How on earth do people cope financially in the UK?

I’m looking at coming back to live in the UK, after not paying tax abroad for a while. I earn what I thought was a decent ish salary, but after tax/NI etc it’s looking increasingly like living hand and mouth. I’ve no idea how young families, nurses and teachers etc cope.

I’ve been looking at rent in the suburbs of London and my eyes are watering. You can’t get a 1 bedroom flat for much less than £250 a week.

Whats more lots of people seem to have new cars, take holidays abroad, buy new carbon road bikes…where the hell does all this money come from?!

I have lived here all my life and I have no idea.

We need a B-Ark.

where the hell does all this money come from?!

FINANCE
on the plus side when you get back you will get free healthcare and many other things provided 🙂

Obvious troll is obvious. 1/10

London prices are insane. Other, far, far, far nicer, and massively cheaper parts of the country are available.

The new cars and holidays are all paid for on credit, borrowed against the equity in peoples London properties that they bought for £2.93 before the prices went intersteller, and are now increasing at approximately £8,000 a day, as a Greek shipping magnet wants to buy it as an investment haven to get his money out of Europe. Or something.

where the hell does all this money come from?!

People earn more than you do maybe ?

Got to agree, I’ve no idea how folk manage it – especially low-earning families in the more expensive parts.

The UK is the seventh richest country in the world.

Also, don’t live in London.

HTH.

Rents are bizarrely high at the moment. I visited a town in the Thames Valley I used to live in, and saw a flat similar to my old one on sale for less money than I sold mine for in 2004, while rents were more than double what they were back then.

There is a huge inequality in wealth / income in the UK, mainly encouraged / driven by the last few governments. So you have a small ‘have a lot’ camp, with London pads, nice cars and a huge ‘have not a lot’ camp who post on STW about people with London pads and nice cars:

UK income inequality increased by 32% between 1960 and 2005. During the same period, it increased by 23% in the USA, and in Sweden decreased by 12%.
• In the 1960s Sweden and the UK had similar levels of income inequality. By 2005 the gap between the two had increased by 28%.
• Since the 1980s income inequality in the United States and the UK has increased substantially and has returned to levels not seen since the 1920s.
• The growth in inequality in the last 30 years has been driven by the top 1% of wage incomes.

http://www.equalitytrust.org.uk/sites/default/files/research-digest-trends-measures-final.pdf

Debt – too much of it at all levels, people borrow too much to finance their consumption, corporates and banks have too much debt (leverage) and governments borrow too much on top. The base for the economic mirage in the UK.

And the proposed solution? More debt…….more penalties for the financially prudent etc. What a bloody mess!! ironically spell check tried to change bloody into LLoyds. How fitting!!!!

Footflaps – rising inequality is a global phenomenon, so a little harsh to pinpoint UK governments. And if you update the numbers past 2005 as the OECD has done you find that some of the most rapid increases in inequality are found in counties that are perceived traditionally as being more equal (eg, some of Scandinavia).

a huge ‘have not a lot’ camp who post on STW

Whoah there – I’ve been here two years under a assumption that STW is populated primarily by the wealthy niche-hunter (he’s got a couple of London flats – he calls them ‘pads’ and has two because he digs choice – a Tassimo, two Audis and a corral of carbon-framed steeds) and Manchester-based conoisseurs of savoury pastry treats. Way to destroy my illusions, fella. 😉

The UK is horribly expensive, but those after a real finance scare should try Norway. 😯

a Tassimo

That’s a bit low rent for stw.

Nespresso, surely?

I’ve been looking at rent in the suburbs of London

There’s your problem.

I’m looking at coming back to live in the UK, after not paying tax abroad for a while.

Well hopefully young (assumption!) man you have been doing the sensible thing whilst abroad with all that extra cash and saved a shit load to put down a nice big deposit on a house and not pissed it up against a wall so it shouldn’t be your concern.

I think unless you got Londoned up before the hike in prices it’s to be avoided if you are on a middling income or less unless your particular trade makes it impossible not to.

The wealth of the baby boomers was a one-off. Most people in human history are just looking to survive and we’ve gone back to that – don’t compare your situation with the baby boomers, it will only depress you:-

a Tassimo

That’s a bit low rent for stw.

Nespresso, surely?

I think that says more about me and my inability to fit in around here. 🙁

I’ve been here two years under a assumption that STW is populated primarily by the wealthy niche-hunter

a huge ‘have not a lot’ camp who post on STW

There seems to be a broad cross section here, there are a few vocal ones who live in one camp but shout from the other 😉

The race to the commonest is a good one round here some days

sorry, I should have added a 😉 it wasn’t intended to make you feel bad.

someone will be along shortly to top Nespresso with a Gaggia bean to cup and make me feel bad, I expect 🙂

Gaggia? Krups here, old bean.

Gaggia… Jura mate 😉

I have no idea how people afford stuff. I don’t even live in London and am constantly struggling and that is without holidays and the like!

If you are not caffeining up with a Pavoni Europiccola Lever you are beneath contempt! 😉

De Longhi filter here. 😳 😐 🙁 😥

i heard some of them keep their tea leaves in bags…..

The UK is horribly expensive, but those after a real finance scare should try Norway.

I dunno about that. I went to Romania a couple of times – which I imagine most people would think of as a cheap country, and yes you could buy a beer in a bar for 80p or whatever, but then we were told that a doctor earns around 3000 euros a year.

Rent was at least half the prices in the UK if not more, so actually Romania is much more expensive than the UK for people that live there.

I think you basically need two incomes in a household to be anything like comfortable.

Well hopefully young (assumption!) man you have been doing the sensible thing whilst abroad with all that extra cash and saved a shit load to put down a nice big deposit on a house and not pissed it up against a wall so it shouldn’t be your concern.

Excellent work 🙂

a huge ‘have not a lot’ camp who post on STW

Whoah there – I’ve been here two years under a assumption that STW is populated primarily by the wealthy niche-hunter

Those in the real ‘have a lot camp’ have their Butler’s under Butler post on STW for them….

The wealth of the baby boomers was a one-off. Most people in human history are just looking to survive and we’ve gone back to that – don’t compare your situation with the baby boomers, it will only depress you:-

+1

But to clarify, that is the wealth of average working baby boomers was a one-off.

Many of my parents generation were ‘enhanced’ by the privatisation boom and the way that mass redundancies were ‘paid’ for by shipping people onto pension early (my Uncle retired at 52 on a good index-linked pension, after 35 years with the Water Board).

And even though I’ve earned 2-3 times (inflation adjusted) what my Father did, I’ll be struggling to equal his pension.

I think you basically need two incomes in a household to be anything like comfortable.

or to have been born 40-60 years ago, bought a large house for the price of a Panini, paid the mortgage off and looking forward to retiring shortly on your final salary / Civil service pension……

The wealth of the baby boomers was a one-off. Most people in human history are just looking to survive and we’ve gone back to that – don’t compare your situation with the baby boomers, it will only depress you:-

You’re not wrong. That generation had stable jobs and excellent pensions, free education, free healthcare, low taxes, low property prices, cheap energy, cheap fuel for their cheap cars – and what did they do? Scorched the Earth and then systematically dismantled the institutions that served them so well and removed the advantages they themselves enjoyed, all in the name of greed. For the first time in hundreds of years we in the First World have taken a step backwards.

My generation (born in the late 1970s) only took a reasonably small hit but I genuinely pity kids hitting their late 20s these days. They should be really ****ing angry.

Rents are bizarrely high at the moment.

Not that bizarre surely. A shortage of affordable/social housing and an army of buy-to-letters who cashed in on the last housing boom would seem to explain this. I agree though that it is crazy. You’d think in any sensibly run country that providing affordable housing for the population would be at the top of the list of priorities. However in the UK it seems that’s less important than inflating the nest-eggs of the already propertied classes.

theres a huuuge shortage of housing in and around london
and the stuff that is there is often badly designed and maintained

some new builds near us in the desireable location of being a few tens of metres from the M4, despite ridiculous prices, a complete lack of storage space (I suppose they were built for young singles/couples who own nothing larger than an ipad) have been plagued with problems, last year 1 block spent december to march with no heating, and a couple of months ago sewage was backed up and overflowing into peoples homes.
And still they are being snapped up , they cant build them fast enough!

Yes Footflaps. That seems to be the case. But…i’m still amazed every time I drive through relatively working class bits of the UK, that there are so so many new cars for example.

I find the whole buy-to-let, baby boomers property thing really bloody frustrating. I haven’t really saved anything much out here really; I was paying off various student/professional/credit card debts which is a little annoying. I need to be based in London, so there is little else I can do.

The main thing is. How on earth do you make it work on 20k? If you’re take home is 1300 quid a month..you pay about £100 council tax, maybe £700 in rent, £20 on your phone, £30 on utilities, £130 on your travel card? It leaves you about £200 a month to live on.

grum – Member
I dunno about that. I went to Romania a couple of times – which I imagine most people would think of as a cheap country, and yes you could buy a beer in a bar for 80p or whatever, but then we were told that a doctor earns around 3000 euros a year.

Are you sure it wasn’t E3000 a month?
Just looking at Payscale.com, it seems the median for ‘Physician / Doctor, General Practice’ is $55k in Bucharest. No idea how good their data is though – it looks like quite a small sample group:

LINK

The main thing is. How on earth do you make it work on 20k? If you’re take home is 1300 quid a month..you pay about £100 council tax, maybe £700 in rent, £20 on your phone, £30 on utilities, £130 on your travel card? It leaves you about £200 a month to live on.

In the SE, the answer is ‘with great difficulty’.

Are you sure it wasn’t E3000 a month?
Just looking at Payscale.com, it seems the median for ‘Physician / Doctor, General Practice’ is $55k in Bucharest. No idea how good their data is though – it looks like quite a small sample group:

Nope they definitely said per year – this is just what I was told so may not have been accurate. This is quite a while ago too, and things seemed to be changing rapidly in general from the two visits I went on a year apart (loads more fancy cars on the roads the second time rather than knackered old Dachias for example).

Also, apparently doctors almost all top up their wages by taking bribes, eg to bump people up waiting lists. Again, this is just what we were told by locals.

According to a UKIP blog 🙂 average wages in Romania are now 347 euros a month after tax. Not sure how that compares to the UK but I strongly suspect your average UK citizen is Koch better off than your average Romanian citizen, despite it being a ‘cheap’ country.

http://chrisukipblog.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/immigration-romanian-salaries.html?m=1

I have no idea which coffee machine is used in my house. Indeed, I think I saw the kitchens once, but was shooed away rather quickly by an unpleasantly large woman. I merely clap my hands and espresso arrives within a few minutes. Marvellous.

on the plus side when you get back you will get free healthcare and many other things provided

Not for long.

I think you basically need two incomes in a household to be anything like comfortable.

This probably hits the nail on the head. Hence why couples work/play hard on their 50k-100k salaries and then move to the country (or surrey) to have kids.