Living 'costs at least £14,400' for a single person

We manage on 21k per year between us with 3 kids thank god for the tax credits.

We're still renting in a below standard house for 370 per month, No way I'm paying 650 for a smaller property even If we do live next to a scrap yard.
 
Was reading this before, and not sure if I totally agree.

Me and my gf probabally bring in a basic income of £43k between us. We have just bought a new build and working out the bills will leave us with approx £1000.

Now in my opinion this is still scraping it. Ideally we would like to save as much money as possible as we do not want to be caught short at any time if things go bad, I would like think think we would save £500 a month which should help keep us from needing to use credit card if anything goes wrong.

Leaving us £500 a month to live from. We would probabally like to save a further amount of cash for holidays, say £200 a month.

This then leaves us £300.

From this take £200 for fuel...

We therefore have £100 between 2 to have a life.

My conclusion is £14,400 is way too low! To have an acceptable standard of living without the requirement of credit!

If it wasn't for enhancements / Bonus / Comissions we would not have a life...
 
Cut your cloth accordingly. It's amusing to hear people grumble because they can "only" go on holiday once or twice this year, and are still running a car, eating out regularly, going out drinking, have a contract phone, Sky TV, etc. Lots of those things are not essential.

The figure of £14,400 covers what is deemed an acceptable standard of living, rather than being an absolute minimum which covers necessities such as food and rent only.

To the chap who could only live "acceptably" with his ex in a £377/month property on a combined income of £30,000 a year: thats £1,885/month take home pay (possibly more if you were two £15,000 a year earners)- you ought to be able to manage on less than that, plenty do!
 
That article doesn’t outline what is acceptable, for example poverty is an average (so quite how Labour planned to abolish it I've no idea). Also not having a mobile and a TV for a child isn't a case poverty. I think rent is the biggest hurt because of how the housing market exploded and with DSS it meant that private tenants struggled to keep up - now that the government has imposed caps we can hopefully see things improve.
 
GinG said:
Was reading this before, and not sure if I totally agree.

Me and my gf probabally bring in a basic income of £43k between us. We have just bought a new build and working out the bills will leave us with approx £1000.

Now in my opinion this is still scraping it. Ideally we would like to save as much money as possible as we do not want to be caught short at any time if things go bad, I would like think think we would save £500 a month which should help keep us from needing to use credit card if anything goes wrong.

Leaving us £500 a month to live from. We would probabally like to save a further amount of cash for holidays, say £200 a month.

This then leaves us £300.

From this take £200 for fuel...

We therefore have £100 between 2 to have a life.

My conclusion is £14,400 is way too low! To have an acceptable standard of living without the requirement of credit!

If it wasn't for enhancements / Bonus / Comissions we would not have a life...
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Once again, get real! You're managing to save £700/month and you act as if you're hard up. You also own a property (or have a mortgage on it), which is also more than many have, and I'm willing to bet it isn't a poky flat, terraced house or ex-council house. It's when you struggle to meet ends meet and have no savings that times can be considered hard.
 
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Everyone has different standards - the more you earn typically the more you live to your earnings so the minimum standard is raised accordingly. That's what i've found, but I like the finer things in live so maybe pay over the odd.
 
Here in devon its really bad imho, wages are low, living costs are high.

I bring home ~1300/month, rent is £450 plus an extra ~250-300 a month on bills, not including food, out goings before anything non priority is around the 800/month mark, thats for a 1.5 bed flat in newton abbot. Rent is considered cheap for what we have, normally looking at 550+ for a large flat/apartment. I have credit cards and a loan to pay as well so my actuall disposable income is roughly 250/month which is to go out, run the car and for spending money.

The only option I have to reduce those out goings is to move out into a shared house/bedsit which would free up 200-300 a month.
 
I lived on about 6k as a student 4k + 2k parents, and it was barely enough. I think 14.4k would be plenty to survive compared to that.
 
Freefaller said:
Everyone has different standards - the more you earn typically the more you live to your earnings so the minimum standard is raised accordingly. That's what i've found, but I like the finer things in live so maybe pay over the odd.
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This is true IMHO. I am sure we could save even more than we do already if we wanted to, but we quite like the lifestyle we have. I have lots of problems and worries in life, we are very fortunate that money isn't one of them.
 
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It is grim on 14k. I started on about that much but only for 3 months.

Best thing to do is to live at parents or next to work so you don't need a car. doable in a city.

It seems inflation is always faster than you think, shouldn't everything double in price every 20 years. seems sooner. One thing I know is that it is more than my pay rise increase. always make sure you get 3% a year just for inflation.

I can't even bear to buy bars of chocolate in petrol stations 80p or whatever they charge just seems wrong, should be 30p god dammit. only 10 years ago.
 
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This can't included London can it? It doesn't seem possible to me to live on that and still have an 'acceptable standard of living' here. Rent + travel would clean up your monthly allowance before you even thought about feeding yourself!
 
The Mad Rapper said:
This is true IMHO. I am sure we could save even more than we do already if we wanted to, but we quite like the lifestyle we have. I have lots of problems and worries in life, I am very fortunate that money isn't one of them.
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Money used to be a big issue for me as I clocked up a lot of debt with my silly hobbies (skydiving being the biggest ones! :p) but I clocked up so many experiences that I haven't looked back or regretted it. Cleared my debts after saving lots, but with my "need" for several holidays a year and my mod cons it took longer than I was hoping. Fortunately moving up the corporate ladder has helped in paying things back.

You're absolutely right though, it's so easy to forget what it's like to live on a shoe string and we all could survive on living on a lot less - but when you have the ability to enjoy your life you tend to live it! :)
 
Rent £650 pcm 2-bedroom flat City Centre Southampton
Bills £50-80 pcm
Broadband: £20 pcm
Food £50 p/w (£200 pcm)
Council Tax £150pcm (For 10 months)

Total: £1080-1100

Meaning that's the minimum. Take home of 1100 must be about £16k p/a ?

Fortunately I live with my fiancée, we're both on crappy salaries, but we can save if necessary about £800 pcm. Keep in mind, neither of us drive, we don't own a TV License, we don't drink or smoke.

Ultimately, 20 years ago you could survive on a single persons salary a lot easier than you can in today's market.
 
TMP said:
This can't included London can it? It doesn't seem possible to me to live on that and still have an 'acceptable standard of living' here. Rent + travel would clean up your monthly allowance before you even thought about feeding yourself!
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In my last job, there were a lot of junior staff who earned less than £15K per year. That was a Civil Service entity in Central London. They all mostly lived with their parents, all were in their mid-twenties :(
 
Their research is rubbish to be honest.

Here's some costs they assumed an average family would spend on stuff in a week.

Clothes : £29.58
Leisure : £104.

And they also state that the Internet, Mobile Phone and a computer are all now "essential" to have an acceptable/comfortable life in the UK - Give me a break.

They use the weekly subsciptions to calculate their Houshold services/personal services and goods costs - which total another £60 a week. What rubbish.

There's no way we spend anywhere near £1500 a year on clothes....and I'm damn sure we don't spend £5,400 a year on leisure.
 
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GinG said:
Was reading this before, and not sure if I totally agree.

Me and my gf probabally bring in a basic income of £43k between us. We have just bought a new build and working out the bills will leave us with approx £1000.

Now in my opinion this is still scraping it. Ideally we would like to save as much money as possible as we do not want to be caught short at any time if things go bad, I would like think think we would save £500 a month which should help keep us from needing to use credit card if anything goes wrong.

Leaving us £500 a month to live from. We would probabally like to save a further amount of cash for holidays, say £200 a month.

This then leaves us £300.

From this take £200 for fuel...

We therefore have £100 between 2 to have a life.

My conclusion is £14,400 is way too low! To have an acceptable standard of living without the requirement of credit!

If it wasn't for enhancements / Bonus / Comissions we would not have a life...
Click to expand...

Our combined gross is around £46k.

Our monthly net is around £2,900.

Mortgage (new build e-bed flat): £560
Bills: £300
Other outgoings (food, travel, car, sundries, debt): £1,500

So that's £540 disposable income, £100 each personal savings, and the remaining £340 is for general savings or holidays/big purchases.

We're both perfectly happy with this set up, and feel no way hard done by.
 
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