To think that a comfortable middle class existence is basically unattainable for the vast majority of people.

[joelm1776]

I was thinking today about how much someone would actually need to earn per year in order to have a traditionally financially comfortable middle class existence. This, to me, means having a family one parent being able to look after the kids, being financially secure and having some pleasures in one's life on a regular basis but not necessarily any extravagant pleasures ie. not having multiple holidays a year, or luxury items or fine dining meals out. I know these things are fairly subjective, but I would like to think that my judgements here are quite middle of the road. I'll show you my working:

2 parents and 2 child household

1. £17,000 per year in mortgage payments for a 3 bedroom house (average price of a 3 bedroom house in the UK is about £275,0000)
2. £8,300 per year in supermarket shopping
3. £5,500 rough estimate for running 2 cars per year (one for commuting one for short journeys) including fuel, tax, MOT, insurance and maintenance.
4. £5,000 utilities, internet and council tax for 3 bedroom house
5. £1,000 per year on clothing (£20 per person per month)
6. £2,500 repairs and long term replacement fund for house.
7. £2,000 student debt
8. £6,000 one family meal out at a mid-range restaurant per week
9. £1400 2 night out for drinks with friends per month for each parent.
10. £3,000 one week family holiday to mainland European destination per year.
11. £1,500 pocket money for kids
12. £1,200 sports clubs and gyms memberships
13. £1,500 general household items excluding clothing and food
14. £2250 large purchase fund (e.g two cars lasting 15 years each, 4 smartphones lasting 5 years each etc)
15. £2,000 saved for other contingencies

Total = £60150 net + 7.5% saved as a pension = aprox £64650
Total gross = £94000

so basically you need to earn £100K even if you don't live in London, and only the top 5% of uk earners earn around this amount and most of those people probably work in London.

I know the the mortgage figure ignores the fact that people often have equity from other properties, but that makes the calculation a bit too complex

Thing is life in general has got expensive but wages probably haven’t risen as fast as they need to.

Even things that you’d class as pretty basic have gone up a lot. When my daughter first started school in 2000 her school shoes were around £32. This year they were around £50 (not helped by my 10 year old having size 6 feet).

Things that I’d say were pretty typical middle class activities

• music lessons at 25 a pop x30 weeks = £750 annually + exam fees
• swimming lessons = £100 a month for us= £1200 annually.

I think the OP’s estimate on clubs/gym is therefore a massive underestimate.

Even with primary aged children, childcare doesn’t stop. For my 7 year old, my wrap around is £17.50 a session and she goes 4.5 days a week for 39 weeks of the year. Thats £3k plus 6 weeks of holiday clubs @ £50 a day which is another £1500.

I’d also say the holiday budget was an underestimate. I think most are spending a lot more but it does baffle me how it’s afforded. If you’re in the high end AI plus skiing camp you’d be looking at closer to £20k annually.

The big difference is probably overall debt levels than daily spending possibilities. Houses are more expensive but that's balanced (arguably caused by) the fact people can borrow more and, so long as you have a decent deposit, monthly repayments as a percentage of income aren't higher than they were in the past. But some people are locked out completely if they don't have the deposit saved or family to help. And people with mortgages will have the mortgage for much longer than in the past so are in debt for longer.
More people go to uni and those that do usually need student loans which weren't a thing
People are more likely to have more, nice cars. But also more likely to pay for those cars on finance.
Likewise lots of people have nice holidays on the European mainland but pay for it with credit card debt they then pay back

None of those things are awful calamities in th "Britain is doomed" category. But the higher levels of debt aren't really discussed when talking about living standards.

Problem is you can’t keep increasing income tax with housing costs as they are.

This is how rich people are supposed to live, not average people.
Your budget for meals out, drinks out, cars and phones is really inflated.
We have earnt jointly around your yearly figure for the last 15 years and we have managed to buy 2 properties near London + a lot in savings and we have 2 kids. We have not lived poorly, as we travel 3 times a year abroad including Asia because our families live abroad, but our daily life is on a budget and we are very careful to spend unnecessarily. Just think what you are getting while spending on something you don't really need - a fleeting dopamine hit.
Save up and buy something that will last. Consumerist lifestyle serves only big corporations, not ourselves.

If you’re in the high end AI plus skiing camp you’d be looking at closer to £20k annually.

Yes but if you are paying for high end All Inclusive plus skiing camp (didn't even know that was a thing) then you are in the top 5% easily and always would have been. It's not that sending the kids to skiing camp in the French Alps was a normal thing in the past (unless you went to a very nice Private school, so associating with the top few percent)

Late 50’s (hence Dh being 35 years of work under his belt). Also had our DC late as they are 18 and 21. My eldest is very anxious about what life will look like for her - the considerable debt for a degree that may not result in much more pay than I was getting at 27 in late 90’s, and that’s if AI doesn’t take those jobs. Reassuring her that we will release equity/downsize to make sure both she and DS are able to afford a home is not reassuring because she feels it’s a handout and that she SHOULD be able to achieve it without help, because that what our generation and the one after us did. But I don’t think it will be possible for many others unless our generation is willing to restructure finances and settle for a more modest retirement so that we give them their ‘inheritance’ in advance.

Tbh when I was growing up, extended family living was normal (we lived with my adoptive dad’s family and siblings in a couple of rooms for years while they saved up for a new home, only moving out when his job took us to a new city). The house was left to the children, so often that’s where people remained. There was none of this downsizing to go to live in Devon and Cornwall, being unavailable to help with childcare because they were spending the released equity on cruises and golf club fees. One of the reasons house prices have risen is because of the parent generation being so quick to capitalise on the uptick in value of their homes and selling them, rather than holding on to them so that their children have a home or money when they die.

I hate to say it, but I have little sympathy with 70/80 year olds living in million pound properties, bewailing the cost of living and mansion tax or the IHT burden their children will have, when they could have passed that asset on to their children already and either remained living in these homes with them or sold it and downsized to pass on the money. A lot of where we are is a result of the generation above mine hoarding their wealth.

Not a popular opinion, but if you are a person whose parents have sold their home to Air B N B/property developers/second home owners and buggered off on jollies with the released equity, and you can no longer afford to buy and live in the town you were raise in, some of the anger needs to be placed at your parents’ feet as they’ve profited from it at your expense.

I agree, but worry for my three DC, who won't probably ever own their homes unless we sub them hugely. We bought our detached house a decade ago after my DH sold his flat, and i sold my shared ownership flat (a rare thing these days!) and we put down a huge chunk towards the house from about 90k equity my DH had in his.

I'm very certain that my DC won't get anything like this without help from us. Hope I'm wrong though, as all are bright (my eldest is certainly an Oxbridge candidate), so if they work hard (that old chestnut!), then they'll prove that they are absolutely capable.

I do wonder how they will manage but we will cross that bridge in time!

For me I think the hardest thing is the never ending slog of it all. We should be at the point where we are enjoying our money a bit more and I thought I would be able to afford some nicer holidays, renovations etc however I am very conscious that my dc will need help, how much will uni cost in 10 years? house deposits for them and my pension age is likely to move out again. I’m trying to save and I am lucky that I can but it’s getting harder.

If you book a holiday in e.g. Spain on a Black Friday for the following year May half-term holidays, you will get offers at under 1200 quid for 6 days half-board in a 4-star hotel. The only thing you must do is to book your flight tickets early when they are still affordable. We have never paid more than 2000 quid for a holiday like this and we've been doing it for years.

Think £375k for something decent. £275k is a starter home.

Well you can’t keep reducing taxes when the NHS and other services are falling apart. We’re talking in this thread about people spending over £100 a week on going out for dinner! I’d rather be able to have my broken leg fixed or my heart attack treated than go out to eat every week.

If public services fall apart it affects everyone. If taxes stay the same it doesn’t impact everyone. Many people can sustain their quality of life at the current rates and many people could afford to pay more. Not wanting to pay taxes and not being able to pay taxes are not the same thing.

@Speakeasier I haven’t said anything about reducing taxes?

But there is a big burden on income tax which disproportionately impacts younger generations

One person staying at home is going to massively increase the required salary for the other person. This might have been the norm 30-40 years ago but isn't now. And the need for childcare reduces when they go to school. 47k per year per person for the average middle class worker in a couple doesn't seem massively unusual to me but certainly privileged.

Absolutely agree, the debt doesn’t exist for us due to 1 not being university educated and the other having uni paid for by family. 3 vehicles here with no debt either, 1 x new, 1 x 10 years old, 1 old camper. Car 1 paid for in part by family, car 2 paid for in part by family, car 3 paid for from a small inheritance. We could not have reasonably reached our “nice house / 3 vehicles / no student debt ” lifestyle without the windfall of over 150-200k in inheritance/help over 10-15 years.

The OP is taking a lot of flak but is sport on. The physical trappings of a middle class life are now much more expensive relative to salary than they used to be. Add private schooling into that list too and the cost load is eyewatering (perhaps upper middle class!).

Degrading buying power of stagnating salaries is the number one issue for working / middle class folks. In the UK the benefits class and the really rich people (who exist off capital invested rather than salaries) have done well. But the 'squeezed middle' (I'll interpret that as people that work for a living from UC top up to upper middle class workers) have declining living standards.

It's not just a UK thing, similar things are true across the globe. The UK does have more of a benefits class than anywhere else I am aware of though.

Either salaries need to rise, or costs need to reduce. Costs are quite tightly linked to salaries of course, and raw materials (including fuel).

Underlying issues are:

• Wealth transfer to larger, wealthier organisations and people.
• Global increase in population with people moving out of poverty. This creates a huge competition for resources.

The hard question is what to do about it.

• I don't think we can or should avoid a global levelling of living standards, so developed countries will see a relative drop (or stagnation) with developing countries raising.
• We can do something about concentration of wealth. It is largely beyond individual governments though.

This is a really tricky thing. Tax to give away benefits isn't the answer, neither is a 'let them eat cake' approach.

I'd like to see more long term thinking and investment rather than the politics of the next election (globally). China takes this approach, and the results can be seen.

PP above comments on the fact that two established teachers earning £50k each should be able to buy a nice home. Not around here.

A joint income of £100-110k will get a mortgage of 400-440k. That will buy you a 1-2bed flat in posher areas, and a 2-3bed 60’s semi in less posh areas (and I mean, seriously less posh, crap schools, on a busy A-road, high crime).

I don’t think it unreasonable for a couple on that kind of joint income to have expected to be in a position to buy a pretty Victorian terrace [or equivalent, tastes vary] on a quiet residential street in a low crime area with moderately good schools for their kids. I think it is actually shocking that this isn’t the case.

If the economy had grown since 2008 at the same rate that it had been in the 30 years before that, the government would be able to cut the basic rate of tax by 5p and still raise the same as it currently does. Every other G7 country has grown far far more than we have. We have the highest energy bills in the world - no one is ever going to choose to base a company here. Our buildings regulation / planning permission makes it utterly impossible to build either housing or office/ manufacturing/ retail. House building in many areas has totally ground to a halt, esp in London. Things are going to get much worse in the UK unless the government starts changing the direction it’s taking. I’m not sure Andy Burnham has the nouse to do it.

Reassuring her that we will release equity/downsize to make sure both she and DS are able to afford a home is not reassuring because she feels it’s a handout and that she SHOULD be able to achieve it without help, because that what our generation and the one after us did.

thats a really good point, and I think is missing from the conversations about inheritance tax, land value tax etc where the general line is "we worked really hard for this and want to be able.to leave it for our children/help our children". And I always think yes, but is that what your children actually want or would they rather have the opportunity to make their own success. It's very dispiriting to know that no matter how hard you work at university etc the biggest impact on your future comfort levels is whether and how much you are helped by the generations above you. It sucks if you are in the no help group and in the help.group.

On an individual level, with things as they are of course the best way to.do right by ones children is helping them on the prop ladder etc. But on the macro level policies that make housing etc more affo for young people on their own terms would be better for young people. But that's pushed back on by older generations because they worked hard to build up a high level of wealth in their property portfolio and they want it for their children. Sigh.

My in laws. Working class background. One a history teacher, one a primary teacher. House now worth £1.3m. Holidays every year to south of France or Italy (car on some sort of train?). Extensive private music lesson ms for both kids, could save to help with deposits.

I agree . We earn about £130k and have little to spare and a pretty conservative lifestyle. I'm £500 overdrawn this month with all the money for holiday clubs etc. I save £100 a week but that's like £5200 a year - most of which goes on a fairly basic summer holiday. I feel sad that you can be in the 'top 5%' and have so little extra cash / capital. No private school or stuff like that and a a car that we will drive till the wheels come off. We do have a big mortgage that's about £2000 monthly as we live in London.

What's terrible is that we are lucky! I can't imagine how tight it is for others. This country is simply too expensive.

@TaraRhu are your bills very high? We have a similar household income, our mortgage is only £200 a month less, I have teenagers and I feel much more positively about our situation than you appear to be. £5000 is not a basic holiday. Sometimes it’s your perspective that needs to change.

China is officially a middle.income country not a high income country of course

However what china did do was allow (and possibly encourage) a property price collapse recently. This wasn't victimless. It had quite a devastating effect on people who had put all their savings in land. There were suicides etc. But maybe allowing the bubble to burst was the right decision long term. While it would be suicide for the British government to do that (can you imagine the threads on here if Andy Burnham let that happen). And investors.know that that's the case so the value of property keeps going up. Those investors include foreign buyers including Chinese people who want somewhere safe to put their money ironically.

House prices are the big issue, not holidays or meals out really. Bit any real measures to change the situation would be interpreted as an attack on the Middle classes. Ironically because long term the concentration of wealth in land is killing the middle class.

The population has increased by 10 million since 2000 due to immigration. What a surprise the NHS can't keep up.

As to social housing. After the war, a mass building program was launched to house the heroes who had fought to save the country and perhaps to avoid a revolution. These were large 3 bedroom semis because the government wanted to replenish the population and they encouraged the baby boom. Right or wrong, Thatcher introduced right to buy, and many tenants took it up.

Even if a lot of social housing is built, it won't be anything like the ones that were sold off.

I agree, middle class isn’t about money for me it’s about interests and what one’s parents did. Mine left school at 15 with no qualifications, both dragged themselves up but my dad was very working class, pub every day and his tea on the table. I did a levels but didn’t go to uni, I earn just shy of £100k in a senior role, my daughter goes to grammar school we live in what’s classed as an affluent area but in the north. Two cars , no mortgage, our holidays are probably what could be classed as educational, husband and I do the times crossword most nights after our evening meal. But I’m probably still firmly working class by a true definition what with a middle class lifestyle?

House prices are the big issue, not holidays or meals out really. Bit any real measures to change the situation would be interpreted as an attack on the Middle classes. Ironically because long term the concentration of wealth in land is killing the middle class

Exactly this