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How much do you earn

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  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    g_angel007 wrote:
    Personally, living in London, I don't see how people do it on less than £25k (this is renting of course as there is no way you could buy on that figure unless you fell upon some council house sale thing). There would be too much scrimping and saving which I don't like doing.

    A 'comfortable' wage in London would be in excess of £50k (and even then you will struggle to buy anything).

    How on earth can someone earn 50K and 'struggle to buy anything'?

    I know quite a few people living in London that don't earn anywhere near that amount and still have a decent standard of living.

    It obviously depends on your priorities, if your idea of a decent life is dinner out three times a week and taxis everywhere you probably would need to earn loads.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Decent standard of living and are a property owner with a reasonable mortgage?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Decent standard of living and are a property owner with a reasonable mortgage?

    Since when does a decent standard of living equate to owning a property?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Because the 'buy anything' referred to property!

    You can have a decent standard of living without owning property, I'm well aware of that. But owning property brings a level of stability that renting doesn't have.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Because the 'buy anything' referred to property!

    You can have a decent standard of living without owning property, I'm well aware of that. But owning property brings a level of stability that renting doesn't have.

    doh yeah just realised that.

    Well yeah I'd like to buy a place but don't really want to be tied down, renting also offers some freedom.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I think it depends on where you live and what your expectations are as to whether you can afford to buy or not. we have a combined gross income of a little over £30,000 and we can afford to pay our mortgage payments quite comfortably. Our house is a nice house, too, we're not living in a hovel somewhere. If we weren't having to service student debt we would be very very secure financially.

    For London, I don't think its overstepping the mark too much to say that you do need to be earning at least £40,000-£50,000 to be able to afford to live comfortably, but the world doesn't stop at the M25 and that simply isn't the case in most other cities. The amount we paid for our house wouldn't buy a shoebox in London. London is a special case and London wages and prices are not indicative of everywhere else- as proven by my civil service mate who always spends her time exclaiming how everything is so cheap when she comes to visit.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    g_angel007 wrote:
    The last answers don't seem to have addressed the multi-faceted question...

    Never mind.

    I have been thinking about this lots and i totally agree with your figures but only for London and the South East me thinks - however it also depends your personal circumstances if your a single person living buy yourself or a childless couple then £50k is perfectly comfortable to live on but if your family with 2 children trying to live on that in London - your will be scraping it to be able to afford a 2 bedroomed flat in many parts of London let alone a house with a garden.

    However it also depends what people consider to be a decent standard of living - if you think that involves owning your own house, being able to afford to go on a couple holidays a year (maybe one long one and a long weekend), to shop in sainsburys, buy some clothes from OK shops - but not going shopping every week, to eat out once a week and to go out on the weekends

    Alternatively you could think that a decent standard of living is to have somewhere to live but you don't care weather you own it, to be able to feed yourself, buy the essential clothes you need each year and get the odd take away.

    ETA - OMG I actually agree with Kermit about something - how exciting.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    i think it's hard to define what rich is unless it's a ridiculously high amount where it's obvious that someone is rich! say to me someone earning over £50k would be 'rich' because my parents both earn around £25k and i see that as a fairly good wage (though still underpaid of course!) so to me, double that is a lot of money! but then it depends what you have to spend your money on (though it is of course your choice..) - i.e. how many children you have, where you live etc etc.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Because the 'buy anything' referred to property!


    :yes:
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I'm 25 and graduate this June, but have a job lined up thats 25K plus £3K sign on bonus. I should in a few years be on about £40k, depends what I decide I want my career path to follow though whether I'll get above that or not.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Kermit wrote:
    I should have stayed with Accenture :grump:

    Sorry Kermit, I don't understand... What's that got to do with my salary? :confused:
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    But owning property brings a level of stability that renting doesn't have.

    Depends on the contract.

    I have a house here until I die. That's pretty stable.

    There is a fixation in this country with owning your property that doesn't exist in many other countries in the world.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Im 24 and am earning £18,500 a year plus up to £4000 in enhancements which is guarenteed as I have to do a certain number of sleeps and weekends.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I studied at university to get 2 degrees - BSc in Genetics & Molecular Biology and BA in Psychology and acheived A grade averages in both. When I left uni, I couldnt find a job anywhere. I was unemployed for 4 months (well, actually i was nannying to get an income in cash but i was unemployed officially) and sent in so many applications for so many jobs it was just depressing.
    I took my first job because i needed a job and because it sounded enjoyable, certainly not for the money as I earnt NZ$24,000 (about £8,000). I was 22.

    When I came to the UK 3.5years ago, I was 25 and i started my first job here on £12,500 approx. I have worked really hard, built up my experience and got great references and swapped jobs 4 times since then, aiming for more experience and more money each time (I read somewhere that when people change jobs they get on average 10% more than the previous job). I'm now 28 and I earn £28,500 which I am happy with and very proud of how far I have come in a short time.

    Of course I would like to earn more, who wouldnt? (especially living in London), but i am realistic and I know this is around the limit I will earn in my role (I am a Family Support Worker) and money is not the most important thing, it goes hand in hand with enjoying my job.
    So, now I'm studying to get the skills to move up a rung of the ladder to supervisor. The course costs around £1000 but it might just (i hope) get my foot in the door, and supervisor jobs are around £33,000, depending on how many people you supervise.

    my advice to people is not to have too high expectations when you leave uni, as you might really be dissapointed. and work hard, take any training or extra experience you can get, and always keep your eyes open for new opportunities, even while you are still settled in your current job, you never now what might come up.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    About £9k p/a courtesy of the Student Loans Company :D

    However, if I get any one of the accountancy jobs I've applied for, around £22k will be my starting salary going up by about £3-5k a year for 3 years then hopefully up to £40-50k when I qualify in 2010.

    Fingers crossed for my final interview with PwC which should pay the best out of all of them.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Sorry Kermit, I don't understand... What's that got to do with my salary? :confused:

    I used to work for them, and they pay more.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    About £9k p/a courtesy of the Student Loans Company :D

    However, if I get any one of the accountancy jobs I've applied for, around £22k will be my starting salary going up by about £3-5k a year for 3 years then hopefully up to £40-50k when I qualify in 2010.

    Fingers crossed for my final interview with PwC which should pay the best out of all of them.

    Not being at all optimistic then?!
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I was on 20k a year for my placement this summer (I did 3 months, but had to pay superannuation too butI should be able to get that back) and they paid all my costs apart from food while I was out there. I'm 22.

    Hoping I get a job with them, my starting wage will be around 24k plus resettlement costs- flights, a place to stay while I find a house, car hire and stuff.

    As for where it'll get to, it depends on the state of the minerals industry. Its boom/bust but hopefully should stay boom for a while. I have no idea! I know that house prices in Oz have gone crazy, they were talking about "whole life mortgages" with terms of >50 years while I was over there. Crazy! I'd quite like to afford my own house pretty soon after getting a job. FIngers crossed!
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Not being at all optimistic then?!

    Well those are the correct figures. Whether I actually get the job or not is of course not certain yet. Will keep you posted :thumb:
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Well those are the correct figures. Whether I actually get the job or not is of course not certain yet. Will keep you posted :thumb:


    Good luck!

    My brother's girlfriend started with PWC a couple of months back... All the 2 and 3 year positions were taken, and so she has to squeeze the whole studying/training thing into a single year. It's tough work but it's going well so far and I hope things work out great!

    Her money started on £25.5k, but I don't know the progression involved, with regards to the remuneration package.

    G.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    £740 a month or just over 10k a year with little prospect of "moving up the ladder" which really isn't alot of money when you have pay rent, gas, electric, water rates, council tax....etc...etc.
    I have mates who scrounge almost as much as I earn off the dole in housing benifits and JSA, the difference between my wages and their dole is negligible when you account for my extra expenses in the form of travel costs to get to and from work.
    Maybe I should get on the dole too.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    my first wage was £2 hour back in 1990, i saved £2000 stumbled across a book in the library about stocks and shares which said if someone had bought £2500 of polly peck shares 3 years later they would have made a million quid. So started trading shares and never looked back. Quit work at 28 to trade full time, set up a website with some fellow traders and love my full time trading. Strange how things turn out, anyone can do what i've done, it's not easy but nor has it been too hard.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    kitster wrote: »
    my first wage was £2 hour back in 1990, i saved £2000 stumbled across a book in the library about stocks and shares which said if someone had bought £2500 of polly peck shares 3 years later they would have made a million quid. So started trading shares and never looked back. Quit work at 28 to trade full time, set up a website with some fellow traders and love my full time trading. Strange how things turn out, anyone can do what i've done, it's not easy but nor has it been too hard.

    Nicely done! :)

    I should look into something like that as I was in talks with Charles Stanley stock brokers to get on board as a 'trainee' a couple of years back. I know Jeremy Batstone who is one of the directors. Actually not caught up with him since he got engaged (and now married) to one of my friends.

    Turned out the timing was terrible - they were just starting a major re-structuring program (which is how I was going to get on board) but it didn't work out quite as J anticipated.

    Life takes some funny turns, as you say!
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Jeremy Batstone is a decent fellow, why not get into it then? Little barrier to entry if you want to start trading, have a look around the website.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    You have PM mate.

    Yeah, I think it's time I started making use of some of the contacts I have...
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    PM'd you back, good luck and happy to help you.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    If all goes well I'll start with a salary of 34k in 18 months or so. It's said to accelerate quite quick in the first 2-3 years.

    Currently I'm earning pennies in a shitty part-time job. But I've been going to uni and now I'm changing again.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I earn just under £16.5k as a Human Resources Administrator. I'm 22 (23 in Feb).

    Strike that... Just got a pay rise to £17,557, backdated to Jan 1st, guaranteed to rise to just over £18k in July 07 - well chuffed :D
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    about £3,000 for my weekend job a year, £4000 grant and loan from SAAS

    The job I want should hopefully start at 21k rising a couple of thousand each year.

    Plus about 12 weeks holiday a year :D
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I earn £23k a year at the mo but I could earn anywhere up to 50k when i'm qualified in a few years time
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