Cost Of Living (how much do you earn?)

[SouthMan28]

Sorry if this is really personal for you all.

But just wondering, how much you all earn? And can you afford things ok? Would you be able to afford a holiday this year?

As me and my partner earn £2,300 take home per month (is this a good wage per month?) And we feel like we can't afford anything and are just are home bound all weekend as we don't have enough for extras once bills etc are paid for!

Is anyone else feeling the pinch?

Not sure it helps to say how much we take home tbh. Our outgoings etc will be vastly different to yours OP.

Anyway we take home about 8k after tax and although we have noticed the increased cost of living, we dont have to cut back much yet.

2 teen DC, mortgage and both work almost FT

I earn £28k a year which is like £1700 a month. At first I thought I was rolling in it because I’m early 20s but now I really feeling the cost of living (I don’t live with my parents and have high outgoings). I’m literally declining all social outings because my expendable income is around £300 at this point.

Definitely couldn’t afford a holiday

About what we're on. I gave up work a few months (pre cost of living crisis) ago to care for an elderly relative so our household income has basically halved - not a good time to lose 50% of income and I'm trying to find a way to work around caring duties (and we're saving the government/local authority thousands - if DRelative relied on external help it would be 4 care visits a day or govt funded care home ..... my £67 per week carer's allowance is a joke.)

We're lucky because we don't have a mortgage. We used to go to concerts, eat out once a week, have fairly regular nights away and several (admittedly low cost, low key) weeks away each year. That's all mostly stopped, although we're actually away at the moment. But sadly no more breaks this year. I'm feeling incredibly guilty that the pressure of earning a crust is falling to DH

Hi OP, thank you for posting as I was wondering this myself and my parent and I recently went through our finances as I have always been a lower earner and we are thinking of starting a family.
After bills, mortgage, council tax our combined is £2,800 a month. I didn't it was very good as we've noticed bills increase and doing work on the house. I think it's good to evaluate what you are spending on like others have said, if you're happy on those incomes and can live the life you guys are happy with then carry on. There's no normal range. Some people spend money on every TV streaming service , some like to make sure they save a lot to go on multiple holidays. You may not be rich but your rich in love and happiness and that's all that matters xx

We earn just under 5k a month with two kids living in an expensive area and we have felt the cost of living increase. It does worry me both for our family and for society as a whole. I have been much more careful with the grocery shop, buying fewer snacks and swapping normal products for slightly cheaper ones.

@SantiMakesMeLaugh I also noticed that the income comparison tool assumes children are not dependent after 18, whereas a child at university is actually more of a financial burden than they were before they went!

Posters always get a hard time for starting these threads, but I find them really interesting. It's interesting how much difference variables make such as cost of housing and location. It's also interesting how much perception of wealth varies from person to person. Some posters feel well off on salaries I imagine to be tight, while others feel squeezed on comparatively large incomes.

£1008 a month fromESAand PIP, live with my dad, home is outright owned so no mortgage/rent. BUT he doesn't work as he is my carer, so he only gets £69 aweek carers allowance on top of what i get.

Our pre tax income is about £16k but we both have graduate degrees from Oxbridge and live abroad where wages are higher and taxes are lower. I would definitely feel very pinched if I were you. We have not noticed the cost of living rose because what we spend on petrol (never drive) & food is not our significant expense. Our childcare (£3200/month) & mortgage/tax (£2200/month) are our big ones. We’ll likely go on holiday 3-4 times this year.

These threads always surprise me how wages have stagnated in the UK. I left London (and the UK) almost twenty years ago and I was getting paid over 35k then as a trainee accountant. So yes that sounds like a low wage to me!

Don't compare your income to anyone else's, at the end if the day it's all relative to

Don't compare your income to anyone else's, at the end of the day it's all relative to what your outgoings are as to your ability to afford things.

I know people who are high earners who still live off credit cards and overdrafts each month as they have chosen to have big mortgages, expensive cars etc.

I also know people who earn relatively low income jointly who manage to have savings and eat out/afford holidays.

I think it depends on your individual circumstances.

What I will say is if you are unhappy with your earnings/career there is always time to change it. Whether it's to gain better work/life balance or increase your earning potential. Only you know your situation and don't be afraid to demand more from your life or limit your own potential.

Unless you have unusual local circumstances, I'd be surprised if your partner can't get more hours in care work even if with a different employer. I can see that £2300 for two adults to live on would be tight and assuming no health issues etc I'd look to improve that by her going full time. The extra £400 ish would make a real difference.

We have definitely noticed things going up but not feeling the pinch as such, in that the stuff we want to do is still affordable to us.

This thread won't help you, OP. It's horrendously skewed. The average UK household income is NOT 7.5 - 10k pm as most of these posts might suggest.

MNHQ, can we have a board for low to average earners, please?

Fwiw according to the IFS my household income is around the 60th centile. We likely do have a higher disposable income than some of that cohort, as the mortgage is low, we don't commute and pay only £100 ish a month in childcare, but then none of those things are particularly unusual for middle income households either.

TBf people are claiming that's average.

On the separate board - there was a thread a few weeks ago about high warning which was called out for being 'tone deaf', so the OP asked for a high earners board and everyone kicked off about segregation. You can't win.

*aren't claiming it's average

This thread won't help you, OP. It's horrendously skewed. The average UK household income is NOT 7.5 - 10k pm as most of these posts might suggest.

It's not the average income at all, and comparing incomes doesn't help anyone except maybe to feel crap!
Our household is relatively high earner, our joint monthly is 8.5-9K this is far more than any of our friends or anyone that we know and we don't tell anyone what we earn.
We have certainly noticed the price increases but has it affected us? Not really.

We take home £3800 ish a month combined, no kids though. We feel very comfortable, this year we've been on four holidays and next year we're planning to spend roughly 5k on holidays. Our outgoings are very low though as we live in the North so can get a 4 bed for 600 a month. Although we feel comfortable and I'm very grateful, I'm definitely noticing the cost of things going up and worry for the people who don't have the buffer we do.

Our take home is approx 4800 (after substantial pension contributions and other deductions) we are a family of 4 (2dc age 6 and 9) but we are lucky to have no mortgage, we own our cars and we only use after school a few hours a week. I feel very lucky to not be affected too much by the rising costs right now (that’s not to say I don’t notice it, I definitely do!!) but we generally save 1-1.5k per month. Yes we are going on holidays this summer

Do you rent or have a mortgage? If you rent flat share while your young and have no kids! Save away.

Op, if you want more money then your partner would be better off going to university to study nursing/medical or something similar as she's already in a caring role? Then she could get student loans, too up her income with part time/bank shifts AND improve her prospects. No reason why you couldn't do something similar? There are plenty of opportunities out there.

We earn a lot more than that and aren’t feeling the pinch at all
Not sure how that helps though

I earn 32k and my partner 54k, both full time and 3 kids. Our combined take home per month is 4800 or thereabouts.

Other than the mortgage (1080 per month- we over pay by 75 a month) and one credit card (250) we have no other debts. Our cars are quite fuel efficient but it's only me who commutes to work (30miles); kids walk to school. Second car is only used at weekends and occasional weekdays.

We meal plan and eat sensibly, neither of us smoke and maybe drink the equivalent of a bottle of wine a year! We dont have takeaways or expensive tastes. Only buy what we need to, when we have to. We don't have expensive haricuts or beauty treatments etc, barely socialise, don't splurge at Christmas or birthdays for us or anyone else.

Our older 2 kids have one activity a week each, total childcare month is about £700. We can afford 1/2 week long uk holidays a year which we prob spend max £1500 on and tbh suits us fine.

Stepchange have an excellent incoming/outgoing calculator that tells me after all essential bills etc have gone out we have £500 left over each month (which always goes on unforseen events :-( ) although I thank my lucky stars I still cannot believe that our combined income doesn't go further than this, because outside of childcare (our own fault!) , kids relatively don't actually cost all that much!