How do people afford to work in expensive areas of the country?

[413x]

London has exceptionally good public transport so you can live in social housing and/or ******** estates far out from the centre. You don't need a car and you never need to travel outside London because there is so much in London.
Renting a room in an apartment isn't that expensive, you can get rooms for under £10k a year. Minimum wage has been hiked up massively (over £10/hr now) and tax free threshold also hiked massively. So those retail jobs you refer to probably have a takehome pay that has risen a lot more in percentage terms than higher paid jobs have.

I guess if you accept renting for life it's not so bad. But isn't public transport quite expensive now?

Yeah I take the point about minimum wage rising. I was quite surprised how high it was. I can imagine it's starting the threaten some jobs "why should I do my old job when now any job pays the same".

Still sounds grim though. 10k a year for a room sounds super expensive to me. Especially on minimum wage.

 

[HangTime]

Whether you think public transport is expensive or not I guess depends on what you compare it to. But you can travel many miles to any location for a few pounds with a wait time measured in minutes not hours. Where I live, that means booking a taxi 90% of the time which is more expensive. On the very rare occasions you happen to be going somewhere remotely near a bus route, sometimes you have to wait over 36hrs between buses (Saturday evening to Monday morning is an example from the bus service to the main retail centre in my town). Anywhere in London with retail jobs will almost certainly have amazing public transport options.

I said under £10k, you don't need to pay £10k for a room but I just picked a round number I know is achievable. And yes, it is grim, I'm not saying I'd want to do it. I'm just explaining why it is possible, and why for many people born and raised in London, that's all they've ever known, they have no alternative.

 

[arknor]

Work 60 hours per week on that and your income is £35k.

only 60 hours?

so you'd still have what 30ish hours per week left to do house hold chores etc and sleep the rest.

 

[platinum87]

Minimum wage has been hiked up massively (over £10/hr now) and tax free threshold also hiked massively. So those retail jobs you refer to probably have a takehome pay that has risen a lot more in percentage terms than higher paid jobs have.

Feels like, 95% of degrees, will be out earned by someone working at amazon who is willing to do overtime. You can hit £40k easy as amazon warehouse operative.

I think the income distribution is messed up, the vast majority of people are bunched together, where it should be far more spread out.

only 60 hours?

so you'd still have what 30ish hours per week left to do house hold chores etc and sleep the rest.

Not sure what you're getting at, stop being sarcastic in text online if that is what you are doing i need tone of voice and or facial expressions to detect, even i would say that being 100% serious, but only if you say you already work 60 hours and its not enough.

 

[HangTime]

Doing overtime in an amazon warehouse I imagine is hard graft with lots of quotas to hit and stuff. Sounds harder than jumping on the milkround to me so I don't think there's necessarily anything wrong with getting paid more for working harder.

 

[FoxEye]

Minimum wage in April will be £11.44

Work 60 hours per week on that and your income is £35k.

Rent a room for £600 /month Not pay council tax.

Spend £200 on travel, £200 on food, £200 in misc

Thats 1200/month, deducted from 2300 net income

You will save £1100 per month, give or take.

Its not easy but its not complicated.

Pension contributions? Or none? Also student loan deductions..

Bills? £200 in misc doesn't seem anywhere near enough to cover bills, if misc also includes clothing and other essentials.

It's quite easy to be down to £1800 after tax and deductions. Less after bills.

Easy? What's easy is to make unrealistic saving goals based on not deducting anywhere near enough for living expenses.

 

[EvilRob]

This is completely anecdotal, but now we've lost so many of the European workers it seems like people who are able to live working low wage jobs in expensive areas are increasingly either:

• young people living with parents or possibly house sharing
• rather older people who bought their property long ago

I wonder what will happen as the latter leave the workforce. Potentially quite a bit of wage inflation on the lower end as companies compete for a smaller workforce.

 

[Werewolf]

This thread has made me look at house prices in my area.

And there is basically little way anyone can afford to buy one on the "average" wage if they've got a family, unless they've got assistance or have managed to save the deposit before say having kids.

The houses on my street appear to have gone up anywhere between 3 and 6 times their late 90's pricing, a house (2 bed, end of terrace) that cost ~70k back then is now nearer 300k and it had subsidence. And that's about a 30-50 fold increase since the early 80's (houses on my street were going for 7-10k in about 1980).

The worrying thing is, that apparently housing around my area is cheaper than the next couple of towns over, I was talking to my brother in law who works ~30 minutes away down a dual carriageway and he was saying the guys at his place are actively looking near us because it's cheaper than living nearer his work given what is available.

 

[Jono8]

Minimum wage in April will be £11.44

Work 60 hours per week on that and your income is £35k.

Rent a room for £600 /month Not pay council tax.

Spend £200 on travel, £200 on food, £200 in misc

Thats 1200/month, deducted from 2300 net income

You will save £1100 per month, give or take.

Its not easy but its not complicated.

So basically work 8.5 hours a day, every day of the week to rent a room.

Lol

 

[bainbridge]

Commute to the south east from the north east every day and you'll get the best of both worlds.

 

[platinum87]

Pension contributions? Or none? Also student loan deductions..

Bills? £200 in misc doesn't seem anywhere near enough to cover bills, if misc also includes clothing and other essentials.

It's quite easy to be down to £1800 after tax and deductions. Less after bills.

Easy? What's easy is to make unrealistic saving goals based on not deducting anywhere near enough for living expenses.

The above figures were 100% in my head, it it will be £2150 after tax, pension and student loan (plan 1)

Rent a room, no bills, only phone bill, that's £10, no council tax either.

So basically work 8.5 hours a day, every day of the week to rent a room.

Lol

Yes and to be able to save £950 per month, taking into account pension/student loan

This is the absolute base case, you can also get a job paying £2 above minimum wage, which is not complicated, and now you're up to £41k ish

 

[Jono8]

The above figures were 100% in my head, it it will be £2150 after tax, pension and student loan (plan 1)

Rent a room, no bills, only phone bill, that's £10, no council tax either.



Yes and to be able to save £950 per month, taking into account pension/student loan

This is the absolute base case, you can also get a job paying £2 above minimum wage, which is not complicated, and now you're up to £41k ish

Cool, so if you do absolutely nothing but work 7 days a week for 5 years, you can save about £50k. You will then still need to borrow at least £200k to get anything (a crappy one bed flat) in many parts of the south east.

Then you are looking at about a £1200 a month mortgage payment.

But then you will have council tax, bills, house maintenance expenditure etc.

Now your still working a full day 7 days a week but likely cannot even cover everything including the mortgage.

 

[d_brennen]

Cool, so if you do absolutely nothing but work 7 days a week for 5 years, you can save about £50k. You will then still need to borrow at least £200k to get anything (a crappy one bed flat) in many parts of the south east.

Then you are looking at about a £1200 a month mortgage payment.

But then you will have council tax, bills, house maintenance expenditure etc.

Now your still working a full day 7 days a week but likely cannot even cover everything including the mortgage.

Quite the avocado on toast and you'd be fine. "Durin' the war..."

 

[platinum87]

Cool, so if you do absolutely nothing but work 7 days a week for 5 years, you can save about £50k. You will then still need to borrow at least £200k to get anything (a crappy one bed flat) in many parts of the south east.

Then you are looking at about a £1200 a month mortgage payment.

But then you will have council tax, bills, house maintenance expenditure etc.

Now your still working a full day 7 days a week but likely cannot even cover everything including the mortgage.

What's your argument here? Its impossible and so, just go jump off some tall building?

 

[dlockers]

Quite the avocado on toast and you'd be fine. "Durin' the war..."

 

[glenimp617]

So basically work 8.5 hours a day, every day of the week to rent a room.

Lol

I know, this country is so broken/corrupt

It's worrying peoples standards have gotten so low

 

[Nitefly]

Minimum wage in April will be £11.44

Work 60 hours per week on that and your income is £35k.

Rent a room for £600 /month Not pay council tax.

Spend £200 on travel, £200 on food, £200 in misc

Thats 1200/month, deducted from 2300 net income

You will save £1100 per month, give or take.

Its not easy but its not complicated.

If this ‘house share’ is you and your partner or a close friend, it wouldn’t be too terrible for a short period of time.

But nobody would want to live like that long term.

The savings of £1200 are probably overstated - £200 a month budget for ‘everything’ other than food and travel is not impossible but very frugal. Clothes? Gifts? Seeing friends? Gym? Phone? Entertainment?

 

[Minato]

A big problem is people don't realise just how poor the UK is compared to comparable countries and how much that gap has increased in the last couple of decades.

Median wage here is what, 35k? In the USA, that's entry level fast food worker or something an 18 year old can make in their first job after high school

 

[Iamzod]

Median wage here is what, 35k? In the USA, that's entry level fast food worker or something an 18 year old can make in their first job after high school

There are USA McJobs at $13 per hour, that's what? £10.20 an hour, that's below our NMW isn't it?

That's less than £20k a year.

 

[Jono8]

A big problem is people don't realise just how poor the UK is compared to comparable countries and how much that gap has increased in the last couple of decades.

Median wage here is what, 35k? In the USA, that's entry level fast food worker or something an 18 year old can make in their first job after high school

Wage stagnation has been absolutely awful.

I ran the numbers recently and since around 2008/2009 (the financial crash), the median salary has only gone up about 30%, whilst literally almost everything else (petrol, housing, average new car, energy, milk/bread etc) has gone up at least 70%, something's much more.

I don't know how long it's sustainable for to be honest. As you say, we are on average, very poor.