What is a liveable salary for a single person with no dependents in London?

[quimcunx]

Uh huh...

The other day a colleague turned to me. He had just worked out that after school fees, mortgage payments and everything, he was left with 'only the minimum wage to spend'.

Oh yeah...

Heh, Once I've paid my mortgage and food, and bills and selfridges charge card and hairdresser and drug dealer and nail technician and masseusse and bar tabs and personal trainer and yacht mooring fees, and stabling for the horse and service charges on my flat on the algarve, and wine merchants I've barely got the minimum wage to spaff on cakes and coffees.

 

[Orang Utan]

I find free stuff all the time. Mind you, I'm almost old enough to be your mum so our ideas of fun, and how much of it can be managed in one calendar month may be wildly different. I can't remember how old you are....30s?

i'm 38. i'm not complaining about there not being enough free stuff to do though. i have plenty of things i like doing with my free time. i don't need much extra money to enjoy a full social life anyway. most of the things i do in my leisure time don't cost money. only clubbing costs £££ but i don't do it as much as i used to.

 

[Orang Utan]

You never eat any Chinese/Asian food?

not much. i cook curries a bit.

 

[Puddy_Tat]

Possibly stating the bleeding obvious and certainly posted on other threads before, but may be useful to someone who falls over this here thread

entitledto benefit calculator - may be worth a play with actual or possible incomes / rent combinations to work out entitlement to tax credits / housing / council tax benefit.

housing benefit is not an "all or nothing" benefit, and can be claimed if you're working and on a low income - a lot of people (including those talking bollocks about benefit cuts for "work shy scroungers") don't realise this.

although housing benefit will only cover rent up to the local housing allowance limit for that area (the areas don't necessarily neatly cover specific postcodes or local authority boundaries) - more here

 

[Miss Caphat]

yeh, i've known people who did that, got a couple of thousand flyers printed and distributed them and ended up with years of gardening work as a result

I only printed about 15 or 20. Word of mouth spread fast because I was working for a lot cheaper than the landscaping companies, and basically just did whatever the homeowners said they wanted and didn't make them feel like morons. I learned as I went, often from the people I worked for.
I'm in a similar situation now with teaching art classes for kids in my studio. Once I graduate (my major is not art teaching btw, just something I'm doing for extra cash and because I really love it) I should be able to have a full schedule of kids classes going, and no middle man to dictate what I get paid

 

[Minnie_the_Minx]

You never eat any Asian food?

He eats lots of curries

 

[Orang Utan]

He eats lots of curries

mostly chilis at the mo, to be honest. beans are cheap.

 

[Minnie_the_Minx]

mostly chilis at the mo, to be honest. beans are cheap.

Are you going hotter and hotter with the chilli peppers?

 

[xenon]

Prob not, but even if you're in a Band E house which might be 4 beds, it's £150 a month between 4 (so £37.50 each). And they do it over 10 payments if you do DD so you don't pay anything in Feb/March usually.

Are you sure? I know areas vary but CT surely isn't that cheap where you are? I'm paying IIRC circa 70 quid a month, single person discount, band A in Bristol.

e2a, been a long time since I had to pay CT in a house though. Maybe that's about right.

 

[Wolveryeti]

Uh huh...

"I see inappropriate self-righteousness when I pass those 'protesters' in their tents… Meanwhile people like my husband and I speed past them to work on our future, to make a contribution to society… We studied hard, now we work hard and we pay hard. Fifty percent tax and we don't mind. I do wonder how much those people would pay without grumbling if roles were reversed?

"You want me to estimate a starting teacher's salary? I don't know. Let me think, £45,000? Wow, it's really only £22,000? I had no idea. That really is too low, I could not live on that. Well, obviously this is something that has to change. I mean, these teachers have had to invest in their own education and are now educating the next generation, right? I am rather shocked by this, are you sure?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentis...-blog/2011/dec/30/bankers-wife-financial-work
Oh yeah...

That article is well LOL:

I do try to be sensitive. When asked where I got that coat or dress, I may say 'It's H&M, but last year's collection so I am afraid it's not in stores anymore'.

 

[Orang Utan]

Are you going hotter and hotter with the chilli peppers?

yes!

 

[Minnie_the_Minx]

yes!

Oh exciting. How hot have you gone and how's your bum handling them?

 

[Orang Utan]

i usually stick 8 chilis in one big chili stew
i'm not talking about my bum

 

[Detroit City]

250 quid a month, more if you want to eat

 

[Orang Utan]

250 quid a month, more if you want to eat

you don't know what you are talking about. please stick to what you know. i appreciate that this leaves you with only disgusting american takeaway food, but at least you're an expert on something.

 

[Minnie_the_Minx]

i usually stick 8 chilis in one big chili stew
i'm not talking about my bum

 

[Puddy_Tat]

i usually stick 8 chilis in one big chili stew
i'm not talking about my bum

i must not skim-read posts on U75

i must not skim-read posts on U75....

 

[Minnie_the_Minx]

i usually stick 8 chilis up my bum
i'm not talking about my stew

i must not skim-read posts on U75

i must not skim-read posts on U75....

It's late. It's understandable you could get things mixed up

 

[Ms T]

Are you sure? I know areas vary but CT surely isn't that cheap where you are? I'm paying IIRC circa 70 quid a month, single person discount, band A in Bristol.

e2a, been a long time since I had to pay CT in a house though. Maybe that's about right.

We live in a house and it's £150 a month. In London. Our CT is cheaper than my parents' in rural Lincolnshire.

 

[Ms T]

There's a bit more to it than stir fries!

Stir-frying is just a technique much used in South Asian cooking, innit. Here it tends to mean lots of stuff shoved in a wok but it's much more sophisticated than that. I eat quite a lot of Chinese/Vietnamese/Thai but never call it "stir fry".

 

[ymu]

We live in a house and it's £150 a month. In London. Our CT is cheaper than my parents' in rural Lincolnshire.

Richer areas tend to have lower council tax because they have more expensive housing. If you have to split a council's budget between mostly cheap housing (rural lincolnshire) it's going to be more expensive per housing unit than if it's split between mostly expensive housing (anywhere in London).

One of the many reasons why the Council Tax is shite.

 

[Crispy]

I don't get it?

 

[Ms T]

I'd budget at least £150 for bills btw.

 

[ymu]

I don't get it?

If you have to raise money from mostly Bands A-C housing, then you will have to charge more for Bands A-C than a council which needs to raise a comparable amount from mostly Bands C-E housing.

Lowest council tax in the country tends to be in the richest parts of Tory London. Not that I've checked for years, but I'm not aware that anything has changed. Could be wrong.

 

[Crispy]

Derp. Yes, I get it now

 

[Thora]

£80 - 100 a month for food seems low to me. I seem to spend a lot more than that and don't shop very extravagantly.

I spend £120 a month for 2 adults and a child!

 

[_angel_]

I spend £120 a month for 2 adults and a child!

That's ridiculously low! I remember spending about £15 a week when it was just me and a baby but that's nearly 15 years ago when food prices were low.

Wait till he's a teenager tho!

 

[Detroit City]

you don't know what you are talking about. please stick to what you know. i appreciate that this leaves you with only disgusting american takeaway food, but at least you're an expert on something.

apparently you cannot see a joke if it hit you in the face

 

[TruXta]

If you have to raise money from mostly Bands A-C housing, then you will have to charge more for Bands A-C than a council which needs to raise a comparable amount from mostly Bands C-E housing.

Lowest council tax in the country tends to be in the richest parts of Tory London. Not that I've checked for years, but I'm not aware that anything has changed. Could be wrong.

Westminster or Kensington/Chelsea I think?

 

[Puddy_Tat]

Westminster or Kensington/Chelsea I think?

Wandsworth say it's them. (here)

They claim it's due to tory efficiency and such.

There is a suggestion that Wandsworth and Westminster, as 'flagship' tory councils at the time had their central government grants artificially inflated so they could set very low poll tax rates (I have a feeling that at one time, Wandsworth got its poll tax level so low that it decided if it cut out the poll tax collecting department, it did not need to levy poll tax at all so it didn't.)

I recall the leader of one council in the north-east arguing that if they got the same level of central government grant, they could have given money to every resident along with a bunch of flowers once a year.