BBC are saying you need a joint salary of 70,000 to avoid poverty

[bridgetjonesmassivepants]

I find this such a high sum. How are most families meant to reach this figure? It doesn't include pension contributions so you would probably need 80,000 by their reckoning.
They are saying that you are in poverty if you can't manage a UK holiday every year and 70 a month on cultural experiences.

I think a lot of it must depend on housing costs. If you bought a house 20 years ago, have a small/no mortgage VS trying to buy now or renting, that could easily be a difference of 1k+ a month.

Thank you! I suspected inheritance might be one factor. But I’m not sure what you mean by you both working full time so you don’t have to pay for childcare? We both work full time so we DO have to pay for childcare here.

Oh and yes - good guess! - a season ticket is involved here.

where is this article? Can someone link before we all get worked up? That seems like a vast figure. There’s a huge difference between choosing between eating and paying bills, and finding things a bit tight and not being able to afford a holiday. The latter is absolutely not poverty.

You're not typical

How do you do it?
How much is your mortgage per month?
Could you do a breakdown?

I think it is really dependant on housing. If someone bought or long time ago or pays council housing rates, rents privately or bought in the last year the monthly housing cost difference could be a thousand depending on location.

That's where we live and we earn more than that and don't feel like we have loads of spare money.

Between us we will (once I start my new job) be on 38k a year joint income. One DSS, we rent and I think even though we sometimes struggle we are absolutely not in poverty and hopefully one day will save for a foreign holiday.

I think expectations can also play a big factor in how 'well off' you feel. Take holidays... some people love camping trips. Or Haven. Other people don't consider it a holiday unless its by plane. Then there's villas, or all inclusive hotels or just a basic Air B&B type place ... and even within All inclusive hotels there a massive range.

Everyone defines these things differently.

I changed the variables to factor in realistic housing costs and what energy etc actually costs. Apparently, the single mother now needs to earn nearly £80k a year on those figures (nearly £90k if your housing costs are nearly £1.5k a month).

the rent figure in the original calculation is only £400 a month.

I'm also interested too.

I do suppose it depends when you bought your house and what modest means to you.

Are culture experiences another way of saying leisure?

@onthefencesitter yes that’s exactly my point! Obviously badly made 😆

People on here who can afford loads of stuff on much less must have reasons why it’s easier - money only goes so far. People with joint income of £30k presumably aren’t spending £2.5 on household bills.

We do not do big holidays but this year we’re paying for the “luxury” of private orthodontist for DC1 which costs £££ and I know very well how lucky we are to have that choice.

@OneRingToRuleThemAll this is us too. I wonder where is all goes each month.
But… whilst it’s tight some months we have everything we need.

That's ridiculous. I earn 23k. I have plenty of money to live a very comfortable life.

I earn £8 a year and run 5 cars, a 4 bed detached home and holiday abroad at least 3 times. 🙄

Don't see what the point of these sorts of replies are? To make others feel crap?
I think this just illustrates that 70k is a totally academic sum dependent on:

Where in Britain you live
Whether you have dependents

Fwiw, we are about 80k in NE England and we are one of the 'just about managing, hard working families' you hear about on the news. We feel a hell of a lot poorer than we did a year ago.

Would you be open to explaining why you’re just about managing? £80K is a lot of money.

using that minimum income calculator… This is what it spits out if you are an adult with two children, with average FT nursery costs for a baby and a mortgage (or rent) of £1000 month.

A two adult, 3 child household will need more than that.

How?

Do you have kids?

What are your housing costs?

I used the calculator up thread and with a monthly take home income of £3900 in the West Midlands with low housing cost it says we live in poverty. Dh earns just over the £70,000 a year they say you need to not live in poverty, so I don’t trust the calculator. Family of 5 two adults 3 dc aged 10-15

These threads are so weird...you get posters saying they earn £18k a year, drive a new car, go on holiday twice a year and save every month.

Then you get people on 90k who say they are struggling.

We are in no way living in poverty, everyone has what they need and 95% of their wants I would say. 2 abroad holidays a year, a couple of weekends away and several days out, meals out, cinemas trips etc etc

SoggyPaper

I can't read that (too small) but would be interested to to compare our outgoings. Is there another way I can see it?

Yet… weirdly a 2 adult household with 3 kids (aged 1, 3 and 6) only needs £50k with their £1k mortgage.

What you require to live comfortably will depend on a massive range of factors: Number of dependants, house prices in your area, childcare costs, possible inheritance etc

But there's nowhere in the UK where you could say that a £70k household income indicated poverty. I could see that, if you'd taken out a massive mortgage in London and we're paying nursery fees for several young children, then £70k wouldn't stretch as far as it sounds like it should. But impoverished? No.

The BBC hypebolise everything.