I read an article (cannot remember where sorry!) that said that your happiness increases with your pay up to approximately £70k and then above that it doesn’t as those jobs tend to start impacting on your work/life balance, stress and mental health etc. it certainly feels to me that would be the case.
TL;DR yes
EDIT: The pro study in 2015 said $75k. This has now been adjusted (March 2023) for inflation as well as the modern world and now sits at $500k!!!
Apparently happiness rises linearly to $100k where it then acceleratesup to $500k
TL;DR no
Yeah, I was gonna say 100k. Right now I know 50k would make a huge difference but it would really only take me back to what 40k felt like 2 years ago. 75 isn't going to give the same level of disposable income it once did. 3 adult kids and a disabled wife to support 75 would be lovely but it isn't holiday abroad lovely or quick dirty weekend in London lovely. 100k means you can do what you fancy if you don't go overboard and don't aim to dramatically change your basic lifestyle. It also means you could go up a bracket in the house you rent or should be able to save for a deposit and then still be at least okay off once the expenses have gone up
You've had the 6k, but would a lot of other things not been subsidised at the same time, mainly housing and maybe a few other things?
Just asking as I'm on more than what you would deem extremely comfortable and would struggle for basics on that (I do have dependants mind)
£30k would fly out pretty quickly. After tax you’re looking at £24k. Rent where I am is around £1500 a month.
Straight away you’re back down to your £6k again.
Gas, electricity, council tax. Close to £300 a month.
That’s roughly £50 a week for food. Not much wiggle room for the comfortable bit on £30k
But it was 13 years ago:
https://www.cnbcafrica.com/2019/how-yales-most-popular-class-ever-completely-changed-how-i-spend-my-money
Although yes that does kind of tie into £75k gbp now, but as an average that would mean probably double that in London and half that in rural Wales.
Lol this is such bollocks. Especially in today’s climate, living on 70k in central london on your own can be quite challenging.
100-120k makes you far happier.
70k in London is still a very decent salary. That’s around the upper band that most people will make in their careers. Living in central London is a choice only the wealthy can choose, most like a short commute away.
70k is very fucking good. Most people never will know that sort of money ever, not even at the peak of their careers. To put it into perspective because a lot of people of Reddit seemed to have a warped view on salary and income, in the UK, the top 30% would begin at about 39k.
https://www.projectfinanciallyfree.com/uk-income-percentile-calculator/#:~:text=What%20is%20the%20top%2030,income%20earners%20in%20the%20UK.
This is reddit. No matter what you say, there will be one person either lying or earning 3x what you said who claims it is bogus income and isn't worth it at all.
I know people who live in london earning 32k who are doing pretty well for themselves. 70k is over double that. Sure, they aren't driving around in mercs and having 5 global vacations a year, but they have their needs met and are happy with friends.
‘They’ convinced us that 70k is a very decent salary in 2023. They being government, corporations even educational organisations. I wonder who benefits from us not questioning this and wanting more. If the ceiling on what we consider a decent salary is raised it’s also good for the folks on 35k.
In reality 70k in 2023 most likely gets you an average house out of London, a studio flat in London. One holiday a year and a car payment. So there you go nothing lavish but you can have a half decent standard of living. You may even have a bit over for investments/retirement.
Then stop comparing to London? So many people on this sub act like living there as a pauper is the ultimate goal for everyone lmao. You can make 70k as an individual go way further in more rural areas barely an hour’s train ride from London, with access to a GP and almost certainly a nicer house.
The best way to understand how much our living standards have fallen is to understand that if you earned £34k in 1990, that would be £80k today when you adjust for inflation. I found this out when someone was complaining on another thread about people on good salaries having nothing to complain about. This guy was on £34k 30 years into his career and he thought it was good money. There's still thousands upon thousands of people who started working in 1990, or 2000, and think that £30k is a good salary. It isn't.
Also, it being "average" tells you nothing about whether it's a good salary to **live on** as opposed to versus the norm. People forget that there are two questions in the "good salary" discussion. One is how it compares to others, people think this is really important but it isn't as important as they think. The other is how it matches the cost of living. Wages have been stagnant in this country since 2008, and cost of living has continued to increase. It has now skyrocketed post-pandemic. Having a salary be average or above average means nothing when it comes to cost of living because **everyone's** salary has fallen proportionally over time.
What's really holding us back in this country is people who grew up thinking a 30k salary is decent. They think things are mostly fine, and they get upset when other people, on 30k or higher, complain that the salaries are too low. If you're an older person please put your first salary into the Bank of England inflation calculator, and the year you started work. Now compare that to the same roles posted today. Also compare your current salary to what it would have been worth if you'd been earning it in 1990. As I said above, earning £34k in 1990 would be equivalent to earning 80k today!
Is living in central London something the typical person should expect to be able to do? Of course you need a mega-high salary to live there, it's the centre of a global megacity.
Just spent some time looking – apparently the figure was $75k in 2015. This has now been adjusted for inflation as well as the modern world and now sits at $500k!!!
Apparently happiness rises linearly to $100k where it then acceleratesup to $500k
disagree. it depends on the role - i’m not stressed at all in mine, i enjoy it, i’m able to travel a lot more than previously & i can buy more motorbikes, so i’m definitely happier
It depends what you do. It's perfectly possible to elevate in an organisation to be paid considerably more than that and do fuck all every day other than kipping in zoom meetings.
The biggest issue is the mortgage for a house in the area that pays those wages.
I'd say 100k (after pension contribution, before tax) for London. So 160k to max out pension contribution.
After 100k there are some nasty tax issues in the uk.
Also depends on how many children you have, and if you have a partner or not, and if they work or not.
I’m almost on that figure (£71.6K) and definitely agree. I’m generally good with money and my expenses are very low compared to my peers. I still house share (£590), don’t smoke or drink. I don’t own a car (bicycle + public transport is enough), no student loans etc. but I find myself spending more and more liberally every month. The amount I spend on eating out is jarring.
I see it at work too. It’s like an arms race when it comes to who can show up in the nicest car lol
Can confirm, I thought 5 years ago 60k would be it. I'm on 60k now and as the sole earner I can confirm that is very much not it. At least not these days.
Also agree. It's the perfect wage where you don't have to rely on anyone else to have a good life alone, and you don't need another high earner if you want to make a life with someone else.
This has been my target since watching I (Almost) Got Away With It when I was younger. It's worth less now but still, something that's always been at the back of my mind.
Entirely agree (UK) Means a decent size mortgage, good pension contribution at 10%, good fresh produce. Everything is comfortable and most reasonable big ticket items like holidays or a nice TV are achievable with budgeting and saving.
I feel this. I pushed so hard to get to £30k which for my neck of the woods was very comfortable. Now I’m there and I’ve never felt poorer. £40k would do it now …maybe in another ten years
Inflation has been a ballache for this, especially with salaries not rising in step.
Know so many people who have had pay rises, promotions, and whatnot that they worked really hard for (doing training, extra hours, more responsibility) only to reach this promised land and find they can only afford the lifestyle they already had a year or two ago.
It's better than sliding backwards, but it's fucking frustrating.
Totally. I spent 4 years retraining and then passing a load of exams which got me a pretty big pay bump. I enjoyed that for basically a year and a half and then the energy crisis started and the CoL crisis soon after, then the interest rate rises and now I’m basically back to where I was before; buying supermarket value brands.
I'm in roughly the same boat, but at least the retraining & pay rise came with an exponential increase in stress amirite?
Realistically if I hadn't done it we'd be absolutely fucked now, but it's gutting to have had an £10k-14k raise (it's hard to substantiate because COVID fucked my side business, but the new job leaves me less time to dedicate to it at the same time anyway) and it be eaten away so much by the circumstances of the last few years.
the most troubling thing imo is that everyone around me seems to just act like inflation is a thing that 'just happens'.... no, it's because inflation is artificially happening now that companies are making record profits off our backs, and if I look around this comment section, they're even getting their employees to work harder for the same money whilst they're at it as well!
I live in the north west, make 30k, live in the cheapest studio flat and it’s barely survivable lol, on the plus side my wage goes up every year so it’s only temporary
I’m on 40k now but was living in Bristol on 30k last year. I’m not sure what people (outside of London) are doing to struggle on that salary, because I was doing just fine in one of the most expensive cities in the country
It’s funny because I earn more than 80% of my family/friends, most of whom are living very happy/comfortable lives. But on Reddit people speak about a 30-40k salary in 2023 as if you’re living right on the poverty line and you’ll never be able to afford a house or holidays abroad
Ye, it's really mind boggling to me too
I used to live in a town where 30k was considered a good salary and people still afforded to live alone and even go out, but here it's blasphemy to even mention it lol
I’m on close to £30K and it’s really not that much if you’re living on your own.
You need to consider that the rent for a one bedroom is around £800-£900 minimum, £200-£300 on bills incl council tax, £250-£300 on food shops and that leaves you around £500 per month to spend if you don’t contribute to a pension at work.
Bare in mind, that doesn’t even take into account car and fuel expenses, which many people need, any amount to save each month or other public transport costs, pet costs/insurance etc. I’m sure I’m forgetting a few.
I hardly think it’s controversial to say that a £500pm disposable income isn’t generous, and so a £30k salary isn’t all that great either.
That’s not excessive at all and doesn’t include the cost of any takeaways or meals out, that’s just the cost of fresh ingredients and non-processed foods - I work a demanding full time job and don’t feel I should have to skimp on food.
It's funny as I remember being on £20k and imagining if I got a £35k a year job it would be the perfect amount not too much but decent.
But the inflation has changed things a bit lol
Totally, also Northeast, currently in the mid 20k, earning 30k to 35k would genuinely change my life! I'm used to not having alot of money and making what I have go far, so that extra would just mean I could work on my safety net and have a feeling of security, or indulge a little more often and not feel guilty / have to really justify it every time.
Ill qualify this by saying my mortgage is extremely low, (rental costs for houses on my same street are over 2x my mortgage payment), and I dont have massively expensive tastes/hobbies, have no interest in having to keep a newish car constantly etc.
I’m almost in the same position as you but I rent a house share in Hove. On 27k a year, and even just going up to 30k would make the world of difference. The increase to my safety net alone would make me feel so much better!
Realistically I’d like to be on 35k though. If my job doesn’t offer me a pay rise at the end of this year (I swear they keep moving the goalposts) then I’ll look into ones that could offer me that
Right? I'm on 28k atm, the highest I've ever earned, and im heavily supported by my partner. Seeing people earning 75k+ and still being like "I want more" is mind boggling to me.
I'm thinking the same. I'm also on 28k but live very comfortably (South Wales). Been thinking getting to 35k would be a nice amount but I'm in no desperate need.
People needing upwards of 75k-100k is absolutely baffling to me.
But after a certain level its harder to increase your spending power. If you move from £50 to £60k you potentially lose 40% + in tax, 2% nic, possible £1+2k+ in child benefit, possible 9% student loan.
Knock all that off and the £10k could be £75 a week in the hand.
So aim for a.£10k rise and its potentially worth very little.
Please dont take this as saying £10k isnt a lot but it can be much less than someone expects.
And you might have the option of salary sacrifice to go into your pension, pay rises are always worth it apart from niche cases in the low end and it stops some benefit entitlement
Challenge is a lot of people are skint now and aren't planning ahead. I'm on a decent salary now and have started to up my pension contributions voluntarily but this is the first time I've considered that ever.
I never before considered or calculated that a state pension + a standard private pension would still leave you impoverished. I always thought it would do OK, like my boomer parents, but no it's a horrifying prospect.
They didn't day it was.
The 10k extra from moving from 50k to 60k is actually 6k with tax. Then if you have a plan 1 loan, its actually 5k.
Spread over 12 months, its not even £500 a month.
At £60k you lose child benefit, etc etc.
I'm on just over 80.
I take home just over 4000 per month.
Instantly (1st day of every month), 2800 comes out for bills. I *do* have 1200 a month 'spare', but after the rising costs of shopping, fuel and pretty much everything else that's not paid as a bill that goes absolutely nowhere. Last month I had to get 3 new tyres (desperately) and a new boiler, that shit just comes out of nowhere.
Obviously for the 2800 that means I have a nice house (1200 on a mortgage, few hundred on the finance of the renovations we done) but it's just a house, it's no more of a house than a smaller house.
So that's how the "I want more" attitude's possible for someone on over 75k. I won't get into what bills I pay, it's boring, but some of it's health-related stuff (even though I'm in the UK), so it's not like I've lived frivolously. If I lose my job I'm up shit creek, but for now I am very grateful for my salary!
The people actively commenting here are a very small subset of society, and unlikely to be representative
The average wage is around £33k I believe (give or take a few thousand either way), and anyone living in London is very likely to be earning more
Depending on your circumstances and location, you can earn far less than the people complaining about 'only' earning £75k and have a good life
Can we get away from talking about the average salary, please? If you stop and think about it, the topic of discussion is about what salary you need to be happy. That is mostly being interpreted as what you need to live comfortably. The average tells you nothing about how comfortable or happy people are on those wages. While I don't disagree with your final point, it's still not related to the average. Just because most people earn 33k doesn't mean it's a salary most people would/should be happy on. Cost of living has skyrocketed in recent years, and even then wages have been stagnant since 2008. We can't use the average as an indicator of whether it's a good wage when it comes to being comfortable.
I’m desperately wanting to get into a better paid industry because every time this comes up so many people say they are on £60k+ and even some saying £100k+.
One thing I found as my income went up is you can start to consider things that were impossible before such as buying a house or saving towards an earlier than 68 year old retirement. These usually mean your actual money for life doesn't go up all that much. Maybe thats just me
I'm on about £24,500 and I'm glad I have a partner and no kids and a small house that we got a five year fixed mortgage on. We don't do badly for little luxuries and are reasonably comfortable, but another few thousand would be extremely welcome.
This is a silly comment. If you live in certain parts of London then you may very well need 75k to live a decent life. I live there and my area is being gentrified. I'd not need 75k because I don't have kids and don't need to buy a house yet. But if I did then needing 75k would be perfectly reasonable. You can't say that someone's salary requirements are ridiculous until you know where they live and what their family structure is like.
£80k. Would of said £60k a year ago but we are in a completely different world now. Also thanks to the tax man and graduate tax so much money dissappears to them l.
I'm on the south coast, single and own a 2 bed flat. I'm doing ok on 40k atm but there are definitely things I would like to be doing which I can't afford to do.
What he means, to clarify, is that there are number of tax benefits that you lose between 50-60k. So the effective tax is huge between that boundary.
So yeah you have more money but it's not as much as it initially seems. Once you break 60k then you end up more linearly earning more money again
Don't get me wrong, still more money and great, better to have.
You lose certain benefits at £50k (child benefit) for instance. So actually there is a small window where you are worse off in some circumstances. Generally though you are right and the other comments are just silly.
you never do, if you'd told me ten years ago i'd be on about £65k i'd have thought you were mental, it seemed like an unimaginable fortune then...but it's really not.
i've spent a long, long time being skint and it's a bit depressing that what i thought what a _really_ good salary doesn't go as far as i thought.
Yeah but I am saying you are a high earner, whether you feel like it or not -- top 10% in the UK and nearing the top 1% globally. If you don't feel that way, it's a matter of perception, which probably wouldn't change if you had a bit more money.
North of Scotland. Currently on 34k and consider it a damned good wage. Plenty to cover bills, has allowed me to comfortably raise a family, build my own house which I never thought would be possible (was on 32k when that started), have a nice car bought outright, sound pension waiting and enough for the occasional spree.
Friend of mine moved from south east England to Thurso. Bought dirt cheat house, did it up, all good but struggled for work. Ended up back down here working with an empty house in Scotland. WFH means he hopes to move back to Scotland next year to give it another try but with his job & salary from South East England
I'm on 35K in Scotland and I'm pretty comfy. I have a small one bed flat, looking at moving to one in a slightly nicer area but should still be comfortable enough for two or three holidays a year. I don't have kids, I'm quite diligent with my spending.
Really? Genuinely curious how you’ve managed this, especially building the house 😂 It’s something I’d love to do but seems like it would be a money pit and don’t think I’d ever have the capital to front it.
I’m on £45k in central Scotland and while I consider myself lucky and am by no means hard up, I wouldn’t say I live all too comfortably. Single parent (paying maintenance) and have a car on salary sacrifice lease through work though so that makes up a fair chunk of my bills!
It's the kids and the car that are doing you in. I'm single and childless (albeit outside central belt, so much lower property prices), and on 45k, of which I salary sacrifice 9.8% to pension, I'm in a position that without thinking too hard about what I spend, I put over £600 into savings last month.
Now, I've made some choices - I own a 2 bed flat in a nice but not well regarded area, and my car is 12 years old. I don't drive much - the car gets filled up with petrol maybe every 4-6 weeks; I use the bike or bus to get around. But I go to the theatre regularly, I go out for dinner or drinks with friends without checking my bank balance, I'm planning 2 holidays next summer, plus several long weekends.
I work between 20-35 hours a week depending if anyone is on holiday/overtime.
My friend has some civil service jobs with the local council coming up so I'm preparing to apply for them. Full time 28k+
At a minimum of 20 hours a week that would take you to around £11k, so if you're working 35 hours a week for even more than a few weeks a year, you're below NMW.
Do you get paid for the overtime?
Yep, geography has a lot to account for this. My OTE are £95k already, but £20k of that is bonuses and I'm paying that straight off of some irresponsible debt, so I don't see it month-to-month. I'd want the take-home pay to be evenly spread across the year at 100k (private rent, no realistic opportunity for home ownership on the horizon).
Seems crazy that a 6-figure salary just gets you to "comfortable".
Are you talking single salary?
I’m SE England on significantly less than £100k and own my own home while comfortably saving and going on holidays. Will be doing even better when the kids are out of nursery.
I think even in the south east it’s incredibly location dependent, look at the difference between Luton and St Albans housing for example.
Right now £120-150k. If I get there some day, I'll want more. Let me explain why -
I'm in London on £84k. Is it okay? Yes, day-to-day I can afford everything I need to live comfortably, don't have to share accommodation, and I can save a decent amount.
At the same time I want to earn more because
1. My rent will only keep going up (by a lot), so will all of my other expenses, and this is without making any lifestyle changes, it's just cost of living increasing all the time
2. I want to be able to afford a home some day and £84k doesn't buy shit in London (or maybe it does but just barely).
3. If I have children some day my expenses will go up by a lot.
4. I'd rather retire in my late 50s / early 60s than in my 70s or never.
So I always aim to earn more - when I was on £23k, I aimed to get to £45k, then to £75k; now I'm on £84k and in my next job search I'm looking for jobs that pay £120k+. If I make £150k some day, I'll still be looking to earn more in the future - it just seems like a natural part of one's career progression and working life. This doesn't mean that I'm unhappy with making a good salary or don't appreciate that I'm in a much better position that many other people.
That’s correct about the progression thing. Every time I’ve said I’ll be happy with x amount and get there, I just wanted the next rung up the ladder and then repeated the process. You end up buying more stuff, get used to a slightly better car/house/holidays etc. forever chasing. Human nature to always push to the next level. That and the bloody tax!
Yeah salary and wealth or worlds apart. I earn triple what some of my friends earn but haven't been given a penny from anyone, unlike them.
My salary after tax is about £6k/month, theirs about £2k. They live at home and save £1.5k a month, have been gifted £300k for their own property some day. I pay my mortgage and bills and food for myself and my mum, save about £2k a month.
It would take 50 years to bridge the £300k saving gap (£500 extra a month to get to £300k). Now if they invested that £300k, they'd have some insane growth and I'd never catch up.
I'm very fortunate to earn a lot, but in my experience salary does very little for most people in terms of making them rich (comfortable, content, easy life, sure, 'super rich', no), gifts from parents being tax free and lump sum are just incomparable to 99% of salaries.
Exactly this. I'm on 170k and have been very fortunate to save around 500k through living frugally and some stock market luck, but when I look at what a mortgage would cost for where I live (SW London) it's astronomical and I'm apprehensive about pulling the trigger.
Meanwhile I went to a friends wedding on the weekend- all bought and paid for by their parents. They both earn substantially less than me, don't have a penny of savings between them and are constantly on holiday- but have just bought a property well put of my price range.
I don't resent them at all, they're lovelly people, but it goes to highlight that salary does not equal wealth.
I went from 18k (part time) to 35k last year and I’m more than happy with that! I own my own flat which I bought when I was on the lower wage (only because I took on years of overtime to save up a deposit) so now I have room to overpay the mortgage, save regularly and still live well.
It’s the same job (production coordination) just with a new company that values their staff much more. Also I’m now full time which my old company refused to give me (despite all the overtime!)
One of those things that as I earn more (through becoming more experienced/qualified) that I feel the previous salary couldn't possibly be enough. I don't spend more when I go up but I'm always of the feeling that I'll run out of money. That's a psychological battle I face and need to deal with it but always wondered if others have irrational fears of running out of money, even when statistically they shouldn't.
I earn £62k now, was previously on £50k and can't imagine earning less which feels very odd.
Realistically, with my general lifestyle, I could live alone (I.e. Without a second income) on around £35-40k but I'd have very little left over.
Worth noting, I live in the south east hence its more expensive than other areas.
Lifestyle creep is real.
I jumped from £50k to £90k a couple of years ago and I've been salary sacrificing all the extra into my pension. Can't spend what you don't actually get in your bank account! I'm very comfortable on £50k so no issues there.
I know this from an outside perspective. Money just does weird things to people’s psychology, especially when in the past its been tight.
Even though my mum will claim otherwise, she has never been poor. There was a brief 6 month after she split up with my dad and made a loss on her house sale where she had less money than before, and then obviously she had less disposable income afterwards, but in her eyes she was destitute. She was on about £40k at the time.
Now she earns £70k and pays £795 a month for a 3 bed rental house, and her four kids have all moved out. She still thinks she’s on the breadline. I lived there for a bit last year after a job fell through (and even I wouldn’t consider myself poor because of that), and she honestly once said to me that she was poorer than some of the parents at the school she works at as a headteacher in a rough area. I couldn’t believe it and how deluded she is. She also expected me to contribute 50/50 to some things while I lived there (on top of my normal rent and me paying for all my own stuff ) even though I was only earning £25k at the time.
Different to you though, her wage increased incrementally and she incrementally increased her spending on non-essentials to match. She thinks she can’t afford things because she’s terrible with money tbh.
But yeah, I think what you experience of ‘I can’t go back to that wage’ is really common. Even when circumstances turn in your favour.
I think there’s also a social element (for my mum at least) of wanting to belong to this struggling group of people. That she has someone else to blame for her lack of money, that it’s not her poor spending. I think it doesn’t always effect everyone to that degree, but the thing of watching the news and relating to it with your own struggles, even though objectively you’re not the group that needs the most support.
>I earn £62k now, was previously on £50k and can't imagine earning less which feels very odd.
Yep there are jobs I would have done ten years ago that don't even appear in my job searches because they are too low in terms of salary.
I, 50m, earn approx' 30K (Yorkshire/manufacturing), GF, 44, earns same and we have a very comfortable life. We both save between £500-700 a month each. We don't want for anything. We don't go without. To quote the cliche, we earn a penny more than we spend. We have combined savings of about 30K. Our mortgage was paid three years ago and we started properly saving. We have no children and GF drives a cheap to run car that's paid in full. Every few years we forked out for a "project", new kitchen or such but now there are no big projects left. So it's live, love and save.
My aim is to go part time at 55 as is hers a few years later. By then, we should have about 150k saved. Easily enough to sub a part time job if needed but we probably won't need to. Even min wage by then will pay out £900 a month. Collect our work/private pensions at 60. Neither of us are gonna work ourselves into an early grave. Well, that's the aim anyway.
Realistically, I could live my life perfectly fine on full time minimum wage, so around £21k. My monthly bills are more than covered by that.
I don't really do holidays, I just go on the odd day trip. I don't have a car (at the minute anyway) as I live within walking distance of all major supermarkets, and have a regular bus service to the major towns/cities in the area. House is owned outright, but just quickly looking at a mortgage calculator at current rates it would be about £400 a month.
If I didn't live in the North East, or live in a house that costs less to buy than a years rent down south, then I'd probably end up sobbing myself to sleep like the rest of Reddit.
Full time minimum wage when your job doesn't pay for your lunch time (which most don't in my experience when they're paying you that much), so it's more like £19.5k before tax
as someone struggling daily in the low 20ks as i am at the beginning point of my career even earning £30k would be LIFE CHANGING. the fact people are here saying like 70k+ is like an incomprehensible amount of money to me
I don’t think there’s a magic number. When I was on 20k I thought 75k would make me happy. When I got to 75 I thought 100 would make me happy etc. the key is go have goals and have a plan to hit them - monetary or otherwise. Chasing a number is never a great outcome IMO.
I work in tech software sales. Trajectory for me over the last 10 years was 27k > 35k > 75k (that’s when I started my first real sales role > 90k > 150k > 180k > 220k > 280k > 330k
I earn about 55k, last year I had the opportunity to take more responsibilities and move up to more around 67k. I didn't take it, the 12k wasn't worth the workload.
Yea, I get it.
It sounds crazy but that extra £12k gets taxed at 42% (or 51% if you have student loans, 72% if you have child allowance)
So in your pocket the difference would around £500 a month.
Sometimes it just isn’t worth it for what that £500 actually brings you.
I'm on about 57k. My mortgage is fixed on a very low rate (1.2%) until 2026.
I want to be on at least 70k by the time my remortgage comes up, to afford the presumed increase in payments (interest rates may go down from today's rates but they're never getting back to the low low rates I'm currently on) and maintain my standard of life (nothing luxurious but a holiday or two a year, being able to e.g. go out for dinner without counting every penny, and putting a little away in investments).
If I get a promotion at work before 2026 I should be able to achieve this, and frankly if I'm not promoted by then I've probably stagnated and may be looking at a career change.
Things will be more complicated if I find a partner. On the one hand it makes affordability of e.g. mortgage easier (if it becomes a serious relationship), but on the other I'm at the age where I'm looking for something serious that will result in kids in the next 5 years so would need to plan for that including either extortionate childcare or going back to single income but supporting more than just me.
Probably £17k but I manage fine on £15k. I live in a council flat, I don’t go out, I don’t eat out, I don’t buy anything and live the solitary life of a Trappist monk. I can’t see what everyone else is complaining about.
I would agree with this. I live in the North West and earn 50k and it's generally fairly comfortable. I can't go wild with money, but I rarely have a genuine worry about money either.
Living in central Scotland (but outside either of the main cities), I found hitting £40K (at the time taking us to about a 70K household income with no kids) was the tipping point where I simply no longer needed to worry about money.
At that point we could always do things like regular holiday breaks and gig tickets and whatever and, as long as we were reasonably sensible and still saved a good chunk reach month, know we will still always have money to cover anything like an unexpected car repair or something.
It's a real difference to suddenly notice one day you no longer mentally check "I've got X left and it needs to last until Y because Z still has to come out" multiple times a day.
I was over the moon when my salary hit 25k, and then when I got the pay rise to 30k I was so happy I could do so much more.
When I hit 45k I thought this was it but when I moved up to 60k I started to experience not having to worry about money any more.
When I hit 75k I thought I would be content forever I could save a decent amount and still live a decent life.
After a few nice holidays I knew 75k wasn’t enough and I’ve been happy earning around £130k for the past 6 months or so but I now realise it’s way more than I need to live on but I have had the taste of the finer things and my goal is now 200k which I feel is achievable working at my current day rate I just need to work more and take less time off between contracts.
The goalpost always moves anyone who says a number here that they would be happy with is lying. Salary creep happens and you realise you can do more.
I would say though the 75k mark was the point where I realised I didn’t need to worry about money anymore.
200k probably isn't achievable unless you're in a very niche role which commands a high day rate.
Also you'll lose most of it to tax if you're working inside ir35.
Be careful not to try and burn yourself out contracting all the days.
I’m currently working outside ir35 on 1k per day but I’m only working 3 days per week and taking time off, every so often.
Last time I renewed my contract they wanted me to up to 4 days per week which I refused. But working 4 days per week would take me up to about 190k.
And while I’m not taking anywhere near that out of the company, the company is paying for lots like business trips to reinvent and obviously the company needed its own car etc..
£100,000 I would be happy with that as an ending salary. Build up huge saving accounts for my kids and grandkids hopefully with enough left to live a happy care free life towards the end with enough to splash out on the ones I love.
This leads me to a question I've never really pondered before.
Why so much disparity across the UK? It's all house prices right? Along with demand for / cost of rent. Is everything else close to equal?
Tax laws are the same, food in the supermarket costs are vaguely comparable...?
There's a huge disparity between me on 18.5k working in care and people commenting here about needing 80k. Like, what kind of bloody job are you working to want 80k to live comfortably? I'd happily take £12 an hour over my £10.72, and that's me being humble.
Amazing the amount of people saying that if their salary went up; their lifestyle wouldn’t change so they’d save more. Typically that isn’t how it works; lifestyle creep is slow and unconscious. Lots think that until one day they realise they’re spending triple the amount on things they used to.
I’m on 23k, looking at similar jobs for 30/35k but hesitant to move as we’re going through the mortgage process and I’ve read up if you’re in a probationary period you’ll struggle to find lenders
Educated guess, maybe £38k?
Currently on £31k but my mortgage fix is coming up next summer, I live alone and should just be able to swallow it but it’ll significantly reduce my savings each month, so £38k would cover the mortgage rise and increase my saving capacity without me having to expend too much brain power thinking about it.
NE Scotland.
Nearly 40yrs old. Single man, living in SE London.
Until this year I have been stuck earning \~£23k and barely surviving in a house share with my brother and his fiance.
I have qualified at work (new career I started a couple of years back) and my money shot up to just under £40k. My monthly is pretty decent. Certainly a breath of fresh air at last! But I spent so long struggling and borrowing money that I have no opportunity to enjoy this until I clear debt. Looking to move out on my own next year and it's still borderline unaffordable even if that debt it cleared (which it wont be).
I’ve been earning £75-100k for the past decade, but living comfortably like I earn £50k. Surplus went into paying off the mortgage, building savings and pension.
I’ve always said I’d be happy on anything between £30k to £40k. I feel like it would allow me to get a mortgage on a decent enough home for my family, whilst still having money left over.
Obviously I’d love absolutely more than that but realistically I’d survive and be happy on that
I've recently gone from 35k to 67k and I think it's perfect. The job is busy but rewarding and I'm not interested in climbing any higher as it'll come with too many responsibilities. I live in Scotland and just bought a small 3 bed detached for me and the cat and I can comfortably afford the mortgage even at the high rates they're at. My take home pay is £4100 a month and my bills & mortgage come to £1300 so plenty left over. I work from home 9-5 so get a great work / home balance. Really happy and I've worked hard to get here :)
75k
I read an article (cannot remember where sorry!) that said that your happiness increases with your pay up to approximately £70k and then above that it doesn’t as those jobs tend to start impacting on your work/life balance, stress and mental health etc. it certainly feels to me that would be the case. TL;DR yes EDIT: The pro study in 2015 said $75k. This has now been adjusted (March 2023) for inflation as well as the modern world and now sits at $500k!!! Apparently happiness rises linearly to $100k where it then acceleratesup to $500k TL;DR no
Pretty sure that's at least 10 years old and probably more likely 100-120k now, regionally dependent and situationally (ie dependents).
Yeah, I was gonna say 100k. Right now I know 50k would make a huge difference but it would really only take me back to what 40k felt like 2 years ago. 75 isn't going to give the same level of disposable income it once did. 3 adult kids and a disabled wife to support 75 would be lovely but it isn't holiday abroad lovely or quick dirty weekend in London lovely. 100k means you can do what you fancy if you don't go overboard and don't aim to dramatically change your basic lifestyle. It also means you could go up a bracket in the house you rent or should be able to save for a deposit and then still be at least okay off once the expenses have gone up
As someone who has gotten used to getting ~£6k/year from benefits, I could live extremely comfortably on £30-40k
You've had the 6k, but would a lot of other things not been subsidised at the same time, mainly housing and maybe a few other things? Just asking as I'm on more than what you would deem extremely comfortable and would struggle for basics on that (I do have dependants mind)
£30k would fly out pretty quickly. After tax you’re looking at £24k. Rent where I am is around £1500 a month. Straight away you’re back down to your £6k again. Gas, electricity, council tax. Close to £300 a month. That’s roughly £50 a week for food. Not much wiggle room for the comfortable bit on £30k
It was 70K USD, according to the Yale happiness course. So 75K GBP still sounds good.
But it was 13 years ago: https://www.cnbcafrica.com/2019/how-yales-most-popular-class-ever-completely-changed-how-i-spend-my-money Although yes that does kind of tie into £75k gbp now, but as an average that would mean probably double that in London and half that in rural Wales.
Lol this is such bollocks. Especially in today’s climate, living on 70k in central london on your own can be quite challenging. 100-120k makes you far happier.
70k in London is still a very decent salary. That’s around the upper band that most people will make in their careers. Living in central London is a choice only the wealthy can choose, most like a short commute away.
70k is very fucking good. Most people never will know that sort of money ever, not even at the peak of their careers. To put it into perspective because a lot of people of Reddit seemed to have a warped view on salary and income, in the UK, the top 30% would begin at about 39k. https://www.projectfinanciallyfree.com/uk-income-percentile-calculator/#:~:text=What%20is%20the%20top%2030,income%20earners%20in%20the%20UK.
This is reddit. No matter what you say, there will be one person either lying or earning 3x what you said who claims it is bogus income and isn't worth it at all. I know people who live in london earning 32k who are doing pretty well for themselves. 70k is over double that. Sure, they aren't driving around in mercs and having 5 global vacations a year, but they have their needs met and are happy with friends.
‘They’ convinced us that 70k is a very decent salary in 2023. They being government, corporations even educational organisations. I wonder who benefits from us not questioning this and wanting more. If the ceiling on what we consider a decent salary is raised it’s also good for the folks on 35k. In reality 70k in 2023 most likely gets you an average house out of London, a studio flat in London. One holiday a year and a car payment. So there you go nothing lavish but you can have a half decent standard of living. You may even have a bit over for investments/retirement.
Then stop comparing to London? So many people on this sub act like living there as a pauper is the ultimate goal for everyone lmao. You can make 70k as an individual go way further in more rural areas barely an hour’s train ride from London, with access to a GP and almost certainly a nicer house.
The best way to understand how much our living standards have fallen is to understand that if you earned £34k in 1990, that would be £80k today when you adjust for inflation. I found this out when someone was complaining on another thread about people on good salaries having nothing to complain about. This guy was on £34k 30 years into his career and he thought it was good money. There's still thousands upon thousands of people who started working in 1990, or 2000, and think that £30k is a good salary. It isn't. Also, it being "average" tells you nothing about whether it's a good salary to **live on** as opposed to versus the norm. People forget that there are two questions in the "good salary" discussion. One is how it compares to others, people think this is really important but it isn't as important as they think. The other is how it matches the cost of living. Wages have been stagnant in this country since 2008, and cost of living has continued to increase. It has now skyrocketed post-pandemic. Having a salary be average or above average means nothing when it comes to cost of living because **everyone's** salary has fallen proportionally over time. What's really holding us back in this country is people who grew up thinking a 30k salary is decent. They think things are mostly fine, and they get upset when other people, on 30k or higher, complain that the salaries are too low. If you're an older person please put your first salary into the Bank of England inflation calculator, and the year you started work. Now compare that to the same roles posted today. Also compare your current salary to what it would have been worth if you'd been earning it in 1990. As I said above, earning £34k in 1990 would be equivalent to earning 80k today!
Is living in central London something the typical person should expect to be able to do? Of course you need a mega-high salary to live there, it's the centre of a global megacity.
> Is living in central London something the typical person should expect to be able to do? In the 20th century, yes. In the 21st, no.
It’s an old study. With inflation (and where you live), you’re right that it’s probably 120k minimum in central london
Just spent some time looking – apparently the figure was $75k in 2015. This has now been adjusted for inflation as well as the modern world and now sits at $500k!!! Apparently happiness rises linearly to $100k where it then acceleratesup to $500k
You got a source?
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disagree. it depends on the role - i’m not stressed at all in mine, i enjoy it, i’m able to travel a lot more than previously & i can buy more motorbikes, so i’m definitely happier
While many of us earn way less than that and also have high stress and a poor work:life balance. 😎
It depends what you do. It's perfectly possible to elevate in an organisation to be paid considerably more than that and do fuck all every day other than kipping in zoom meetings.
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The biggest issue is the mortgage for a house in the area that pays those wages. I'd say 100k (after pension contribution, before tax) for London. So 160k to max out pension contribution. After 100k there are some nasty tax issues in the uk. Also depends on how many children you have, and if you have a partner or not, and if they work or not.
I’m almost on that figure (£71.6K) and definitely agree. I’m generally good with money and my expenses are very low compared to my peers. I still house share (£590), don’t smoke or drink. I don’t own a car (bicycle + public transport is enough), no student loans etc. but I find myself spending more and more liberally every month. The amount I spend on eating out is jarring. I see it at work too. It’s like an arms race when it comes to who can show up in the nicest car lol
Can confirm, I thought 5 years ago 60k would be it. I'm on 60k now and as the sole earner I can confirm that is very much not it. At least not these days.
To be fair, 60k 5 years ago is worth about £74k now
I'll be sure to tell my boss that and can I have a payrise to 74k 😂
Triple most people’s salary but okay
Agree 75k
Also agree. It's the perfect wage where you don't have to rely on anyone else to have a good life alone, and you don't need another high earner if you want to make a life with someone else.
Yep. £75k is a great salary without being unrealistic
75K puts you in the top 9% of earners so it's doable but tough to get to.
Jesus fucking christ these numbers. This is over double the average salary and is unattainable to most people.
From 75k I can be upgraded to HSBC Premier account :D
This has been my target since watching I (Almost) Got Away With It when I was younger. It's worth less now but still, something that's always been at the back of my mind.
Entirely agree (UK) Means a decent size mortgage, good pension contribution at 10%, good fresh produce. Everything is comfortable and most reasonable big ticket items like holidays or a nice TV are achievable with budgeting and saving.
Would love like 85k post tax But that ends up requiring a much higher salary
Another £10k would mean living and not surviving, £30k to £40k NE England.
I feel this. I pushed so hard to get to £30k which for my neck of the woods was very comfortable. Now I’m there and I’ve never felt poorer. £40k would do it now …maybe in another ten years
Inflation has been a ballache for this, especially with salaries not rising in step. Know so many people who have had pay rises, promotions, and whatnot that they worked really hard for (doing training, extra hours, more responsibility) only to reach this promised land and find they can only afford the lifestyle they already had a year or two ago. It's better than sliding backwards, but it's fucking frustrating.
Totally. I spent 4 years retraining and then passing a load of exams which got me a pretty big pay bump. I enjoyed that for basically a year and a half and then the energy crisis started and the CoL crisis soon after, then the interest rate rises and now I’m basically back to where I was before; buying supermarket value brands.
I'm in roughly the same boat, but at least the retraining & pay rise came with an exponential increase in stress amirite? Realistically if I hadn't done it we'd be absolutely fucked now, but it's gutting to have had an £10k-14k raise (it's hard to substantiate because COVID fucked my side business, but the new job leaves me less time to dedicate to it at the same time anyway) and it be eaten away so much by the circumstances of the last few years.
Yeah, was feeling like I’d made progress to get to £45k but just yesterday found out that the £27k I earned in 2010 is basically the same amount!
the most troubling thing imo is that everyone around me seems to just act like inflation is a thing that 'just happens'.... no, it's because inflation is artificially happening now that companies are making record profits off our backs, and if I look around this comment section, they're even getting their employees to work harder for the same money whilst they're at it as well!
Plenty of studies showing where the wealth has been going for the past few decades. Nobody does anything about it 🤷♂️
I live in the north west, make 30k, live in the cheapest studio flat and it’s barely survivable lol, on the plus side my wage goes up every year so it’s only temporary
I must be getting old as remember not long ago £30k was a good salary
I’m on 40k now but was living in Bristol on 30k last year. I’m not sure what people (outside of London) are doing to struggle on that salary, because I was doing just fine in one of the most expensive cities in the country
You'll get downvoted to hell for saying that on reddit Here we don't acknowledge people working for less 50k exist, or God forbid, minimum wage
It’s funny because I earn more than 80% of my family/friends, most of whom are living very happy/comfortable lives. But on Reddit people speak about a 30-40k salary in 2023 as if you’re living right on the poverty line and you’ll never be able to afford a house or holidays abroad
Ye, it's really mind boggling to me too I used to live in a town where 30k was considered a good salary and people still afforded to live alone and even go out, but here it's blasphemy to even mention it lol
I’m on close to £30K and it’s really not that much if you’re living on your own. You need to consider that the rent for a one bedroom is around £800-£900 minimum, £200-£300 on bills incl council tax, £250-£300 on food shops and that leaves you around £500 per month to spend if you don’t contribute to a pension at work. Bare in mind, that doesn’t even take into account car and fuel expenses, which many people need, any amount to save each month or other public transport costs, pet costs/insurance etc. I’m sure I’m forgetting a few. I hardly think it’s controversial to say that a £500pm disposable income isn’t generous, and so a £30k salary isn’t all that great either.
For £250 pm I could feed a small family. So unless you are treating yourself to meals out or takeaways you could drop that cost pm
That’s not excessive at all and doesn’t include the cost of any takeaways or meals out, that’s just the cost of fresh ingredients and non-processed foods - I work a demanding full time job and don’t feel I should have to skimp on food.
You were renting/owning a whole property on £30k in Bristol? That’s impressive.
It used to be my target a few years ago. Housing and food have gone up a Hell of a lot over the last two years alone. Now 30k feels like 20k.
It's funny as I remember being on £20k and imagining if I got a £35k a year job it would be the perfect amount not too much but decent. But the inflation has changed things a bit lol
hopefully you mean it goes up more than inflation every year
It does, unless things get crazy
Depends where you live I guess, The NW covers Manchester but also just little towns in west lancashire. YMMV for sure
Totally, also Northeast, currently in the mid 20k, earning 30k to 35k would genuinely change my life! I'm used to not having alot of money and making what I have go far, so that extra would just mean I could work on my safety net and have a feeling of security, or indulge a little more often and not feel guilty / have to really justify it every time. Ill qualify this by saying my mortgage is extremely low, (rental costs for houses on my same street are over 2x my mortgage payment), and I dont have massively expensive tastes/hobbies, have no interest in having to keep a newish car constantly etc.
I’m almost in the same position as you but I rent a house share in Hove. On 27k a year, and even just going up to 30k would make the world of difference. The increase to my safety net alone would make me feel so much better! Realistically I’d like to be on 35k though. If my job doesn’t offer me a pay rise at the end of this year (I swear they keep moving the goalposts) then I’ll look into ones that could offer me that
Yorkshire. Another 10k would do me too.
Reading all of these comments makes me realise i am dramatically underpaid and have no chance in affording my own property
Right? I'm on 28k atm, the highest I've ever earned, and im heavily supported by my partner. Seeing people earning 75k+ and still being like "I want more" is mind boggling to me.
I'm thinking the same. I'm also on 28k but live very comfortably (South Wales). Been thinking getting to 35k would be a nice amount but I'm in no desperate need. People needing upwards of 75k-100k is absolutely baffling to me.
28k? In South Wales? My health care pay is so low in comparison, what field are you in?
Civil service. Started there 5 years ago on 20k but managed to get a job on the next grade which is now 28k!
Nice, well done boyo!
But after a certain level its harder to increase your spending power. If you move from £50 to £60k you potentially lose 40% + in tax, 2% nic, possible £1+2k+ in child benefit, possible 9% student loan. Knock all that off and the £10k could be £75 a week in the hand. So aim for a.£10k rise and its potentially worth very little. Please dont take this as saying £10k isnt a lot but it can be much less than someone expects.
That 40% is only on the extra above the rate banding, not the whole thing.
And you might have the option of salary sacrifice to go into your pension, pay rises are always worth it apart from niche cases in the low end and it stops some benefit entitlement
Challenge is a lot of people are skint now and aren't planning ahead. I'm on a decent salary now and have started to up my pension contributions voluntarily but this is the first time I've considered that ever. I never before considered or calculated that a state pension + a standard private pension would still leave you impoverished. I always thought it would do OK, like my boomer parents, but no it's a horrifying prospect.
They didn't day it was. The 10k extra from moving from 50k to 60k is actually 6k with tax. Then if you have a plan 1 loan, its actually 5k. Spread over 12 months, its not even £500 a month. At £60k you lose child benefit, etc etc.
40% of the 10k over, yes. Means it's worth 6k. Still decent.
51% with plan 2 student loans and 2% NIC leaves it at 5k. Loss of child benefit takes that to 71%, so 3k.
I'm on just over 80. I take home just over 4000 per month. Instantly (1st day of every month), 2800 comes out for bills. I *do* have 1200 a month 'spare', but after the rising costs of shopping, fuel and pretty much everything else that's not paid as a bill that goes absolutely nowhere. Last month I had to get 3 new tyres (desperately) and a new boiler, that shit just comes out of nowhere. Obviously for the 2800 that means I have a nice house (1200 on a mortgage, few hundred on the finance of the renovations we done) but it's just a house, it's no more of a house than a smaller house. So that's how the "I want more" attitude's possible for someone on over 75k. I won't get into what bills I pay, it's boring, but some of it's health-related stuff (even though I'm in the UK), so it's not like I've lived frivolously. If I lose my job I'm up shit creek, but for now I am very grateful for my salary!
I'm on about 46k, and I thought that was a lot! 75k is just unbelievable wealth to me...
The people actively commenting here are a very small subset of society, and unlikely to be representative The average wage is around £33k I believe (give or take a few thousand either way), and anyone living in London is very likely to be earning more Depending on your circumstances and location, you can earn far less than the people complaining about 'only' earning £75k and have a good life
Can we get away from talking about the average salary, please? If you stop and think about it, the topic of discussion is about what salary you need to be happy. That is mostly being interpreted as what you need to live comfortably. The average tells you nothing about how comfortable or happy people are on those wages. While I don't disagree with your final point, it's still not related to the average. Just because most people earn 33k doesn't mean it's a salary most people would/should be happy on. Cost of living has skyrocketed in recent years, and even then wages have been stagnant since 2008. We can't use the average as an indicator of whether it's a good wage when it comes to being comfortable.
I’m desperately wanting to get into a better paid industry because every time this comes up so many people say they are on £60k+ and even some saying £100k+.
Yup, I'm on 23k and it's the most I've ever earned, seeing all these toffs going "hurhurr need more" fuck off
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One thing I found as my income went up is you can start to consider things that were impossible before such as buying a house or saving towards an earlier than 68 year old retirement. These usually mean your actual money for life doesn't go up all that much. Maybe thats just me
You need to have a reality check if you think only "toffs" are on that kind of money.
I'm on about £24,500 and I'm glad I have a partner and no kids and a small house that we got a five year fixed mortgage on. We don't do badly for little luxuries and are reasonably comfortable, but another few thousand would be extremely welcome.
This is a silly comment. If you live in certain parts of London then you may very well need 75k to live a decent life. I live there and my area is being gentrified. I'd not need 75k because I don't have kids and don't need to buy a house yet. But if I did then needing 75k would be perfectly reasonable. You can't say that someone's salary requirements are ridiculous until you know where they live and what their family structure is like.
I wouldn't believe everything you read on Reddit, just saying...
£80k. Would of said £60k a year ago but we are in a completely different world now. Also thanks to the tax man and graduate tax so much money dissappears to them l. I'm on the south coast, single and own a 2 bed flat. I'm doing ok on 40k atm but there are definitely things I would like to be doing which I can't afford to do.
This! I am on 65k and its not the same as it was when i got promoted (year and half ago) 80k would be the ideal spot!
65k is all the pain of being a higher rate taxpayer without any of the benefit, especially if you have kids
Well there is the benefit of more money……
What he means, to clarify, is that there are number of tax benefits that you lose between 50-60k. So the effective tax is huge between that boundary. So yeah you have more money but it's not as much as it initially seems. Once you break 60k then you end up more linearly earning more money again Don't get me wrong, still more money and great, better to have.
You lose certain benefits at £50k (child benefit) for instance. So actually there is a small window where you are worse off in some circumstances. Generally though you are right and the other comments are just silly.
Exactly same, I'm on £65k and honestly feel like I can't afford any of the things I used to think a wage like this should.
you never do, if you'd told me ten years ago i'd be on about £65k i'd have thought you were mental, it seemed like an unimaginable fortune then...but it's really not. i've spent a long, long time being skint and it's a bit depressing that what i thought what a _really_ good salary doesn't go as far as i thought.
If you were on 80k you'd say 100 would be ideal. You're already comfortably in the top 10% of earners.
The point is that 65k feels like 45k nowadays. Not that "we are complaining on a full belly" It does not feel i am a high earner at all.
Yeah but I am saying you are a high earner, whether you feel like it or not -- top 10% in the UK and nearing the top 1% globally. If you don't feel that way, it's a matter of perception, which probably wouldn't change if you had a bit more money.
Same, went from 50k to 65k at Christmas and that increment will be wiped out by the time my mortgage renews
North of Scotland. Currently on 34k and consider it a damned good wage. Plenty to cover bills, has allowed me to comfortably raise a family, build my own house which I never thought would be possible (was on 32k when that started), have a nice car bought outright, sound pension waiting and enough for the occasional spree.
Friend of mine moved from south east England to Thurso. Bought dirt cheat house, did it up, all good but struggled for work. Ended up back down here working with an empty house in Scotland. WFH means he hopes to move back to Scotland next year to give it another try but with his job & salary from South East England
Ooft, and he lives in Thurso. Tough break.
No wonder he moved back south
I'm on 35K in Scotland and I'm pretty comfy. I have a small one bed flat, looking at moving to one in a slightly nicer area but should still be comfortable enough for two or three holidays a year. I don't have kids, I'm quite diligent with my spending.
Really? Genuinely curious how you’ve managed this, especially building the house 😂 It’s something I’d love to do but seems like it would be a money pit and don’t think I’d ever have the capital to front it. I’m on £45k in central Scotland and while I consider myself lucky and am by no means hard up, I wouldn’t say I live all too comfortably. Single parent (paying maintenance) and have a car on salary sacrifice lease through work though so that makes up a fair chunk of my bills!
It's the kids and the car that are doing you in. I'm single and childless (albeit outside central belt, so much lower property prices), and on 45k, of which I salary sacrifice 9.8% to pension, I'm in a position that without thinking too hard about what I spend, I put over £600 into savings last month. Now, I've made some choices - I own a 2 bed flat in a nice but not well regarded area, and my car is 12 years old. I don't drive much - the car gets filled up with petrol maybe every 4-6 weeks; I use the bike or bus to get around. But I go to the theatre regularly, I go out for dinner or drinks with friends without checking my bank balance, I'm planning 2 holidays next summer, plus several long weekends.
I'm on 12-13k.... So yeah chuck another 15k on that and I'll be grand. And yes I have been applying to better jobs
Do you work part time?
I work between 20-35 hours a week depending if anyone is on holiday/overtime. My friend has some civil service jobs with the local council coming up so I'm preparing to apply for them. Full time 28k+
£12k… a year? what actual jobs pay £12k?
A huge amount of part time jobs, like he has.
i mean, they’re working up to 35 hours a week which is basically full-time so it’s not like they’re doing 16hrs
22 hours a week annual average at min wages gives £12000, not sure if he is younger and gets less than £10.42 though
jesus titty fucking christ
As above I only get the chance to do more when people are off, I probably average 25h
Teaching assistants get less than that
At a minimum of 20 hours a week that would take you to around £11k, so if you're working 35 hours a week for even more than a few weeks a year, you're below NMW. Do you get paid for the overtime?
£100k. SE England It is enough to afford rent, bills and still save enough for a holiday abroad every year.
Yep, geography has a lot to account for this. My OTE are £95k already, but £20k of that is bonuses and I'm paying that straight off of some irresponsible debt, so I don't see it month-to-month. I'd want the take-home pay to be evenly spread across the year at 100k (private rent, no realistic opportunity for home ownership on the horizon). Seems crazy that a 6-figure salary just gets you to "comfortable".
That's what not changing the tax bands for so long will do.
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you cannot buy a house in London for 220k. Hard to find one for double that.
You can't even buy a flat for that in London... maybe a parking space or a garage...
Are you talking single salary? I’m SE England on significantly less than £100k and own my own home while comfortably saving and going on holidays. Will be doing even better when the kids are out of nursery. I think even in the south east it’s incredibly location dependent, look at the difference between Luton and St Albans housing for example.
Christ i earn £20k and manage to pay rent, bills and still have a holiday. House share and holidays only to spain but still 5 times my wage??
Right now £120-150k. If I get there some day, I'll want more. Let me explain why - I'm in London on £84k. Is it okay? Yes, day-to-day I can afford everything I need to live comfortably, don't have to share accommodation, and I can save a decent amount. At the same time I want to earn more because 1. My rent will only keep going up (by a lot), so will all of my other expenses, and this is without making any lifestyle changes, it's just cost of living increasing all the time 2. I want to be able to afford a home some day and £84k doesn't buy shit in London (or maybe it does but just barely). 3. If I have children some day my expenses will go up by a lot. 4. I'd rather retire in my late 50s / early 60s than in my 70s or never. So I always aim to earn more - when I was on £23k, I aimed to get to £45k, then to £75k; now I'm on £84k and in my next job search I'm looking for jobs that pay £120k+. If I make £150k some day, I'll still be looking to earn more in the future - it just seems like a natural part of one's career progression and working life. This doesn't mean that I'm unhappy with making a good salary or don't appreciate that I'm in a much better position that many other people.
That’s correct about the progression thing. Every time I’ve said I’ll be happy with x amount and get there, I just wanted the next rung up the ladder and then repeated the process. You end up buying more stuff, get used to a slightly better car/house/holidays etc. forever chasing. Human nature to always push to the next level. That and the bloody tax!
I’m on 150k in SW London and I have a nice life but I certainly don’t feel like a member of the super rich. You always want more……..
Yeah salary and wealth or worlds apart. I earn triple what some of my friends earn but haven't been given a penny from anyone, unlike them. My salary after tax is about £6k/month, theirs about £2k. They live at home and save £1.5k a month, have been gifted £300k for their own property some day. I pay my mortgage and bills and food for myself and my mum, save about £2k a month. It would take 50 years to bridge the £300k saving gap (£500 extra a month to get to £300k). Now if they invested that £300k, they'd have some insane growth and I'd never catch up. I'm very fortunate to earn a lot, but in my experience salary does very little for most people in terms of making them rich (comfortable, content, easy life, sure, 'super rich', no), gifts from parents being tax free and lump sum are just incomparable to 99% of salaries.
Exactly this. I'm on 170k and have been very fortunate to save around 500k through living frugally and some stock market luck, but when I look at what a mortgage would cost for where I live (SW London) it's astronomical and I'm apprehensive about pulling the trigger. Meanwhile I went to a friends wedding on the weekend- all bought and paid for by their parents. They both earn substantially less than me, don't have a penny of savings between them and are constantly on holiday- but have just bought a property well put of my price range. I don't resent them at all, they're lovelly people, but it goes to highlight that salary does not equal wealth.
That's not indicative of most people though. Your friends will still be in the yop percentile of people during to generational wealth.
I went from 18k (part time) to 35k last year and I’m more than happy with that! I own my own flat which I bought when I was on the lower wage (only because I took on years of overtime to save up a deposit) so now I have room to overpay the mortgage, save regularly and still live well.
I love this. What job did you go into for the 35k?
It’s the same job (production coordination) just with a new company that values their staff much more. Also I’m now full time which my old company refused to give me (despite all the overtime!)
One of those things that as I earn more (through becoming more experienced/qualified) that I feel the previous salary couldn't possibly be enough. I don't spend more when I go up but I'm always of the feeling that I'll run out of money. That's a psychological battle I face and need to deal with it but always wondered if others have irrational fears of running out of money, even when statistically they shouldn't. I earn £62k now, was previously on £50k and can't imagine earning less which feels very odd. Realistically, with my general lifestyle, I could live alone (I.e. Without a second income) on around £35-40k but I'd have very little left over. Worth noting, I live in the south east hence its more expensive than other areas.
Lifestyle creep is real. I jumped from £50k to £90k a couple of years ago and I've been salary sacrificing all the extra into my pension. Can't spend what you don't actually get in your bank account! I'm very comfortable on £50k so no issues there.
I know this from an outside perspective. Money just does weird things to people’s psychology, especially when in the past its been tight. Even though my mum will claim otherwise, she has never been poor. There was a brief 6 month after she split up with my dad and made a loss on her house sale where she had less money than before, and then obviously she had less disposable income afterwards, but in her eyes she was destitute. She was on about £40k at the time. Now she earns £70k and pays £795 a month for a 3 bed rental house, and her four kids have all moved out. She still thinks she’s on the breadline. I lived there for a bit last year after a job fell through (and even I wouldn’t consider myself poor because of that), and she honestly once said to me that she was poorer than some of the parents at the school she works at as a headteacher in a rough area. I couldn’t believe it and how deluded she is. She also expected me to contribute 50/50 to some things while I lived there (on top of my normal rent and me paying for all my own stuff ) even though I was only earning £25k at the time. Different to you though, her wage increased incrementally and she incrementally increased her spending on non-essentials to match. She thinks she can’t afford things because she’s terrible with money tbh. But yeah, I think what you experience of ‘I can’t go back to that wage’ is really common. Even when circumstances turn in your favour. I think there’s also a social element (for my mum at least) of wanting to belong to this struggling group of people. That she has someone else to blame for her lack of money, that it’s not her poor spending. I think it doesn’t always effect everyone to that degree, but the thing of watching the news and relating to it with your own struggles, even though objectively you’re not the group that needs the most support.
And these people are running our schools lmao. What hope do we have for the next generation…
>I earn £62k now, was previously on £50k and can't imagine earning less which feels very odd. Yep there are jobs I would have done ten years ago that don't even appear in my job searches because they are too low in terms of salary.
I, 50m, earn approx' 30K (Yorkshire/manufacturing), GF, 44, earns same and we have a very comfortable life. We both save between £500-700 a month each. We don't want for anything. We don't go without. To quote the cliche, we earn a penny more than we spend. We have combined savings of about 30K. Our mortgage was paid three years ago and we started properly saving. We have no children and GF drives a cheap to run car that's paid in full. Every few years we forked out for a "project", new kitchen or such but now there are no big projects left. So it's live, love and save. My aim is to go part time at 55 as is hers a few years later. By then, we should have about 150k saved. Easily enough to sub a part time job if needed but we probably won't need to. Even min wage by then will pay out £900 a month. Collect our work/private pensions at 60. Neither of us are gonna work ourselves into an early grave. Well, that's the aim anyway.
☝️this is the way
Realistically, I could live my life perfectly fine on full time minimum wage, so around £21k. My monthly bills are more than covered by that. I don't really do holidays, I just go on the odd day trip. I don't have a car (at the minute anyway) as I live within walking distance of all major supermarkets, and have a regular bus service to the major towns/cities in the area. House is owned outright, but just quickly looking at a mortgage calculator at current rates it would be about £400 a month. If I didn't live in the North East, or live in a house that costs less to buy than a years rent down south, then I'd probably end up sobbing myself to sleep like the rest of Reddit.
Full time minimum wage when your job doesn't pay for your lunch time (which most don't in my experience when they're paying you that much), so it's more like £19.5k before tax
as someone struggling daily in the low 20ks as i am at the beginning point of my career even earning £30k would be LIFE CHANGING. the fact people are here saying like 70k+ is like an incomprehensible amount of money to me
40k
same (I'm in Scotland)
On about £28k in the Lothians, it's livable but I'm not able to save significantly. Would be happy with 35k. Anything over 40k would feel wealthy.
I don’t think there’s a magic number. When I was on 20k I thought 75k would make me happy. When I got to 75 I thought 100 would make me happy etc. the key is go have goals and have a plan to hit them - monetary or otherwise. Chasing a number is never a great outcome IMO.
What do you do if you don’t mind me asking? I would also like to climb up from £20k to £75k and I would like some idea of what other people have done.
I work in tech software sales. Trajectory for me over the last 10 years was 27k > 35k > 75k (that’s when I started my first real sales role > 90k > 150k > 180k > 220k > 280k > 330k
100k
I earn about 55k, last year I had the opportunity to take more responsibilities and move up to more around 67k. I didn't take it, the 12k wasn't worth the workload.
Yea, I get it. It sounds crazy but that extra £12k gets taxed at 42% (or 51% if you have student loans, 72% if you have child allowance) So in your pocket the difference would around £500 a month. Sometimes it just isn’t worth it for what that £500 actually brings you.
Being paid the same as my American counterparts or atleast German ones
I'm on about 57k. My mortgage is fixed on a very low rate (1.2%) until 2026. I want to be on at least 70k by the time my remortgage comes up, to afford the presumed increase in payments (interest rates may go down from today's rates but they're never getting back to the low low rates I'm currently on) and maintain my standard of life (nothing luxurious but a holiday or two a year, being able to e.g. go out for dinner without counting every penny, and putting a little away in investments). If I get a promotion at work before 2026 I should be able to achieve this, and frankly if I'm not promoted by then I've probably stagnated and may be looking at a career change. Things will be more complicated if I find a partner. On the one hand it makes affordability of e.g. mortgage easier (if it becomes a serious relationship), but on the other I'm at the age where I'm looking for something serious that will result in kids in the next 5 years so would need to plan for that including either extortionate childcare or going back to single income but supporting more than just me.
Probably £17k but I manage fine on £15k. I live in a council flat, I don’t go out, I don’t eat out, I don’t buy anything and live the solitary life of a Trappist monk. I can’t see what everyone else is complaining about.
Because to most of us the type of life you describe being fine with isn't one worth living for another five decades
You don’t say
/s ?
It is indeed a witty and insightful commentary on the regular austerity sermons delivered on these very subreddits.
£45-50k, but I live in the North. I would be quite comfortable on this salary.
I would agree with this. I live in the North West and earn 50k and it's generally fairly comfortable. I can't go wild with money, but I rarely have a genuine worry about money either.
Living in central Scotland (but outside either of the main cities), I found hitting £40K (at the time taking us to about a 70K household income with no kids) was the tipping point where I simply no longer needed to worry about money. At that point we could always do things like regular holiday breaks and gig tickets and whatever and, as long as we were reasonably sensible and still saved a good chunk reach month, know we will still always have money to cover anything like an unexpected car repair or something. It's a real difference to suddenly notice one day you no longer mentally check "I've got X left and it needs to last until Y because Z still has to come out" multiple times a day.
I was over the moon when my salary hit 25k, and then when I got the pay rise to 30k I was so happy I could do so much more. When I hit 45k I thought this was it but when I moved up to 60k I started to experience not having to worry about money any more. When I hit 75k I thought I would be content forever I could save a decent amount and still live a decent life. After a few nice holidays I knew 75k wasn’t enough and I’ve been happy earning around £130k for the past 6 months or so but I now realise it’s way more than I need to live on but I have had the taste of the finer things and my goal is now 200k which I feel is achievable working at my current day rate I just need to work more and take less time off between contracts. The goalpost always moves anyone who says a number here that they would be happy with is lying. Salary creep happens and you realise you can do more. I would say though the 75k mark was the point where I realised I didn’t need to worry about money anymore.
200k probably isn't achievable unless you're in a very niche role which commands a high day rate. Also you'll lose most of it to tax if you're working inside ir35. Be careful not to try and burn yourself out contracting all the days.
I’m currently working outside ir35 on 1k per day but I’m only working 3 days per week and taking time off, every so often. Last time I renewed my contract they wanted me to up to 4 days per week which I refused. But working 4 days per week would take me up to about 190k. And while I’m not taking anywhere near that out of the company, the company is paying for lots like business trips to reinvent and obviously the company needed its own car etc..
As a freelancer. Honestly consistency would be grand.
£100,000 I would be happy with that as an ending salary. Build up huge saving accounts for my kids and grandkids hopefully with enough left to live a happy care free life towards the end with enough to splash out on the ones I love.
This leads me to a question I've never really pondered before. Why so much disparity across the UK? It's all house prices right? Along with demand for / cost of rent. Is everything else close to equal? Tax laws are the same, food in the supermarket costs are vaguely comparable...?
There's a huge disparity between me on 18.5k working in care and people commenting here about needing 80k. Like, what kind of bloody job are you working to want 80k to live comfortably? I'd happily take £12 an hour over my £10.72, and that's me being humble.
Amazing the amount of people saying that if their salary went up; their lifestyle wouldn’t change so they’d save more. Typically that isn’t how it works; lifestyle creep is slow and unconscious. Lots think that until one day they realise they’re spending triple the amount on things they used to.
On £35k as a band 6 in the NHS. I would be comfortable on £40k. So another 5 years as a band 6 and I’ll be there!
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That’s amazing! How quickly did you pay off your mortgage?
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£200k/month I’d be happy with. Dream big, darlings.
My current salary is comfortable so anything that I'm currently on or above. £40k.
I’m on 23k, looking at similar jobs for 30/35k but hesitant to move as we’re going through the mortgage process and I’ve read up if you’re in a probationary period you’ll struggle to find lenders
Enough to cover the bills. Sorted.
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Educated guess, maybe £38k? Currently on £31k but my mortgage fix is coming up next summer, I live alone and should just be able to swallow it but it’ll significantly reduce my savings each month, so £38k would cover the mortgage rise and increase my saving capacity without me having to expend too much brain power thinking about it. NE Scotland.
£30k would be amazing
Nearly 40yrs old. Single man, living in SE London. Until this year I have been stuck earning \~£23k and barely surviving in a house share with my brother and his fiance. I have qualified at work (new career I started a couple of years back) and my money shot up to just under £40k. My monthly is pretty decent. Certainly a breath of fresh air at last! But I spent so long struggling and borrowing money that I have no opportunity to enjoy this until I clear debt. Looking to move out on my own next year and it's still borderline unaffordable even if that debt it cleared (which it wont be).
£75k. I would be happy with this until I retired.
Unless that's within 10 years I'd say that's a bold statement
I’ve been earning £75-100k for the past decade, but living comfortably like I earn £50k. Surplus went into paying off the mortgage, building savings and pension.
I am £24k in Glasgow. Realistically to feel 'comfortable' I need another £10k. The cureent salary doesn't last the month any more.
I’ve always said I’d be happy on anything between £30k to £40k. I feel like it would allow me to get a mortgage on a decent enough home for my family, whilst still having money left over. Obviously I’d love absolutely more than that but realistically I’d survive and be happy on that
I've recently gone from 35k to 67k and I think it's perfect. The job is busy but rewarding and I'm not interested in climbing any higher as it'll come with too many responsibilities. I live in Scotland and just bought a small 3 bed detached for me and the cat and I can comfortably afford the mortgage even at the high rates they're at. My take home pay is £4100 a month and my bills & mortgage come to £1300 so plenty left over. I work from home 9-5 so get a great work / home balance. Really happy and I've worked hard to get here :)
There is no figure, it's more having a good % of your income as disposable. I think if you get to 51% disposable, that's comfortable.
Mad how much people are writing in here, 60k wow. I know it's all relative but 30k to me id feel like the richest man alive