What is a good salary in UK at present?

[Freefaller]

I don't overpay on my mortgage but I'm ploughing a tonne into my pension (it's more tax efficient for me to do that). I can understand the appeal for people, they like to own their property outright.

 

[413x]

Terrible decision. It's free money and should be a priority. Especially over cars and other expensive assets.

Holidays abroad are not a priority in life either.

Although I agree you should save into a pension (work place match at the least) you should live while you're young.

Any of us could die/get a terminal condition at any time.

It would be sad to look back at a life where you saved and didn't grab experiences when younger.

 

[413x]

Tbh I'm quire impressed as we earn slightly more than you (only about 9k more), but there's no way we could afford a 2 week holiday abroad, that's 8k a year! Our cars aren't pcp, but I do have loans out for both of them. How do you manage to save so much, I would sat we are that lavish although my hobbies (lego and gaming) are a bit pricey. I do try and do most jobs myself, as it seems have to find good tradesman these days.

I thought @adam cool dude was much older!
I'm impressed!

I (38 years old as of yesterday) earn 55 and my partner (31) earns 30 (I think) and we have a good life, not lavish. But due to getting on the housing ladder late (I was 34) we have a huge 200k outstanding debt.

We can afford that type. Of holiday, and it will be why we do moving forward.

I put it down to
-WFH
-1 paid outright ghetto car
-no kids

If I had been in the housing ladder in 2010.. I'd feel rich!

If we were more typical (ie 1 or 2 kids, 1.or 2 cars on finance, work in office) I wouldn't feel anywhere near as comfortable

 

[EvilRob]

Although I agree you should save into a pension (work place match at the least) you should live while you're young.

Any of us could die/get a terminal condition at any time.

It would be sad to look back at a life where you saved and didn't grab experiences when younger.

It would also be sad to be working to 68 and/or have a crap quality of life when you retire. It's always about balance. My opinion: aim for a relatively even quality of life from now through ~70 and retire early. Maybe easy to say when the "even" quality of life bar is quite high.

 

[Zatoichi.uK]

My parents old neighbours both had good jobs and went skiing every year. They probably had a blast but he now works in a car park to top up his money as they didn't plan for retirement it seems. He's in his mid 70s now.

Don't squirrel away every penny as you may not live to see it. Don't fail to plan for a future either though. There's a balance to be had somewhere.

 

[413x]

It would also be sad to be working to 68 and/or have a crap quality of life when you retire. It's always about balance. My opinion: aim for a relatively even quality of life from now through ~70 and retire early. Maybe easy to say when the "even" quality of life bar is quite high.

For sure. It's a balance. It. Would be ridiculous to be all saving or all spending.

I'm swinging more towards living for now.

This is actually quite hard for me, as I've always been brought up to save save save.
(never had a debt with interest of any kind except Mortgage)

But a health scare, combined with losing a family member and knowing we won't be leaving anything to kids (makes a difference as any savings aren't wasted of you have kids) I'm making to mental to spending much more than I used to.

 

[moon man]

Still the same here , diesel to get to Polzeath, bottles of red and bills covered is all I need. So I take little over £300 WK PT time and that's fine but mortgage free.
Have a decent draw down pot but that's going into the house, savings are good

 

[EvilRob]

For sure. It's a balance. It. Would be ridiculous to be all saving or all spending.

I'm swinging more towards living for now.

This is actually quite hard for me, as I've always been brought up to save save save.
(never had a debt with interest of any kind except Mortgage)

But a health scare, combined with losing a family member and knowing we won't be leaving anything to kids (makes a difference as any savings aren't wasted of you have kids) I'm making to mental to spending much more than I used to.

No kids here either but fairly safe bet that at least one of my wife and I will live to a good age with our health in tact. Even if not, there are people I'd like to take care of. I have absolutely no issues dying with money in the pot, and fully expect to.

 

[413x]

No kids here either but fairly safe bet that at least one of my wife and I will live to a good age with our health in tact. Even if not, there are people I'd like to take care of. I have absolutely no issues dying with money in the pot, and fully expect to.

I'm kind of wanting to make sure I don't die with loads of unused cash.
I absolutely want to be mortgage free. That's why must. And it will happen.

But later on I will absolutely equity release on house, and draw on savings.

Who knows, with way technology is progressing a subscription when you're old and decrepid may be enough to keep happy. (ie a better version of VR)... The subscription cost might be huge though!

So far off its too far to guess though!

 

[Efour]

Jeez I read this and just appreciate living in the ass end of nowhere.
Our joint income after tax (2 very mediocre Jobs) is about 45k Sweden money so.... Just over 3k quid.
We live decent, small mortgage, zero other debts. Travel 3x a year. Good savings and future cover...

It's just so much cheaper to not be in London, or any big city. I never thought I'd be able to leave London but ten years later... So glad I did. I wonder even how my life would have turned out? A lot poorer. For sure.

 

[413x]

Jeez I read this and just appreciate living in the ass end of nowhere.
Our joint income after tax (2 very mediocre Jobs) is about 45k Sweden money so.... Just over 3k quid.
We live decent, small mortgage, zero other debts. Travel 3x a year. Good savings and future cover...

It's just so much cheaper to not be in London, or any big city. I never thought I'd be able to leave London but ten years later... So glad I did. I wonder even how my life would have turned out? A lot poorer. For sure.

Can't imagine living in a city. Only properly lived in a bit city at uni.
This is as close as I've been on outskirts of Cardiff.

Looking forward to moving to ass end of nowhere next time!

 

[adam cool dude]

Tbh I'm quire impressed as we earn slightly more than you (only about 9k more), but there's no way we could afford a 2 week holiday abroad, that's 8k a year! Our cars aren't pcp, but I do have loans out for both of them. How do you manage to save so much, I would sat we are that lavish although my hobbies (lego and gaming) are a bit pricey. I do try and do most jobs myself, as it seems have to find good tradesman these days.

We haven't been abroad as in a proper beach holiday since 2018 due to our second child being born (Missus no money due to mat pay being shocking in this country) and COVID although before that we would go once to twice a year. We did a "Cheap" holiday to Poland this summer to my mother's which cost a grand (fuel + tunnel). Plenty of lakes to relax and zero cooking. We have just bought a new car however 20k down and 13k loan so will be overpaying that to get rid of that as soon as possible. I guess that is where our holidays have gone.

We still take the kids to theme parks etc. I used some Tesco clubcard points to get free tickets to Alton Towers in August so all it cost us was £7 parking and fuel.

I literally do everything with regards to the house to try and save money. Flush the boiler once a year, all decorating including major refits, garden, service all my cars. Our daughter who is a teenager has been cleaning the house once a Sunday to help us out and teach her a bit of responsibility.

We cut out all processed food as well. We cook everything from scratch and save where we can. Very rarely eat red meat anymore because the price is silly but you can still make delicious meals with Pork and Chicken.

The plus side of the change in food habits is that I do not think we will go back as we are both healthier for it and food is the big cost for us as a family at this moment in time.

Location and job certainly helps too. Lorry driving pay in Lincolnshire is some of the best in the country. Equal to London in a lot of places due to demand but with living costs a lot lower. (My house in a London location is 4 times as much). In my old job I needed to be a shift manager to earn the same kind of wedge and all the stress that comes with it.

If I was going to nail it down to two important things. I would say have a desirable job in a cheap location and save the cost on food as much as possible! The food bit is the hardest as I am sure UK obesity figures can attest too!

 

[Ayahuasca]

Still the same here , diesel to get to Polzeath, bottles of red and bills covered is all I need.

Sounds like a mid-life crisis.

 

[413x]

We haven't been abroad as in a proper beach holiday since 2018 due to our second child being born (Missus no money due to mat pay being shocking in this country) and COVID although before that we would go once to twice a year. We did a "Cheap" holiday to Poland this summer to my mother's which cost a grand (fuel + tunnel). Plenty of lakes to relax and zero cooking. We have just bought a new car however 20k down and 13k loan so will be overpaying that to get rid of that as soon as possible. I guess that is where our holidays have gone.

We still take the kids to theme parks etc. I used some Tesco clubcard points to get free tickets to Alton Towers in August so all it cost us was £7 parking and fuel.

I literally do everything with regards to the house to try and save money. Flush the boiler once a year, all decorating including major refits, garden, service all my cars. Our daughter who is a teenager has been cleaning the house once a Sunday to help us out and teach her a bit of responsibility.

We cut out all processed food as well. We cook everything from scratch and save where we can. Very rarely eat red meat anymore because the price is silly but you can still make delicious meals with Pork and Chicken.

The plus side of the change in food habits is that I do not think we will go back as we are both healthier for it and food is the big cost for us as a family at this moment in time.

Location and job certainly helps too. Lorry driving pay in Lincolnshire is some of the best in the country. Equal to London in a lot of places due to demand but with living costs a lot lower. (My house in a London location is 4 times as much). In my old job I needed to be a shift manager to earn the same kind of wedge and all the stress that comes with it.

If I was going to nail it down to two important things. I would say have a desirable job in a cheap location and save the cost on food as much as possible! The food bit is the hardest as I am sure UK obesity figures can attest too!

That last one. Definitely feel it. Get same in remote work. Ie.. Location agnostic.

Its only since covid things have really picked up. Significantly more pay for same job. I believe lorry driving is the same?

I wish we both or either of us liked cooking. That I envy!

 

[ahar]

Living inside the M25 means what looks like a great wage really isn't. To be fair, we chose to live in the house we do so we made the trade off with eyes open. But it's hard not to be jealous of my mate who's just paid off his mortgage aged 44 !

Back to my stale bread and water....

 

[adam cool dude]

That last one. Definitely feel it. Get same in remote work. Ie.. Location agnostic.

Its only since covid things have really picked up. Significantly more pay for same job. I believe lorry driving is the same?

I wish we both or either of us liked cooking. That I envy!

I hate cooking with a passion but following BBC recipes on a Google Chrome isn't that hard once you get used to it becomes natural!

 

[theone8181]

Yea neither me or the mrs are fortunate to be able to work from home. Despite me questioning it at work about giving us none home workers a large payrise to compensate us, nothing happened so we just stopped working as hard and management can't understand why . I do hammer my pension pot so I should be able to retire comfortably at 55.

 

[nightwish]

Yea neither me or the mrs are fortunate to be able to work from home. Despite me questioning it at work about giving us none home workers a large payrise to compensate us, nothing happened so we just stopped working as hard and management can't understand why . I do hammer my pension pot so I should be able to retire comfortably at 55.

I WFH *and* get decent payrises because I work hard (and I have a decent manager who understands how to manage home workers). Life ain't always fair, but a lot of the time, you get what you give...

 

[Ayahuasca]

Yea neither me or the mrs are fortunate to be able to work from home. Despite me questioning it at work about giving us none home workers a large payrise to compensate us, nothing happened so we just stopped working as hard and management can't understand why . I do hammer my pension pot so I should be able to retire comfortably at 55.

Surely the best solution there is to change jobs to a remote one? If you believe you're worthy of a considerable payrise and do the work form home, then why can't you obtain a fully remote job in the same field?

 

[adam cool dude]

I WFH *and* get decent payrises because I work hard (and I have a decent manager who understands how to manage home workers). Life ain't always fair, but a lot of the time, you get what you give...

From a managers point of view it must be a lot easier to see the good eggs from the bad ones WFH because the lazy ones have no measure of where they need to be to get by.