2018: What's considered a decent wage within reason?
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Thames Ditton
Kids have a big impact. My Wife and I have a combined of roughly 150K, and feel like we don't have much left at the end of the month sometimes when we factor the 2K a month of nursery fees into it - which sounds crazy now I write it down, but then we spend a lot each month on an ongoing house rennovation too. Didn't even have a holiday last year!
We're both on a salary trajectory that is healthy, and really cannot wait until the girls go to school and we free up that cash. Of course, I'm sure we'll just be exchanging one outgoing for another!
Soldato
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Struggling on 150k? Often people's with money 'struggling' is a lot different to people who earn 20k struggling. Not being able to make it the holiday home in the South of France this year is not struggling. 
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Struggling on 150k? Often people's with money 'struggling' is a lot different to people who earn 20k struggling. Not being able to make it the holiday home in the South of France this year is not struggling.
Why do you have struggling in quotation marks, when I never used that word?
Point is, even when you get to a position where you have a decent income - a house in a reasonable area, a few kids etc and you can easily be left with very little.
Associate
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As manyhave said it's all relative to what your standard of living is. Personally (single and outside London but in expensive areas) I found anything less than £35k a challenge, that's only £250 a week once you remove rent / bills etc. 45k I found much easier and up at 65k it just means I save a lot more and can afford nicer things (better car / holidays). In London though it's a completely different story, if you add renting / mortgage on a decent place I'd have to earn £105,000 have the same disposible income which is just ridiculous!
Tell me about it. London + 3 kids (including at least one at Uni for the last 7 years) + effective tax rate of 60% once you hit 100K due to the personal allowance tapering = Less 'spare' income than many would expect given what has to be considered a very good salary.
Between me and the other half we currently pull in just under 40K per year (before tax etc) and we are doing pretty well on that. We are pretty skint atm though due to paying for our wedding but hopefully come June we can start saving up to buy a house and stop paying £600 a month in bloody rent (thieving pigs). The area I live in can be quite expensive for what it is which is a bummer but it could be worse *cough* London *cough* 
Stoner81.
Stoner81.
Soldato
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Best moment of 2017 for me was when my twins were eligible for the 30 free hours! They start school in September so another bit of savings to come.
With regards to the OP, I think 30k would be comfortable for me without kids, with kids adding 5k per child feels about right. There is a big but. 30k assumes you have a decent pension from your employer, otherwise I'd want to be paying 10k a year into that so 40k is really what I see as needed for a lifetime of relative comfort.
Deleted member 651465
Deleted member 651465
My situation:
2 people, 1 child and a dog
Combined income of £75k
1 nice holiday a year
Lots of benefits with work
Living comfortable and a good work-life balance
Was offered a contracting job (6 weeks on, 2 weeks off) in Asia paying £20,000 a month tax free
but the work life balance would go out the window and I know I’d get burned out travelling back and forth trying to spend enough time out of the country to avoid the tax hit and ultimately want to stop within a year. The Mrs is on at me about taking it but she’s just after loads of shoes
To answer your question: £35k as a single man and you’re laughing imo. I know people who live like kings on much less but they don’t save, hence why I’ve picked that number.
2 people, 1 child and a dog
Combined income of £75k
1 nice holiday a year
Lots of benefits with work
Living comfortable and a good work-life balance
Was offered a contracting job (6 weeks on, 2 weeks off) in Asia paying £20,000 a month tax free
but the work life balance would go out the window and I know I’d get burned out travelling back and forth trying to spend enough time out of the country to avoid the tax hit and ultimately want to stop within a year. The Mrs is on at me about taking it but she’s just after loads of shoes To answer your question: £35k as a single man and you’re laughing imo. I know people who live like kings on much less but they don’t save, hence why I’ve picked that number.
Soldato
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Ouch, my rough fag packet calculations are that 5 days of nursery is equivalent to 1 person earning minimum wage.
we get by ok we dont live on the city but bournemouth isnt cheap
at 33 im on around 27k a year mrs is more like 15 but shes 23 and in child care which pays poor but she loves it. Weve got a 3 bed semi mortgaged I drive a 2005 lexus is200 would be nice to change but she doesnt skip a beat. Were getting married and saving up for a honey moon so things are a little tighter than I'd like but we get by. I also have full cable tv packages and play golf which is 1000 quid a year membership. Im also putting 3000 a year into a pension and have little to no debts apart from the mortgage aloong side a saving pot of around 9k
No kids but we do have a dog. Could we afford kids maybe it would be tight and I'd perhaps have to give something up in exchange for an easier financial life but all in all things could be a lot worse
at 33 im on around 27k a year mrs is more like 15 but shes 23 and in child care which pays poor but she loves it. Weve got a 3 bed semi mortgaged I drive a 2005 lexus is200 would be nice to change but she doesnt skip a beat. Were getting married and saving up for a honey moon so things are a little tighter than I'd like but we get by. I also have full cable tv packages and play golf which is 1000 quid a year membership. Im also putting 3000 a year into a pension and have little to no debts apart from the mortgage aloong side a saving pot of around 9k
No kids but we do have a dog. Could we afford kids maybe it would be tight and I'd perhaps have to give something up in exchange for an easier financial life but all in all things could be a lot worse
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At present, me and my wife are on a joint income of £47,000, we're both 27 and graduated in 2015 and since then we've had a lavish wedding & honeymoon (£20,000), each purchased a car (£17,000) and bought a £200,000 house (5% deposit, 20% HTB, 75% mortgage), we've also spent thousands on things like new furniture, flooring etc.
Of course, we've mostly had to use credit to fund all the above, our wages cover all our monthly outgoings but we're often down to our last few pennies at the end of the month, so we're currently in the precarious situation of having no savings and if a big expense occurred we'd need to use a credit card.
On the other hand, none of our friends who graduated at the same time as us have managed to get married, get new cars and buy a house so we feel like we've been lucky also.
Also means that for the next couple of years at least, we won't be buying anything expensive or going on holiday, hopefully we're able to accumulate some savings and our wages should go up.
So to answer the OP, it depends on what you want, if we hadn't got married, bought cheap cars and continued to rent we'd easily have £1,000+ a month disposable income meaning we'd live very comfortably, be able to save and go on holidays.
Of course, we've mostly had to use credit to fund all the above, our wages cover all our monthly outgoings but we're often down to our last few pennies at the end of the month, so we're currently in the precarious situation of having no savings and if a big expense occurred we'd need to use a credit card.
On the other hand, none of our friends who graduated at the same time as us have managed to get married, get new cars and buy a house so we feel like we've been lucky also.
Also means that for the next couple of years at least, we won't be buying anything expensive or going on holiday, hopefully we're able to accumulate some savings and our wages should go up.
So to answer the OP, it depends on what you want, if we hadn't got married, bought cheap cars and continued to rent we'd easily have £1,000+ a month disposable income meaning we'd live very comfortably, be able to save and go on holidays.
Always interesting to read topics like this. Just moved in with my girlfriend (she owns, I was renting), and we'll have a combined salary of around £64-65k, and I imagine we'll be living pretty comfortably as we're up north (just outside of Liverpool). No kids planned just yet but a couple of holidays certainly are!
Yeah, I can see how that takes a massive chunk. Realistically, I spend far too much on unnecessary day to day habits that would mostly disappear as soon as we move back to the suburbs, so I can see these being wholly consumed by childcare. For the first time ever I just went through my monthly and annual outgoings on my online bank app, and taking out costs that are one off (I should bloody hope they're one offs) such as engagement ring, wedding, etc. my frivolous spending is far too much. I think I'd rather spend that cash on childcare now than continue to **** it up the wall.
My situation:
Was offered a contracting job (6 weeks on, 2 weeks off) in Asia paying £20,000 a month tax free
I would most certainly do this for a year or two! Two years work in the scheme of things is not much - obviously it's a different story for a young family - but I'd be very tempted to do it, save up during that time and set myself up for the foreseeable future. I can understand why you'd not want to do it - family, travel, etc. and everyone has their own set of circumstances - but if I were in that situation I would think long and hard about jumping on it.
I never knew about this until recently. That was a shock when my tax code went from a healthy 12xxL to Kxxx, i.e., all tax allowance removed
. Can't help but feel it's somewhat excessive.To make matters worse, we then lost childcare free hours.
I think I was actually worse off, after a pay rise.
Soldato
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Sorry didn't read your post properly.
i do know people who say they have no money but still go on 2 holidays a year, have expensive, clothes, cars etc.
Caporegime
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Sometimes "I've got no money" is just a handy excuse not to attend a social event.