comfortable salary

monster_munch said:
To actually ENJOY life you need to earn about 60k + easily.

Should be rocking that by the end of the year... looking forward to it! lol
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Noting talking about being rich lol. I'm talking about being financially stable.

Earning enough to cover all expenses with a decent amount left over
 
dowie said:
Quick search of 1 bedroom flats in Angel - a nice/comfortable area not a posh west end location - just N1.

http://www.gumtree.com/cgi-bin/list_postings.pl?search_terms=&search_location=angel&ubercat=3

If you want a reasonable 1 bedroom somewhere like that you're looking at least at £300 a week.
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There are plenty of decent places for £1000 pcm in putney, SW, and SE London. Maybe North of the river is more expensive for property?

Anyway, either way, 45k you take home nearly 2.8k, so even a £1200 pcm rent, £300 food bills, £200-250 for house bills, you've still got around £1,100 left. Plenty to put some money aside for savings or holidays, run a car, go out for a few drinks and meals a month, and a bit of frivolity.

Unless you go mad, 45k a month is easily a decent amount of salary to live comfortably.

If you're happy to house share, 30k+ is easy to live well on, even with rich food tastes! I could easily adapt my life to 30k living in London. Sure I'd have to be more careful, and potentially sacrifice a night out or two, or just be a bit more careful with how I save and spend my money, but it would be feasible. London IS expensive I accept that, and suffer the "joys" of living in London... but it does depend on what you're used to and what level of comfort and ostentatious living you enjoy!
 
As a single bloke if you're willing to house share (but in a nice place) then £25k outside of London and £35k in London. Add an extra £5k to each if you want your own place.

I was on £30k outside of London and now on £40k within London and 2/3rds of the pay rise is funding the extra London living costs. Still, I'm in a houseshare and consider myself comfortable.
 
Freefaller said:
Anyway, either way, 45k you take home nearly 2.8k, so even a £1200 pcm rent, £300 food bills, £200-250 for house bills, you've still got around £1,100 left.
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OK so for a modest 1 bedroom flat in a nice-ish area within zone 1-2 - i.e. £300 - £400 a week.... as per the gumtree link for Angel (or £1300 to £1733 per month).

£300 food, £200 household bills as per your estimate...

(so 1800 to 2033 per month so far)

Going out once or twice a week £400 per month - assuming work drinks on a Friday, taking a girl out on a Saturday or doing something with friends on the weekend.

so 2200 to 2433 per month

Pension contribution of 5% (assuming employer matches up to 5% this is sensible) £190 per month

so 2390 to 2623


You'll have say £100 - £300 ish to save for a deposit to actually buy a house, pay for your holidays, cover any purchases (TVs, Computers etc..) buy clothes, pay for your car running costs and add to your savings....

Not enough to be comfortable IMHO
 
As I said it depends on where you live in London.

I don't regularly spend £400 on going out a month. £300 on food is what i eat, but others may eat closer to £200. The £200 per month for bills, is roughly what I pay at the moment.

£300 of disposable income is still pretty good if you ask me.

I live a fairly comfortable lifestyle go on 2-3 one to two week holidays abroad a year, and whilst I don't have the biggest tv, or the best surround sound or an amazing computer, it's good enough for what I need. Fashion and clothes doesn't interest me, and i'm not one to drink my bodyweight regularly. Though I do go out a lot, I still don't clock up huge bills. However I pay less on rent than £300 a week.

I think generalising that 45k+ is hard to live on and be comfortable in London is a ludicrous statement to make. If you're careful you can live on 10k less than that more than comfortably and still treat yourself to toys, and going abroad.
 
I own my own place in zone 3 and it's a 25 minute commute to where I work in the city. I was pretty comfortable when I was earning £32,000. Socialising most nights, plenty of holidays and lots of toys. Admittedly no car but I've got no use for one.
 
It does depend a lot on how much you're going out - especially in London.

I play rugby most weekends in London (West) and going out every Saturday that we have a game, plus having a girlfriend in London soon adds up.

It's not that I can't afford it, it's just trying to save £750 a month whilst also doing the above leads to some tight months :o

But it's my choice to save that amount so I can't complain.
 
Renting a fully detached house with my girlfriend, lovely samsung 7 series tv, nice surround sound (plus toys... 360, ps3 etc), full house of furniture, decent computer, decent set of bikes (my hobby) and eat nice food. Oh, and i get roughly 19 hours a day outside of work.


£14,000 a year as a cleaner.


Although not driving a car is a big saver and i don't often go out drinking etc. I enjoy my life and would say i'm comfortable.
 
Think I read somewhere in the past that based on surveys ~£50k is a good number and people tend to be happiest around that level on average (I know that sounds a bit stupid but I think the idea was that the level of stress / work-life balance was better on average at around that salary than say a 6-figure salary).

Personally I would say around the high tax threshold is a good starting point i.e. ~£43k. Obviously this is assuming you don't need to live in London or have any exceptional circumstances (single parent bringing up kids etc).
 
Raymond Lin said:
Regardless of where you live, I think I would like at least £100 a week to play with every week to consider it comfortable. That is money after rent, bills, taxes, travel, food for the fridge etc. Which when you think about it, is not that much £5k a year. Obviously if you want to go on holiday and blow £2k then you can't go out for 5 months….So I say £7k "loose" money would suffice for me.
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The thing is that doesn't really give too much of an indication as to a required salary as those variables (rent/bills/travel and to some extent food) can vary wildly. If you had miscellaneous bills amounting to say £3k/month then you'd need a 'big' salary to be comfortable by your definition (£100/week+ left over). Yet of those £3k/month bills you could probably drop some of them and still consider yourself comfortable even on a much lower salary.

Same goes for rent - go for a luxury penthouse in the city and your required salary goes through the roof yet you might still feel comfortable on a quarter of the salary in a more modest flat.

I know what you are driving at, £7k pure disposable income is a fair shout, but the problem in relation to the thread is that based on the variables that might mean an annual salary of £27k or £270k.
 
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