is this a reasonable amount to live on?

[ilovehens]

Or would it be classed as a small amount?

£20,280 (net) for a family of four - 2 adults and 2 children under 12.

This is after small housing costs.

Just want opinions really.

Gordon Brown didn't suggest cutting CB and CTC though did he? He realises that most families need this money. Can't trust those Tories though...

That's a very reasonable amount to live on espec after housing costs!

I would say that is probably above average for after housing costs.

If you are struggling on that then you need to work out exactly where your money is going each month. Money saving expert has a good budget planner that helps break it all down for you. Go through your old bank statements etc to see where every penny is going.

perfectly manageable

It's OK, not amazing, but OK.

You can live on it, certainly. Though life is basic.
I have less than half of that for me and 1ds. I have to pay 75% council tax (1 adult rate) and all the bills, run a car on a fairly sizeable commute to work etc. My bills certainly wouldn't double if we had another adult in the house, though they would go up a bit...

No tumbler drier, tesco vouchers for days out, only very cheap holidays. You do what you need to to get by. I rarely have money for clothes and even more rarely get my haircut. No money for babysitters (but unlike me you have another adult to babysit for you luckily), no money for going out for me, though we do occassionally go out as a family - we manage a visit to our local cinema (£2 each) every couple of months, and now we go swimming once a week £5.25, and my ds has archery once a week £1, plus scouts £25 a term. We skipped swimming this week so I could have a birthday cake!

This is way better off than I have been for a long time I might add, taken me a long time to pay off my overdraft and compared to how it was when I was on IS it's luxury. I am never going to get myself back into that situation if I can possibly help it.

So it's my 40th today and I'm sitting here on MN with a slice of cake (no cake for the last two years so this is luxury!) Later I'll be doing the ironing...

Basically you have to be tough and ruthless with the budgetting, but you certainly can live on that amount IME.

If your DH earns this and you don't work and have no childcare or nursery costs then you should be relatively comfortable on that. However if you earn that between you and have to pay for childcare esp for a pre-school age child (or two) then it might be a bit tight.

Thats a more than we earn and I think we have a good quality of life.

Lovechoc wrote: thanks to David Cameron, we're all going to get screwed over financially so perhaps that amount may not suffice a family of 4 in the near future.

We earn just a bit more than that and live fairly comfortable life, but we are also frugle too. Only spend where necessary.

No, its not thanks to David Cameron, its thanks to Gordon Brown. GB spent on many many things including tax credits that the country could not afford. He was totally fiscally irresponsbile and this messs now is 100% his fault. If the current government did act now it would be so much worse.

Well, I think that's a fine amount but I can understand why you worry- it's the one ting really bugging me about the whole cuts thing ATM: give me some fiigures and I can start to work with them; give me scare stories and I have sleepless nights and no real way of planning our way out.

It may be for example that VAT goes up and benefits go down, in which case I may as well geyt on the housig list; but i'd rather not. If vat goes up and there's a benefits freeze we can manage.

Information is useful;, scaremongering quite the reverse. I think the idea is so that when we can atill afford a pint of milk post budget we feel grateful rather than worrying about te teabag we can't manage.

But you'd have to be dumb to fall for thort of manipulation, right? Only, all policiticians seem tot hink we are a dumb nation, regardless of the colkour of our political allegiance.

There's not really anything we can do right now above what we are doing anyway to improve our income in the short term; so I ahve just got to wait and hope.

I don't agree, the Tories can make cuts elsewhere, not making child poverty MORE of a problem by cutting vital benefits that people rely on.

Yes, GB was a bit reckless and the country is in a right state, but it will be even worse if CTCs and CB are taken off families who really do rely on this to pay for every day costs like food and nappies for their DC.

Unless you have huge loan payments/creditcard balances, how can it be hard to manage on £1700 a month, after housing costs? You might need to be frugal, but I wouldn't expect anyone to be destitute at that level.

As per the old saying, you cut your cloth according to your means. The reality is that once you have more money, unless you are ruthlessly sensible, you find ways to spend it.

For example, when my eldest was a baby, I was a single parent with a net income of £1300 or so a month. From that I paid mortgage of £500, childcare costs of £300, travel of about £120, plus all the other regular bills, and I still had enough to pay for 'extras', and put some away as savings. I then met someone, household income effectively doubled, yet we never seemed significant better off (not least because we then moved and doubled our mortgage and childcare costs!)

I'm now on my own, my earnings are much higher, but I'm also paying a mortgage of £1500 a month, so my 'disposable' income - after essential bills paid (bigger house, so all much higher) - isn't that much greater than it was however many years ago.

I do agree the current situation was caused by Labour's overspending. They obviously wanted to be socially responsible, and help low earners, but the money wasn't/isn't there. Hence the current need for spending cuts etc.

Agree with hats and that was the saying I was trying to remember. When we had our first on very very little money we never for example would buy orange juice, all baby clothes not just from Oxfam but given free from the church, never bought conditioner as too expensive, no deoderant. In other words there are loads of things we can do without if we really need to but as your income grows you get used to it.

Any of us with parents who grew up after WWII will have had an upbringing if you aer as old as I am (40s) who had to make do and mend and remember rationinng from our parents' day and that's a good thing to fall back on as indeed any people with parents or grandparents who came from very poor countries abroad. I've also thought it's done my older children a lot of good to have very very low income as students. you then appreciate what you have.

What is harder is a cut in income once you're used to higher income. Anyone who has divorced as I have will know all about that. Cuts in CB or CTC I think will only hit people above the average or median wage of £25k though so anyone really poor no this thread I wouldn't worry about cuts. We might all have to live with freezes though, no pay rises - in fact the private sector has had real cuts, no increasing for inflation in benefits and pay etc. That saves Government loads of mnoey without affecting people too much immediately and is probably one of the main ways we will go

Im sure you will manage on that amount if that is after your mortgage costs.

gillybean2 - happy 40th! enjoy your cake

Our outgoings (inc allowance for savings, fuel, socialising, debt repayment etc) are around £1300 at the moment all in. Once I stop work we will be bringing in around £1500 p/m net as DH is retraining. Like I say, we live in a very expensive part of the world but just have to be sensible. To be honest, we have a lovely life and certainly don't miss the much higher salaries we had before retraining.

I didn't meant to have a dig at the tories, ( even though I am not a tory voter) I am going to be hit by the cuts and I am sad as it means no more children for us and dp does not have his own child - so that is a big hit. But I would have made the same cuts to be honest.

It depends where you are. I am in London and it would be a struggle

It's very hard to work and never go out, not afford after school classes for children, no extras. You can't do it for long

Never give up Katy; onb, I don;t know your ages etc but (and I recognise things have changed now but that was multiple disability and the odds of that are minute) we went from struggling to cope to fairly affluent in a few short unexpected years about 8 years ago, it can happen. Hope it does for you.

People are right that debts are a major clincher: we cope better now on low income than we did on £45k p/a (outside SE) and that is because we don;t have massive debts eating the wages before we can use them.

Um We easily live on that after housing costs and we run 2 cars and their are 6 of us

Sancti it is time to give up, it is my own fault really there was a window when we cild have had children.

The daft thing is we are on a relatively good income but there is no way we can afford nursery fees.

does it cover your outgoings?
If it does then yes this is a reasonable amount to live on.
If it doesn't then no,it is not.
Our family of 4 live on less quite easily though

That's very sad. Surely you could have another child and just make it work for the very few years small children need care? We worked at a loss (one of our salaries was less than the childcare) for a while.

Ah katy always keep an eye out for ideas

WE didn't know how lucky we were to have my Mum close and ffering to help with childcare with first two; that changed as things went on (we moved away) but I watch my sisters happily criticising people who don't manage two decent salaries, whilst having free childcare that covers their shifts and think you ahven't got a clue how different it can be.

But really, don't give up- DH's salary doubled overnight with one job application. Now, we did actually sell the house and move into rented as well to clear all our debts (and it was more complex- selling house to clear and cope post DH's illness before decent job offer etc) but a year before I didn;t think there was a chance of any of it.

Whoknows?

Xenia I am not going to have a child I cannot afford, simple as. I am a firm believer that things happen for a reason, I clearly have a different purpose in life.