What's a good salary

If you live in the south and want to commute to London, you need around 5k more on-top of your salary to be earning roughly the same salary locally (since the increase will go on travel). I wouldn't go to London for less than 40k, 45k would probably make it worth doing.
 
I've always taken the point of view that as long as you can pay your bills and live comfortably and not just exist from one pay cheque to the next then you have enough money, it's up to you how much that ammount is.
 
I've always taken the point of view that as long as you can pay your bills and live comfortably and not just exist from one pay cheque to the next then you have enough money, it's up to you how much that ammount is.

I agree mate. As long as you are secure and know that your outgoings/food e.t.c. are coverd with some to do/buy whatever you want your sorted
 
I've found most high paid jobs consume your life ,where as the normal ones you put in the hours come home and forget about it .
I know which I prefer .

Same here, it'd take a hefty rise for me to move to London or to somewhere that I'd have to work masses more hours. I'm lucky in that my current role is very relaxed and decent money for down here.
 
I've found most high paid jobs consume your life ,where as the normal ones you put in the hours come home and forget about it .
I know which I prefer .

See i'm the other way round, i love the feel of earning money, and hate spending it. So i work all hours.
 
A year or so back I had this formula in mind, it started off as age in thousands but I realised that that gave very high targets for school leavers yet relatively modest salaries for people in their 30s.

It then morphed into (age - 8)*1.5 which works a bit better I think, e.g:

16 = £12k (school leavers)
18 = £15k (bit more experience)
22 = £21k (fresh graduates)
26 = £27k (looking to buy a house)
30 = £33k (started a family)
36 = £42k (midlife crisis approaching, need to buy a porsche)
etc

Sounds reasonable to me as an average and targets.

Edit 1: I also go by the values mentioned by the IStructE when they carried a salary survey in 2006: grad £22-24k, grad+2 £26-28k, grad+4(exam time) £30-34k, etc...

Edit 2: I can't remember if I have posted in this thread before but I am 24 and recently got a pay rise from £23k to £26k within my first year at work as a grad engineer. As I live at home, I am saving lots towards a new car and house. Girlfriend graduated same time as me and is still jobless a year on, which is very frustrating because, depending on where our relationship goes, it would be nice for her to have savings too.
 
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Sounds reasonable to me as an average and targets.

Agreed. Good target I think, even though I will always say money isn't everything, but it certainly can help.

I'm 28, earn 25k a year, house in Wales and looking to buy a share in a house in Bucks, currently renting there. Money is tight, but I enjoy life, that is what it is all about.
 
I live in south wales, so its obviously costs less to live down here than it does a lot of other places. So i would think a good salary down here would be a lot less than it would in london. Not sure what the average salary is down here, but im 22, earning 27k. If i do some overtime i could realistically see 36k+, but i live with my parents and they wont take money of me, so all my money is mine. I rarely drink either so pretty much 100% of my pay is mine to do whatever i want with:)
 
60k is the minimum I would be happy with when I am older but my aim is 100k plus. I should mention that that is when I am 35+

To earn 27k at 22 (whilst living with my parents) would result in a hell of a lot of saving!
 
60k is the minimum I would be happy with when I am older but my aim is 100k plus. I should mention that that is when I am 35+

To earn 27k at 22 (whilst living with my parents) would result in a hell of a lot of saving!

It is, i have another little side job that i use to live on, and all my wage is saved, got some plans for the future that i need to save a lot of cash for:)
 
I'll bet you have your own business, there's no way in hell you'd say that working for someone.

While i do a lot for myself, i also work for a company, and would happily work all hours for them if they would foot the overtime bill. I worked 12+ hours for them on saturday for example very happily with not even a 5min break for a drink - i love messing with high end server hardware, i moved a huge oracle server and san from a customers central london office to an out of town datacentre.
 
http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/stats/income_distribution/table3-2-jan08.xls

In 2005/06 the mean salary for someone aged 20-24 was £13,400 and the median was £12,200.

Also, £40K would put you almost in the top 10% of earners regardless of age.
http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/stats/income_distribution/table3-1-jan08.xls

Thank **** for that!! Thankyou :)

I was beginning to feel slightly depressed about my position (age 32 and £25-30k)... i started a business with a couple of friends almost a year ago, and it's tough atm, although we have no debt whatsoever, and with me doing some odd freelance work to reduce our wages bill we get by.

But all the people (certainly near the start of this thread) talking about £35k being fairly good for a 25 year old etc, and a 20 year old needing £40k to live in the SE... i guess this is the interwebz actually... more carp than my local fishing lake! ;)
 
Not trying to catch you out, just thought I remembered you saying you earnt £34k after tax in that job description thread you created. Only remember because I'm interested in going into the oil exploration/extraction sector myself.

As I said that was my last year wage, 40k is what I am hoping to get this year after tax, If I go offshore for long enough it over doubles my monthly wage, and so far I have 2 and a bit months booked to offshore with a few more weeks of oversea time aswell, and then their is jan-april to consider on a new project so I do not know yet, hence why I said I should break 40k before tax and if I get luck I can get more than that, also what you have to consider that I will recieve 2 payrises this year and a 10% or so bonus.

KaHn
 
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