What is a good salary?

[Saddleworth2]

Im on 65k down here in kent/london

wife doesn't work and 2 kids.

pays for mortgage, bills and a bit of a life. not much more.

Interesting. I listened to LBC the other day about family finances and someone claimed ‘it was impossible’ to bring up a family these days on a single wage. Sounds like you are doing it in one of the most expensive parts of the country. It’s grossly unfair imo that you will be a high rate tax payer but a young couple without kids earning 30k each are not. I think far more should be done to help where a decision is made to be a full time child raiser!

 

[Saddleworth2]

Being a teenager in the 00s, the idea of a obtaining a £40k a year job was seen as the aim for most. If you got to that pay grade you were going to be relatively comfortable. Anything more and you were in the money.

Now, it feels like that £40k a year mark is closer in equivalence to £60k/£70k nowadays and wages for most sectors, primarily private, have not increased that much if at all in the last 20 years.

I know fellas in the building trade earning as much now doing carpentry and joinery, roofing etc as they were in the early 00s/mid 00s.

The modern obsession over property ownership and the absolute need for both the husband and wife both needing to work because of it has caused a serious imbalance in my opinion. Everything is viewed as combined income. If your single you are swimming against the tide immensely.

My mother looked after and raised me and my brother for the first few years of our lives in the 90s. My dad struggled but it was doable, and the family bond was and is greater for it. That would in no way be able to occur today, not with the jobs and income they had. You would need at least one person on 100k a year to do that now.

I think the impact of this is underestimated. Finance is a big determinant of family size nowadays. It’s just about impossible to raise a large family on one wage. Less tax payers in future to pay for more foc pensioners.

 

[Bluemanc100]

My lad's just taken advantage of contact from a headhunter... They offered around 25% more for a 4 day week but 50% of the time was in a local office... His employer beat the salary by around £5k for his current 5 day rate which is home based... He's happy

 

[SkyBlueFlux]

Being a teenager in the 00s, the idea of a obtaining a £40k a year job was seen as the aim for most. If you got to that pay grade you were going to be relatively comfortable. Anything more and you were in the money.

Now, it feels like that £40k a year mark is closer in equivalence to £60k/£70k nowadays and wages for most sectors, primarily private, have not increased that much if at all in the last 20 years.

I know fellas in the building trade earning as much now doing carpentry and joinery, roofing etc as they were in the early 00s/mid 00s.

The modern obsession over property ownership and the absolute need for both the husband and wife both needing to work because of it has caused a serious imbalance in my opinion. Everything is viewed as combined income. If your single you are swimming against the tide immensely.

My mother looked after and raised me and my brother for the first few years of our lives in the 90s. My dad struggled but it was doable, and the family bond was and is greater for it. That would in no way be able to occur today, not with the jobs and income they had. You would need at least one person on 100k a year to do that now.

I think this is pretty much spot on.

I remember when I was at university circa 2010, having a conversation with my mum to the affect of - “if I can work my way to £30k a year, I won’t live in luxury but I’ll be happy.”

By 2014 I was earning £35k but I was alone and not living in anything approaching luxury. I saved maybe a hundred or so a month. Never went on holiday, didn’t have a car. I lived centrally in Manchester which was really the only benefit I got out of it, but realistically I needed to live fairly close to get to work affordably.

It wasn’t until I met my wife when I was 27 that I actually went abroad on holiday. Eventually when I was 30 we bought a house. But very much only possible by virtue of the fact we both earned above average salaries (but both loaded up to our eyeballs in student debt as a result).

If you’re alone, £60k is the minimum these days if you aspire to actually do anything worthwhile in life.

 

[Kompany Car]

Interesting. I listened to LBC the other day about family finances and someone claimed ‘it was impossible’ to bring up a family these days on a single wage. Sounds like you are doing it in one of the most expensive parts of the country. It’s grossly unfair imo that you will be a high rate tax payer but a young couple without kids earning 30k each are not. I think far more should be done to help where a decision is made to be a full time child raiser!

Its a particular bugbear of mine how the tax system treats working families. Scandinavia has gone down the route of incentivising people to have kids and providing support to get their birth rate back up. In this country we actually make it much harder for people to have kids and support them, yet we've known for years that the whole population pyramid is broken, so theres not enough people entering the jobs market to support those reaching retirement.

Trying to fix the problem via immigration only works if you can get highly skilled individuals to come to the UK who have properly vetted qualifications and can speak a good standard of English. They then need to remain resident, pay their taxes here and spend their money within the UK economy. Unfortunately based upon my experience at least, we have a knack for making it very difficult for those with the required skill sets to get visas and ILR status, but easy for those who seem to offer little to the UK.

 

[bluesince76]

Being a teenager in the 00s, the idea of a obtaining a £40k a year job was seen as the aim for most. If you got to that pay grade you were going to be relatively comfortable. Anything more and you were in the money.

Now, it feels like that £40k a year mark is closer in equivalence to £60k/£70k nowadays and wages for most sectors, primarily private, have not increased that much if at all in the last 20 years.

I know fellas in the building trade earning as much now doing carpentry and joinery, roofing etc as they were in the early 00s/mid 00s.

The modern obsession over property ownership and the absolute need for both the husband and wife both needing to work because of it has caused a serious imbalance in my opinion. Everything is viewed as combined income. If your single you are swimming against the tide immensely.

My mother looked after and raised me and my brother for the first few years of our lives in the 90s. My dad struggled but it was doable, and the family bond was and is greater for it. That would in no way be able to occur today, not with the jobs and income they had. You would need at least one person on 100k a year to do that now.

I recall c£40k feeling like a good salary as it was around that point where the higher tax rate would kick in which used to require self assessment.

£40k in 2000 is the equivalent of £72k now in terms of costs of goods, but I suspect wages haven't kept up with that, especially since 2008, and the higher tax band definitely hasn't. As a result, there will be people paying the higher tax rate who will be struggling, especially if a single income family.

Don't want to turn into someone yelling about lattes and avocado toast, but when we got our first house in the mid-90s, a mobile was pretty cheap, generally PAYG and you could get Sky or Virgin, but there wasn't Netflix, Amazon, Disney etc and car leasing was a rarity. They're are clearly many people struggling due to wages and costs you can't do a lot about (basic housing, utilities etc), but too many get sucked into the consumerism trap and struggle when on relatively good wages.

 

[BlueHammer85]

Interesting. I listened to LBC the other day about family finances and someone claimed ‘it was impossible’ to bring up a family these days on a single wage. Sounds like you are doing it in one of the most expensive parts of the country. It’s grossly unfair imo that you will be a high rate tax payer but a young couple without kids earning 30k each are not. I think far more should be done to help where a decision is made to be a full time child raiser!

It's honestly tough, bills and train increase in last couple years and my mortgage going up £400 and it's tight.
also, we have to pay back every penny of child benefit as im in a high wage bracket.

 

[Kompany Car]

too many get sucked into the consumerism trap and struggle when on relatively good wages.

Lifestyle inflation when you're on a good salary is probably the biggest reason why people remain poor and never build any wealth. Ive known a few with a Porsche on the drive and a big house but nothing in the bank and maxed out credit.

 

[mackenzie]

I work 2 days a week now and have taken some of my occ pen to supplement it. Total income is about 21 grand a year and I manage quite well. Pay rent too, but still manage a holiday abroad at least once a year and go out for a meal at least once a month. Don't drive, don't have any credit cards or such like.

 

[Gareth Barry Conlon]

I work 2 days a week now and have taken some of my occ pen to supplement it. Total income is about 21 grand a year and I manage quite well. Pay rent too, but still manage a holiday abroad at least once a year and go out for a meal at least once a month. Don't drive, don't have any credit cards or such like.

I'm guessing your finances are a long way from the norm. UK average rent is now circa 15k a year. Most people are paying bills over 500 a month, 6k pa which is all your salary just on those.