comfortable salary
- Thread starter DAIR
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I think one mans meat is another mans poison
Comfortable to me might be luxury to someone else but disgustingly sub-standard to another.
As these are people's opinions they are bound to be challenged, if I had to put a figure on it I'd grab at 80k
Comfortable to me might be luxury to someone else but disgustingly sub-standard to another.
As these are people's opinions they are bound to be challenged, if I had to put a figure on it I'd grab at 80k
So i am guessing you are nowhere near your desired life yet then
That was low....
Why are people having digs at someone who thinks £150k in London is comfortable? I think it's perfectly reasonable. Bear in mind - £150k pa is just £7,685.03 per month after tax. You will spend thousands per month on a good home in a nice area of London alone.
If you like nice things and don't like roughing it, then the world, and London especially, is a very expensive place.
If you like nice things and don't like roughing it, then the world, and London especially, is a very expensive place.
So if you like nice things and don't like roughing it then you need £150k pa? rubbish.
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Where I live, or in terms of my experience of where I live, £40,000-50,000 for household income can cover both parents and a couple of kids without any major, major luxury. I'd say that's what I'd describe as comfortable if you take away the kids.
Depends on the size of the family!
I would class 150 p/a as being well off (as a single man or woman)
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There are a few 3 bedroom houses in Putney going for £400k.
Let's say a £50k deposit, 5% mortgage, that's £2,070 a month. (27%)
For comparison, the pure mortgage on our 1-bed flat is 23% of our joint after-tax take-home.
4% increase to go from 1-bed flat to 3-bed house in a nicer area? YES PLEASE!
If you think that's rubbish, we have different definitions of 'nice things' and 'roughing it'.
I don't like staying in less than 5-star hotels.
I don't like drinking in dodgy bars and pubs.
I don't like eating in mainstream chain restaurants.
I don't like flying economy.
I don't like driving old, small cars that break down and have niggles.
I like staying in 5-star hotels.
I like drinking in world-class champagne and cocktail bars.
I like eating in world-class resaraurants.
I like flying business.
I like driving new, luxury cars.
I like designer clothes.
I like luxury watches.
Etc.
Try doing that, while living in a nicer part of London, on less than a seriously decent salary.
It certainly is well-off, relatively speaking. However, to have the sort of nice things I like, I need to be well off.
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Not knocking it, in a way I agree, however I was just pointing out the same thing as Fox that a 4 year old focus is deemed a banger, and that by only having one holiday abroad means that you will be off on a cheap package to Spain
Personally I'd say 40k would be very comfortable for me down here, with whatever the wife would earn on top of that.
Comfortable is such a wishy washy term.
Somebody who has little urge for material wealth may happily live on a sub 30k salary (currently anyway), certainly I think that defines much of my family. Most of them rarely go on holiday, they have older cars, don't go out much and don't have expensive tastes.
That might sound stupidly boring to many people, but it's just the way they were raised and they are all happy with their lot.
Currently I would say I am 'just' about comfortable on a 13.5k pa PhD stipend. I take occasional short breaks around Europe, live in a nice enough flat/apartment that is rented, own and run a car, eat well and go out most weekends. I don't however currently have any savings or "stability" should something terrible happen.
I expect that as I graduate and have a better idea of where I am to settle semi-permanently, I will buy a house, want a mortgage, proper pension plans, perhaps take proper holidays due to having specific time to take off rather than the student "ok im bored lets go somewhere next weekend" attitude, and as such what I consider to be "comfortable" will increase.
To say that somebody in the UK can't be comfortable on anything less than 100k is frankly ridiculous, a large proportion of the population live, in their minds, very comfortably on ~30k and then the pension this brings their entire life. They don't have brand new luxury cars, they may shop at Tesco instead of Waitrose, but for them, it's enough and that is 100% fair enough. Clearly for a select few, perhaps those who have been brought up to be used to more or perhaps have got a taste for it, then clearly 30k wont be enough and I imagine this is the driving force that allows those people to work/connive that much harder to climb the social and economic ladders!
EDIT: Just to add PMKeates example above this post is exactly what I mean. For most people in the UK, living in central London in a nice house is something they wouldn't even consider to be something they could ever aim for, so they don't and to be frank for many it's undesirable. I have NO inclination to massively pay over the odds purely to live in the capital of a landmass that is so tiny to begin with. Sure London is "where it's at" but boy do you pay for the privilege! If that's something you desire, then that's great. The same can be said for first class flights, expensive watches, top spec brand new luxury cars, sharp bespoke suits, eating in fine dining places instead of your local independents, the list is endless. As has been said, for the individual these things may seem to be necessities of life as that is what they are used to, but they are not a requirement for comfortable living, not even close.
When you earn so little that upon needing urgent medication, you have to wait for a few weeks for the next pay day before you can even afford NHS rates, then that's not living comfortably... Unless you have experienced it or witnessed it, you have no context and arguably no understanding.
Somebody who has little urge for material wealth may happily live on a sub 30k salary (currently anyway), certainly I think that defines much of my family. Most of them rarely go on holiday, they have older cars, don't go out much and don't have expensive tastes.
That might sound stupidly boring to many people, but it's just the way they were raised and they are all happy with their lot.
Currently I would say I am 'just' about comfortable on a 13.5k pa PhD stipend. I take occasional short breaks around Europe, live in a nice enough flat/apartment that is rented, own and run a car, eat well and go out most weekends. I don't however currently have any savings or "stability" should something terrible happen.
I expect that as I graduate and have a better idea of where I am to settle semi-permanently, I will buy a house, want a mortgage, proper pension plans, perhaps take proper holidays due to having specific time to take off rather than the student "ok im bored lets go somewhere next weekend" attitude, and as such what I consider to be "comfortable" will increase.
To say that somebody in the UK can't be comfortable on anything less than 100k is frankly ridiculous, a large proportion of the population live, in their minds, very comfortably on ~30k and then the pension this brings their entire life. They don't have brand new luxury cars, they may shop at Tesco instead of Waitrose, but for them, it's enough and that is 100% fair enough. Clearly for a select few, perhaps those who have been brought up to be used to more or perhaps have got a taste for it, then clearly 30k wont be enough and I imagine this is the driving force that allows those people to work/connive that much harder to climb the social and economic ladders!
EDIT: Just to add PMKeates example above this post is exactly what I mean. For most people in the UK, living in central London in a nice house is something they wouldn't even consider to be something they could ever aim for, so they don't and to be frank for many it's undesirable. I have NO inclination to massively pay over the odds purely to live in the capital of a landmass that is so tiny to begin with. Sure London is "where it's at" but boy do you pay for the privilege! If that's something you desire, then that's great. The same can be said for first class flights, expensive watches, top spec brand new luxury cars, sharp bespoke suits, eating in fine dining places instead of your local independents, the list is endless. As has been said, for the individual these things may seem to be necessities of life as that is what they are used to, but they are not a requirement for comfortable living, not even close.
When you earn so little that upon needing urgent medication, you have to wait for a few weeks for the next pay day before you can even afford NHS rates, then that's not living comfortably... Unless you have experienced it or witnessed it, you have no context and arguably no understanding.
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Yes but that is not living comfortably. That is living in luxury.
To be honest, before we moved in with my parents, we were 'comfortable' on £26000~ combined. That's in Shropshire, renting a 2 bedroom semi in a very small village (although the other house was empty for 9 months of the year, so effectively detached, which was nice).
I think it's all about living well within your means, so you have spare cash to ***** on nice things. I could be uncomfortable on 80k if I tried hard enough.
I think it's all about living well within your means, so you have spare cash to ***** on nice things. I could be uncomfortable on 80k if I tried hard enough.
To Liliane Bettencourt, what I just described probably sounds like abject poverty. It's all relative.[
I agree, and I also agree that what seems comfortable comes from your familiarity with material comforts. Without wanting to sound like a politician trying to invent some kind of empathy with working-class voters, I grew up relatively poor - council house (in fact, until I was 10 we lived in a 14-storey council flat), three family holidays in my entire life (never abroad), cheap clothes, limited array of toys, always had cheap cars (my dad's business), rarely ate out etc. I think the combined income of my parents would have been in the region of £20k. I certainly started adult life with little need for an abundance of material wealth.
As time as gone on and I've done reasonably well for myself at 24, my taste for things has changed. I've experienced some of the nicer things that life has to offer, and some of them have become the baseline for me. Anything less feels like roughing it. I am not ashamed to say I have become materialistic. I want cars, clothes, houses, boats - the works. I suspect that is the case for a lot of people who have been suggesting much higher figures to be 'comfortable'.
Soldato
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I live somewhere far posher than Tilbury! Chadwell-st-Mary.