What kind of annual salary would you need today in UK to support your own reasonable home, two cars, an annual vacation, and a fair but not extravagent life style?

Well me and the wife have a combined income circa ***and its still not enough!!!! And we only have 1 car!!! Maybe the fact that we have 3 kids has something to do with it..........

I found over the years with salary increases that our spending also increases to match therefore the amount of "spare" money is always the same.

Is this where all the well-off forumers post their salaries to shame those of us less well off without appearing to brag? No offense, buck, but I'd be a little suspicious of any forumers' motives who display their "minimum survival salary" on here. And I'd be happy with one car, let alone two. ;)


EDIT: That wasn't directed at you, rooby, you beat me to the first reply.

Originally posted by Ant
Is this where all the well-off forumers post their salaries to shame those of us less well off without appearing to brag? No offense, buck, but I'd be a little suspicious of any forumers' motives who display their "minimum survival salary" on here. And I'd be happy with one car, let alone two. ;)


EDIT: That wasn't directed at you, rooby, you beat me to the first reply.

given that buck is from conneticut it's more likely that he's just interested.
And the salaries we have are not relevant to the question.

I reckon, in a couple with no kids, both working kind of household, figure of the top of my head, £15k each to be comfortable, but could probably manage on maybe 12k each. Buying the house would be the biggest problem at the moment since prices have more than doubled in 5 years making the first purchase extremely difficult.

Buck - what are the figures for conneticut?

Some good figures there Cyclone - as I mentioned earlier it tends to rise when demanding children are involved!!!

It obviously depends. I don't have a car, ride my push bike have cheap rent and have no kids.

With my life you don't have to earn a lot to be able to go out a lot.

O and no wife, (sorry ladies.)

Originally posted by Mosey
It obviously depends. I don't have a car, ride my push bike have cheap rent and have no kids.

With my life you don't have to earn a lot to be able to go out a lot.

O and no wife, (sorry ladies.)

that's not answering the question though, he specified a car, etc...

A car doesn't have to be expensive though, you can manage with a car that costs £500 and keep it running for probably no more than £500 a year (inc tax, insurance, MOT, repairs) if it's in good condition to start with.
He also specified owning your own home, but 'reasonable' is a bit vague.
You can still get on the ladder for around £80k in a what I would consider to be reasonable, but some people might be happy with something cheaper and others might not consider it reasonable until you spend 120k.
An annual vacation is very subjective as well. A week in a tent in cornwall or a static caravan can be pretty cheap, especially off peak. Whereas a month touring europe or in a hotel in monaco could be extremely expensive.

Did someone say that expenditure rises to match income, it's so true. The trick is to divert some to savings when you get a payrise, and have a budget so at least you know what you're spending it all on.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Cyclone
[B]that's not answering the question though, he specified a car, etc...

Point taken. Difficult to answer the real question. I have friends with only small morgages as they bought their houses about 8 years ago.

With today's prices, its a different story and to achieve the described lifestyle with only a £15000 salary is an impossibility.

Originally posted by Cyclone
He also specified owning your own home, but 'reasonable' is a bit vague.
You can still get on the ladder for around £80k in a what I would consider to be reasonable, but some people might be happy with something cheaper and others might not consider it reasonable until you spend 120k.


I don't understand this ladder thing, why do some people feel compelled to keep moving and buying a more and more expensive house ?

Some mates of mine have only lived in their current house for 2 years and they are planning to move to another house with one more bedroom, but there is only the two of them and they have 3 bedrooms now.

I think there is a defference between "surviving" and "living", earning £50K a year but spending it all on your martgage is "surviving", earning £30K and having half your wages to spend on yourself each month is "living".

Originally posted by Mosey
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Cyclone
[B]that's not answering the question though, he specified a car, etc...

Point taken. Difficult to answer the real question. I have friends with only small morgages as they bought their houses about 8 years ago.

With today's prices, its a different story and to achieve the described lifestyle with only a £15000 salary is an impossibility.

but not for 2 people earning 15k and saving up a reasonable deposit.

Nick2 - I guess it's to do with location and space. You compromise when you buy at first because of your limited budget. A few years later you might have more money so you move on to something closer to your ideal.

We live in walkley, my SO wanted to be close to the city and the house was at the right price.
I'd rather have a detached house in a quiet village with a garden and garage.
We have 3 bedrooms, 1 to sleep in, and 1 each for hobbies. A 4th isn't necessary, but a bigger kitchen would be nice.
So we'll be moving on in a few years once we've finished bringing the place up to scratch to maximise our return on it.

and a fair but not extravagent life style?


"Fair" to whom Buck? I think expecting/wanting/needing to run two cars is just not on. Maybe the earth can only sustain one 10th of a car per person if you multiply it out.

Originally posted by Cyclone
...An annual vacation is very subjective as well. A week in a tent in cornwall or a static caravan can be pretty cheap, especially off peak...
Not if you've got to come all the way from Connecticut to get to it, it isn't. ;)

I just know that with my impulsive spending patterns, no matter how much went into my bank account each month, I would ALWAYS be overdrawn.

No pockets in a shroud though! :D

I think it's interesting what we see as a "basic" lifestyle when you consider that something like 75% of the worlds population have never watched a TV or used a telephone.

I did some calculations recently to judge how much I would need to earn to live the life I want after uni. By adding an extra car, slightly bigger mortgage and a one off payment for a nice holiday in to the equation it adds up to £2000 a month.

To bring home that much each month after tax etc, two of you would need to be earning 15k a year each. I would imagine you could about double this to work out what one person's income would have to be. Allowing a bit for higher tax level.

This doesn't take in to account the fact you probably wouldn't get a mortgage for what most people would consider a reasonable home with those wages, under normal circumstances. Even though at the minute the monthly mortgage payment would be affordable.

Originally posted by silverfish
and a fair but not extravagent life style?


"Fair" to whom Buck? I think expecting/wanting/needing to run two cars is just not on. Maybe the earth can only sustain one 10th of a car per person if you multiply it out.

Perhaps it can't, but basically if you have two people working in, say, Leeds or elsewhere in West Yorkshire and living in Sheffield then two cars might be needed. Just get two economic runabouts.

The fact that we're talking about salary would to me indicate that we're looking at 'fair' referring to a professional or semi-professional household, and not some subsistence farmer in central Africa.

It's quite possible that two small second hand cars of reasonable fuel efficiency might have a smaller economic / environmental impact than a spanky new 4x4 or People Carrier.

I'd hardly say that two cars is extravagant - oh, and before anyone asks, we're a 0 car household.

Joe

The problem of ever increasing costs is soooo true! I have two kids, two cars and a mortgage (2 years old, so *just* before they went mad) and I pretty much scrape along. The wife doesn't work, but I earn enough for both of us.

However, I'm currently reviewing the situation. Just bought a (much) cheaper car (to run, that is) for the wife, and I am rejigging the 'luxuries' (just how many TV channels to you need?!?). It's true, though, that spending increases to match income whether you intend it to or not.

If you get a raise, DON'T SPEND IT! Put at least some of it in a savings account. I made the mistake of spending my raise on a more expensive car, more expensive TV package, etc. and, although immediately 'quality of life' improved, finance was still a burden. I then took a (relatively small) pay cut to change jobs to one with less stress and more free time, and I was surprised at how dependant I had got on the higher rate.

To answer the first question, the basic salary TO SURVIVE would be about 8k to 10k. I've raised a child and run a car on a combined income of £10k quite comfortably, including holidays to the seaside. To have the 2 cars, mortgage (at current house prices and rates) and so on, look toward 25k.

We have 4 cars in our house :|

Mine- I work in Dearne Valley and need my car all the time.
Dad- Works mainly in Manchester, and again needs car outside of work alot.
Brother- Works in Wakefield
Mum- Needed for work, shopping etc.

We could get by on 3 (brother and mum sharing..) but it's much more convenient for them to have their own cars.

No way in a million years could I share, and no way could I get by on public transport.. Just ain'tr gunna happen.

As far as salary is concerned, I think everyone learns to live on whatever they get paid.. The more I get paid, the more I spend. I'm not in a good enough financial state to live on my own though.

Gaz

just to echo everyones comments about two cars.

It's not a luxury, it's a necessity. My SO works in Huddersfield, I work wherever I get sent, currently Birmingham.
We both sometimes go to different places at weekends or evenings. None of this would be practical or sometimes even possible on public transport.

ff - Lol, I wouldn't recommend cornwall from conneticut.

It is interesting what we consider to be 'fair', sky tv, laptop, shiny car, broadband, mobile phone, 2 holidays a year, no restriction or real thought about costs of food, drink, transport.
Probably 90% of the world would consider that to be the lap of luxury.

You can live on whatever you get paid, and spending rises to match earnings, both so true.

Nine years ago, I had just taken a new job and a 50% paycut. I was earning £12,000 a year, my wife earned nothing, we had no savings, and yet we managed to afford to pay the mortgage on a 2-bedroom house in London, to raise our very young child, to keep an estate car running, and we even had enough left over to treat ourselves to a bottle of wine per week and the occasional night out.

In 1999, I hit the big time and got a 300% pay-rise. Within a couple of years, I was earning well over £60k a year, plus generous expenses. And yet I ended up poorer than ever. Admittedly we did manage to move to a much bigger house in a nicer part of the country (Sheffield), although even that is re-mortgaged up to the hilt these days, but I think my spending on going out, on clothes, food, drink, and in particular on treating friends & helping them out, sky-rocketed. (Of course, the fact that I was working at an advertising agency in South Kensington, immersed in an atmosphere of conspicuous consumption, didn't help matters greatly).

Nowadays I earn somewhere between my original salary and my silly-money salary, and I am eternally in debt. I've found it almost impossible to adjust to a more "normal" income, despite the fact that my wife now also earns.

So the moral of the story is, yes, if you get a pay-rise, save it! You'd be amazed how easy it is to spend money, I meet so many people who think they could buy everything they wanted if they earned say £50k a year, the truth is you couldn't, or rather you'd soon end up wanting much more.

I'd agree with Dan here.

Some years ago I was on a higher salary / income but was heavily leveraged on credit, etc.

Now I'm on a lower income but we're beginning to have more disposable income because we're not leveraged on debt.

It's a slow grind and does mean you have to save for what you want but it does offer more security!

Joe

I think planning is key to managing your finances sensibly.

I'm not on (what i would consider) to be a huge salary. But excepting the mortgage I have a miniscule amount of debt (remainder of a student loan). The reason is that I have no reason to take on more debt and when i've had payrises over the last 5 years (since I started work) and overtime payments over one period, I've used it first to pay off existing debts and then carefully decided what to do with the excess.
I have a monthly budget, boringly planned out for 5 years, although I only expect it to be accurate for about 6 months. I can see at the end of the month at a glance what I expected to have left and compare that to what I actually have, and then i know if i'm spending too much and what on.

It might be a little dull and a little bit retentive, but it does mean that I don't have nasty surprises when I look at my bank balance.

Thanks for your answers. I didn't think it was improper to ask. Its quite normal here to compare salaries and wages. As it happens when I left Sheffield in 1968, I was earning 1450 pounds a year, and a company car, which was considered very good. Cyclone asked me how Connecticut compares. We are one of the most expensive states in the Union, with high taxes. A home here can ranges from about $150,000 to well over a million with the highest prices being near NYC. Generally you have to have both spouses working to get a mortgage for anything over $200,000 and their combined salaries around $80,000. Gasoline is cheap compared to most places at around $2.20 a gallon, and unfortunately causes people to buy too big. Two cars are not a luxury, as our public transport does not match yours in any way. Generally if you have teenage kids they each have a car too. At one time I owned seven cars. Glad to say I just have two, a Nissan van, and a Chrysler sedan. We enjoy a month in Ireland every year, at a cottage in Clare we own. I retired in 1993 earning $60.000 a year and we made do on one salary. Some of the Southern states are cheap especially Florida, California and Hawaii are very expensive.

Hiya Buck, you sound pretty ok financially - lucky you!

House prices are one of the biggest expenses - you can't really get much in Sheffield these days for under £100k. I allowed £150k for something half decent in a cheaper (but good) area in the Sheffield suburbs.

To get a mortgage for £150k, based on 3 x annual salary would mean a salary of £50k. Now, I may be wrong here, but a salary of £50k in Sheffield is considered extremely good. Add to that council tax, gas, electric, telephone, water, car, other loans for furniture etc, ?? well, i'll let you work it out!

The only reason I could afford a half decent house is because I had a house to sell before I moved back to Sheffield so I had a reasonable amount to put down as a deposit. I really don't know how people new on the housing ladder are managing?

Just one more point if that's OK. Retirement means at some time having to rework your finances. Just till a few weeks ago I was maintaining a 10 room house on 3 quarters of an acre,and the bills were enormous, electricity, heating oil, and others were digging deep into our savings. We saw a small prefab what you would call a bungalow, and we call a ranch, on sale for $110,000 and bought it. Our old house sold on the Internet for $280,000 in one day! We have moved in and enjoying a very pleasant home by the river in a good neighborhood. No stairs to climb, no lawn the size of Chatsworth to cut, no snow to shovel. Best of all it's too small for our no hoper offspring to return home rent free. From now on you're on your home, kids. Reality strikes!

This all depends of your defination of survival?

I only need a roof over my head and food in my belly to survive- all the rest i can do without and i class as luxuries!! But someone else wouldn't be able to survive without a whole host of things i call as luxury!!!

Originally posted by JoePritchard
Perhaps it can't, but basically if you have two people working in, say, Leeds or elsewhere in West Yorkshire and living in Sheffield then two cars might be needed. Just get two economic runabouts.


So by "two cars" you don't actually mean two cars, you actually mean "one car per person, and two people per household".

That wasn't what was implied by the initial question.

So you only need to be looking at how much a person needs to run one car. The other person needs to look at how much they need to run the other car.

--
JGH

Originally posted by buck
At one time I owned seven cars.

You owned seven cars? Or there were seven people in your household, each of which owned a car?

--
JGH

Originally posted by jgharston
So by "two cars" you don't actually mean two cars, you actually mean "one car per person, and two people per household".

That wasn't what was implied by the initial question.

So you only need to be looking at how much a person needs to run one car. The other person needs to look at how much they need to run the other car.

--
JGH

unless only 1 of them is working.

Originally posted by Cyclone
unless only 1 of them is working.

Ah! One car and one spare/tinkering toy/rusting heap of scrap in the driveway. Well, that's what mine would end up as! ;)

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JGH

Originally posted by jgharston
Ah! One car and one spare/tinkering toy/rusting heap of scrap in the driveway. Well, that's what mine would end up as! ;)

--
JGH

i meant only one of the couple, not only one of the cars. :)

With five grown drivers in the house, we needed five cars, the other two were special service vehicles, one being a Volkswagen Camper, the other a Ford F150 pick up for doing house DIY work. As I've pointed out' if you live in a rural area here, public transport is either non existent or very infrequent. Having to run people everywhere becomes a real chore, and is hard on the car. If you provide the kids with their own it takes a load off you. They don't have to be spanking new models, most young American males are pretty handy at fixing cars, sometimes a little too ambitious. In Britain you can usually find what you need within 10 miles or so, over here it can be considerably further.

The average house in Britain currently costs £183 000
(from the Acorn 'Up My Street' web page).

Banks would historically lend you up to three times your salary for a mortgage.

So currently you would have to be earning £61 000 a year to be a first time buyer buying an average house.

An average family car costs £18 000: payments over three years on a loan would be about £535 a month.

I reckon you need at least a combined income of around £30k these days to even get onto the property ladder. There aren't an awful lot of family homes available for less than £100k.

I manage pretty well on a salary in the mid 20s.

However I am single, rent and only own one car (which was deliberately selected for fuel economy).

Bearing in mind debts, outgoings etc I have enough to save most months unless its massive gas bill, MoT month etc