If you live in London you need £24k to £26k just to keep afloat with simple lifestyle. No saving.
If you are in the NE you probably can get away with around £14k to £15k with no saving.

Its not quite so simple, IME I just adjust my expectations, on Teesside I rented a terraced house in a nice village for £500/month, down in the SE I shared a house for about the same.

The biggest difference is there is very little betwen a £500/month flat share and a £1500 (once c.tax and bills are paid) 2 bed terrace round here, so there isnt really an option of having a batchelor pad, you always need 2 incomes to rent anything.

Far more than I should have ever let I get too even more so when I had it massively reduced a few years ago. Working on getting it back that way.

thisisnotaspoon – Member
… on Teesside I rented a terraced house in a nice village for £500/month,

I have calculated that too and as I am renting a two bed flat with bills all in etc and near to location of work … your £500/month rent is almost equivalent to mine in the Toon centre.

Two bed flat in the North East has a average of £500/month rent excluding bills.

Graham S – I lied 0.2%

Well paid, I suppose so, but all housing is paid for, and all I worry about is water and electricity, which as I don’t use the A/C is next to nowt.

In the UK though – basic bills and utilities – at least 50%, this didn’t include my rent, which was living in mates house for 100 quid a month cost with free DIY from me thrown in.

At the end of the month, with food, fuel, insurance etc thrown in, we had nothing left. I don’t know what we would have done when we had to move out of his house in a years time and the project was finished.

Sorry for the willy waving, it entertained me when I realised how little I spent, and how much we are actually spending on eating.

All direct debits and other regular payments account for 35% of our net income. These include mortgage, council tax, memberships, subscriptions, utilities, phone, Sky TV, cleaning, car finance/tax/servicing, etc.

Food and all other expenses (incl additional saving) not included. Haven’t worked those in detail out but assume the other 65%…!

Quirrel – Member
Sorry for the willy waving, it entertained me when I realised how little I spent, and how much we are actually spending on eating.

Hey your money so do as you like. You have earned them so what’s wrong with showing off those cash?

Don’t think that’s willy waving at all Quirrel. Always interesting to hear from someone that has taken an alternative path.

You live up/down to your income to an extent……

When i first moved to aberdeen the 2 of us( mrs at uni)lived in a 1 bed shoe box in a shit part of town from a bike mechanics wage which is barely 5 figures per year.

No car , bikes and buses for transport,

Any bike bits or races were paid for by doing overtime.

Certainly wouldnt like to support a family in this way though but as a young couple moving out into big bad world it was fine and drove me to find a bettter job , but never forget the hard times your never more than a couple of life events from them .

With my income mail order bride is definitely out of question let alone hookers and coke.

😮

Hey your money so do as you like. You have earned them so what’s wrong with showing off those cash?

Alternative path was always part of the plan for us. I had been out of the UK for 7 years before returning, six months unemployed burnt up half our savings, and reality of living in the UK and actually having an income, after coming back to start afresh, just wasn’t happening.

My last post in UB was great, no bills, 10% tax, but 5% back as pension and a decent package, but living in UB isn’t for everyone.

Current job I pay as much tax as a UK earner, possibly more, but the cost of living, rent etc make it worthwhile, for now anyway.

UK has great health service, public services and transport networks, but the tax man, and the bill collectors make it hard to make ends meet if you aren’t two people working.

My mates on the dole, used to live a better, if somewhat more boring life than us, and have as much cash at the end of the month.

We have talked about going back, but that is years away, if ever.

Curiously i just looked up what it would cost to rent that self same dump we rented 5 years ago…..its nearly as much as my basic mortgage payment these days.

Almost all of it. After bills, food, fuel to get to work there’s nothing left.

I don’t remember signing up for it

About 95% goes on rent, council tax, utilities, insurance and food. The other 5% goes on petrol…

about 25%
girfriend has her own place too and i guess she spends more like 35-45%
both of us well paid but with average (for london) lifestyles and neither with big mortgages or any laoans or HP.
put like that i guess we are both very fortunate.

36 % covers everything. All food mortgage bills. That’s what goes into the bills shared account. Thebrest is mine to do with as I fancy. Don’t tend to do big holidays. But do enjoy my hobbies. And some of them can get quite Expensive.

About half I’d say. Mortgage & car loan are the two big ones then the other shit like utilities, broadband etc all adds up. Luckily it’s just me living here otherwise I can imagine it’d be a lot more.

Is it fair to say that those with much smaller percentages either rent, have paid off a good bit of their mortgage, or bought back when houses were much cheaper?

Our mortgage payment is 82% of my take home!
I think I’m on a fairly okay wage (Senior Software Engineer) and our house is a modest 3 bedroom terrace in the north east.

Is it fair to say that those with much smaller percentages either rent, have paid off a good bit of their mortgage, or bought back when houses were much cheaper?

No not everyone. Some are well paid but don’t want to be mortgaged up to the eyeballs and have never felt the need for Sky TV/gym memberships/eating out 4x week/frivolous spending/car payments/no kids/alcohol problem/smoking etc etc

Out of those “sins” MrSmith, I’m only guilty of mortgage and kids.

25% bills
12.5% childcare
15% savings
10% food and fuel (I don’t know why I group those together but I always have done).

Took me years to get to this point, I was really stupid when I was younger – I was earning a fortune for a single bloke working in finance but I was spending fortunes too, I worked out once my outgoings we’re 130% of my income!

Now everything is carefully organised to avoid waste and interest.

It is precisely 58.07%. But theat does include probably a bit too much for food, and some single yearly equivalent payments (clubs, NT that sort of thing), and bit and bobs for my car (VED, MOT breakdown etc) which I pay annually but budget monthly…

How the winter nights fly by… 😆

I have no clue although I did look at my bank statement recently and notice that the dog insurance is £65. WT actual F, how did that happen?
We could get by on my wage for everything. The Mrs works 2 days a week which we could save if we put our minds to it. And cancelled the dog insurance!

Trying to link to this PDF crashes my iPad so you will have to do it yourself.
Some national figures from the government. Quite a regional variation

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171778_405192.pdf

A tad under 93% of what ends up in my bank account goes directly on monthly bills. Yes, ninety three percent. My wife’s wages are the spending money.

12% of our joint income, with no mortgage, but inc childcare, council tax, utilities, broadband, insurances. Not inc food, diesel, house/car repairs or maintenance or other purchases.

Yep in London you have to house share.

2/5 of my net pay is for a grotty house share (incl. bills), with no living room. I live frugally otherwise to compensate. My biggest cost is train tickets to decent riding places 🙂

In Sheffield I had a nice flat with traffic free access to the peak district for 1/3 net pay (incl. all bills). Sometimes I feel crazy for being in London (and not chasing a mega salary).

I’d forgotten that we did a spreadsheet a few months ago – our direct debits come to 37% of our joint income.

The mortgage payment alone is 14%. Just mortgage, utilities and insurance (no phones, TV, etc) is is 29%. Car tax and insurance is 1.5%.

about 60-70% gone from couple to single without a pay rise, all the fun to deal with and none of the perks
Chuck food in and then the beer and bike fund is getting smaller

Almost a quarter (24%) of households have no savings at all

Nearly a third (30%) couldn’t pay their mortgage if they lost their job
A third (33%) of people in the UK – or 8.5 million[1] households – have £250 or less set aside as a financial safety net, new research from HSBC shows.

The survey of over 2,000 people found that almost a quarter (24%) of all UK households have no savings at all, while 9% have savings of £250 or less. Based on UK households’ average outgoings[2], this would last just four days if they were to unexpectedly lose their income.

18-24 year olds are the group most at risk: 33% have no savings at all, while a further 10% have savings of under £250. Based on their average outgoings, this age group would survive just three days on £250. Worryingly, despite being likely to have more financial responsibilities, almost a third (31%) of 35-44 year olds also have no savings and 12% have less than £250.

A third would not be able to pay their mortgage if they lost their job

Almost half of UK households (44%) have savings pots of £2,000 or less, with 36% of the population saying they would depend on their savings if they were suddenly made redundant or were unable to work due to illness. Given that the average Brit has monthly essential outgoings of £954 and monthly debt payments of £514, these households could soon run into financial trouble.

If made redundant, almost a third (30%) said they would not be able to pay their mortgage. A quarter (26%) would be forced to apply for benefits, while nearly one in ten (9%) would turn to unsecured lending such as credit cards, store cards or a personal loan to finance their monthly outgoings and 8% would rely on their overdraft.

*Huge generalisation alert*
And then I look at the cost of an average night out thread and can’t help but jump to conclusions! People need to stop drinking shots and visiting casino’s and sort their finances out. What happened to saving? Some people seem to want it all now and not think about where the money is coming from.
(FWIW I grew up on a council estate and had free school meals and half mast trousers, made me appreciate having nothing and working towards having something)
End of daily mail post.

I remember when my wife and I first moved in together, we had £160 ish for living on (food/transport etc) every month after bills went out. We lived simply and have done ever since, paying similar amounts in rent/mortgage since that time and saving the rest – this has meant we can now buy pretty much anything we want or need nowadays and are going on our third USA trip in 4 years despite us not earning loads.

We went to the bank recently and they wanted to lend us loads for a new mortgage as we don’t owe anything and have been overpaying ours for years. We could get a mortgage now for a £250k house but are sticking at £160k as it will still enable us to have surplus to save or if rates go up.

Peoples eyes have been far larger than their wallets for some time now…

About 95% of my minimum wage goes straight out on bills, the rest is for my lunch and petrol money, all food is bought with the tax credits the missus gets.

I do have a nice bike though…

Around 55%. We do manage to “save” a bit each month, which goes straight into the mortgage to accelerate the improvement in our financial situation.

We still owe like a shitload on the mortgage (£170k) but that’s dropped by £30-40k in 3 years!

Mortgage gone so council tax, food, childcare, utilities are the main costs shared with my wife. We each pay into a bills bank account and that means about 15% for me. So saving quite a bit but not too confident about my future employment prospects so could be used to fund early retirement.

65% or so… by the time you factor in petrol and food etc it’s closer to 90%

We still owe like a shitload on the mortgage (£170k) but that’s dropped by £30-40k in 3 years!

Blimey! By my reckoning you must be overpaying your mortgage by around a grand a month?!

I thought we were doing pretty well to put in an extra £250 month – good work fella!

The percentage all depends on where you are in life, if you’re young and you’ve just taken out a massive mortgage you’re going to have very little spare cash. if you’re older and have paid off the mortgage then you’ll be much better off. DINKY & no mortgage here, so bills are less then 10% of take home.

Well for us it changed massively when child number one arrived 12 weeks ago. Outgoings went around 30% of joint to 65% of mine.

This is after decent pension payments, mortgage, car etc etc etc.

It was quite a big jump going from looking after myself on a decent salary to looking after 3 people!

Wait till you start paying for childcare. Ooooft!

Wait till you start paying for childcare. Ooooft!

Don’t get me started! Hopefully we should be able to over that ok or preferably she will do some remote contract work.

To give you a rough idea, we both work part-time and we use a local nursery to cover the two days a week that we both work.

That costs £365 a month. And that’s in the north east so relatively cheap compared to what some people pay.