what is a solid/excellent wage in current cost of living and economy for individual and family

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Everything is much more expensive and cost of living is still painful.

What would you say is a solid/excellent wage both for an individual and family.

For both individual and family I would say:

Solid for me is 60k.

Excellent is 80k.

It’s entirely unhelpful to talk about income without talking about outgoings as well. £60k is great, until you’ve got a £2k a month mortgage and £1500 a month childcare, vs someone on the same wage with £500 mortgage and no childcare.

is childcare £1500???

Easily can be more if you’ve got a couple of kids full time. I’m only paying for one 4 days a week now (except holidays) and that’s still around £600 a month, varies month to month. Thats with a childminder too, which is cheaper than nursery. £800 this month as it’s Easter holidays. Our mortgage is also just under £2k a month

Yes it can be. We’re south east and I’d go with £100k being solid/comfortable and £140k excellent, as a joint income for a family. As a single income for a family it would need to be higher due to the childcare and child benefit cut offs.

Your excellent is our scraping by.

Depends on location, outgoings etc etc!

Childcare for us is £800pm for 1st child, 3 days pw, plus £600pm for 2nd child, 2 days a week.

But then when you hit 100k as an individual you no longer are eligible for funded or tax free childcare so 99k could be solid/comfortable, 100k could be very tight!

That’s why I said for a single income it would need to be higher.

£2300 for me. I am sticking to one child.

Our combined is £136k (though I am a contractor but will be looking for a permanent role when I end maternity leave. Mortgage is 1282 for 2 bed flat, service charge 166. We don't plan to live in anything bigger than a 2 bed flat and will prioritize paying it off.

Our setup has always been for dh's income to cover the bills and spending while my salary went on holidays and savings/overpaying the mortgage ( latter at least 1k to 1500 once my salary increased).. All money is pooled so the allocation just for budgeting purposes.

New plan with child is for my salary to cover mortgage, food and childcare/education while DH's salary covers investments/savings/overpaying the mortgage and general spending (including holidays).

99k + partner on 50k is OK.

200k + partner on 100k is comfortable.

Both assume no family support, no free childcare and no inheritance.

This. Plus £60k would be an excellent salary for some jobs but poor for others.

It also depends on other benefits, job stability, commuting cost etc.

Someone could be happy with lower pay if the job is nearby, flexible, doesn't need travel or out of hours working, good AL, pension, parental leave, sick pay entitlement etc as long as what they earn is enough for their desired lifestyle.

Yup. Before taking into account funded hours and tax-free childcare, my DC's nursery now costs £80 per day.

is childcare £1500???

You sounds surprised-do you have children in childcare?

120k

as a minimum

Totally depends on circumstances. There's just two of us now and we live very comfortably on just over £2k (so I guess £31k pa and we could live on less), but add childcare, mortgage/rent, a child to feed and clothe (and if you can afford another, then you'll need to be earning more).

This day age I think you need 99k to be comfortable and afford two small cars, mortgage, childcare and 1 holiday a year. After 100k you have to pay childcare and other bits so in my option 99k is optimum!

Christ. I'm glad my kids are older now but I've never had a household income of more than about 35k until now. It's currently just under 50k in total, between me and dh. We're in the SW as well which helps.

We manage, but can't have holidays (ever), run two small and very old (20 yrs and 13 yrs) cars, and only have a small mortgage. We are also helping support dd1 at uni, and fully supporting dd2 as her father doesn't contribute, though he does for dd1 (same father...).

I'd consider myself doing brilliantly on 60k and super solid on 80k, but of course the variables make all the difference. In London with childcare costs, it might not be manageable at all.

We are a couple with an income of just about 60k mostly from my husbands salary and a little of mine. I am not working a job as such but I work as an artist and its starting to bring in some money. We paid off our mortgage about 7 years after moving here. We are comfortable, we can pay our bills and buy whatever food we like and have some treats and luxuries but we aren't big spenders in general. We have do have savings.

A lot of people we know are earning more (100k +) as they have two fulltime wages coming in but they tend to have more outgoings as well, a bigger home, two new cars, more stuff, private school fees etc. Other people we know have two people working but are on the same as us, they also have more outgoings than us bigger home, new cars, multiple holidays but they also have more debt (we don't know this in every case but in some we know as its family). For these people 60k feels tight but for us it feels like more than enough.

A lot of it is down to what you expect, the cost of your home, how much discretionary spending you want, do you have kids, how many and so on. I think 60k is enough for sure depending on how you cut your cloth

Is that a private school nursery?

The kids don’t come cheap even after they grow up! We earn (or will when start new job) £175K and money flies out the door. Am trying to put money in pension but kids like to do clubs, go to scout camps, school trips (residential), have pocket money. Our gas/eleccy a whopping £550 per month (it was £880 at one point). Mortgage has gone up to £2800 a month (flex tracker mortgage with 8 years to pay), petrol and just life! Council tax is £390. I don’t know how people do live on £80k and we are not down south.

Adult disabled son, me on about £30k and DH on Carers Allowance BUT we are in social housing. About 50% of my income goes on council tax and rent, another £250 on gas, electric and water. It’s just doable as long as nothing breaks down.,

You have to factor in location. There's massive variations in both average incomes and housing costs and other costs between different regions.

Nope. Just a normal one.

I paid £1050 for four days for one child up until 2 years ago. Yes, it's expensive

Agree totally that there needs to be a lot more context for the figures to be on any way helpful.

How can it possibly be the same for an individual and family? That is completely illogical. 2 parents, a 17 year old and 16 year old is basically 4 adults in terms of food and clothing. Equally, 2 parents and 2 children requiring childcare if going to cost thousands more than no children.