dog) we technically use my wage for the luxuries like holidays trips treats etc.

we have a mortgage for a 3 bed property in a nice safe area, two cars (one finance) we’ve been to Dubai and Spain this year alone plus small trips in between. Our DD only just started school in September so had nursery bills before then. DD does 3 activities a week.

I think it all depends location, how you manage money and what’s important to you in life. I know people who have a lot less and they struggle but manage as they have to what other options do they have.

And I’ll just add that we save as well for emergencies incase anything goes wrong.

Yes, very doable. We earn less than that, gross, in London, and do fine. So does my sister, a single income household in a different part of the country. None of us claim any benefits. She gets council tax reduction for sole occupancy, that’s it.

I don't know if owning other property, especially if providing a rental income, will affect UC entitlement.

Also you need to be clear if it's a salary of £40k so take home of about £2.5k pm or take home of £40k, or £3333 pm which would make a noticeable difference but require a salary of over £50k.

But you might struggle to be accepted for a rental that takes up such a large proportion of your income.

*Relative in terms of outgoings what's left over for leisure. And savings of course.

Surely depends on when though. If this was last year then comparable but if it was 20 years ago then absolutely not as prices have increased so much

We live inthe north earn around 75k jointly and have £600-£800 spare a month after all out goings. One child (school age) two adult children (nominal rent) and a dog.

No one said struggling. The OP asked if they'd be comfortable. To me, scraping by is not comfortable

I'm sure OP posted almost this exact thread a couple months ago right down to the same locations.

Not sure. I earn 50k, no partner or kids, and while it’s enough it’s only just enough. I live in London though.

That's crazy unless you have a huge mortgage.
We are post tax on £58k (3 adults 2 teens 2 dogs) NW sizeable mortgage and do well. Holidays twice a year.

Depends where you mean by South West. It's a large area with huge disparities in living cost. Central Bath, that's not going to go far. Normal town like Taunton or something, better.

All I can say is that I would love to see some people's budgets and spending on here on people who claim to be hard up on high incomes.

That sounds like enough money, to me. I'm single with one child and manage to live comfortably on around £300 a week after rent etc., with one holiday a year and eating out etc..

I don't have a car, though. It would make sense for OP to rent close to the job, as it's in a town.

Basically, that income would be about UK average for a family that size, which means able to manage, but without much room for extras or savings (they own a house elsewhere anyway, so have something to fall back on). The rent, bills (don't rent a freezing cottage with an immersion boiler) and distance from work (bus services aren't usually great in rural areas) will make it possible or not.

Honestly I think a lot of what it comes down to is that prices have gone up very steeply recently across the board and lots of salaries have not. Pretty much no matter what you earn you’ll have noticed a pinch and naturally it will feel a little uncomfortable to suddenly find you can’t afford the same this year as you could last year. I know there isn’t an objective measure of what comfortable is but for most people it amounts to having a reasonable proportion of their take home pay as disposable income. Some people on higher incomes essentially choose to be a bit uncomfortable by their choices in terms of what fixed costs they sign up for. Others are just stuck with high fixed costs because of a combination of where they live/work and what housing options they have.

The struggle here is understanding what OP means by fairly comfortably.

to me that means being able to go out to dinner once a week, the odd family take away, a relatively new car, pet insurance so no stress over vet bills, a holiday every year, being able to replace appliances or the boiler if they break, new clothes and shoes regularly.

oh and savings. Living fairly comfortably means contributing to a pension and being able to save at least 10% of take home income a month.

but it will mean something completely different to other people.