bez27

my husband has been offered a job is 22000pa a good salary to support a family of three?

robin1234

Living where in the UK? Are you going to be renting, or do you already own a house? Is he going to have to commute a distance to work, or will he be walking or taking a short bus ride?

There are a lot of variables- rent could be as little at £400 per month or £1,500 or higher, depending on which part of the country.

According to Wikipedia, the median income for an individual in the UK in 2007-8 was £18,500. (HMRC is the source for this data.)

bez27

hi thanks for your reply, the job that is been offered is in kent and we will try to stay as close as we can to his work, so short bus ride, we will be renting.
would that still be a salary a family of three be able to live on?

fashionista

Kent is still quite a big area and there will be quite a lot of fluctuation in costs depending on how close to London you are. Your biggest expense will be property so it's probably worth having a look at how much you will be expecting to pay out in rent each month. Try http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-to-rent/Kent.html to get an idea of rental costs.

Once you've done that you'll also be able to figure out how much your council tax will be. You might also find this a useful link: http://www.thesalarycalculator.co.uk/ so that you can work out exactly how much you'll have each month after tax etc.

bez27

thanks for your help

dunroving

Sounds on the low side to me.

izzi81

I would agree that sounds low. It depends very much on what style of life you are looking to live - do you like gadgets and lots of tv channels and holidays, or are you happy with less? However, even being happy with less, I would not say that £22000 is a 'good' salary for a family of 3. My partner and I live on roughly £30000, living in Glasgow, no kids, rent £535/mth ctax £120/mth, 1 cheap wee 2nd hand car, neither of us are big shoppers....

LisaP

But remember to add in child benefit and tax credits.

Mummy in the foothills

If you have no mortgage that amount would work fine.
Plus don't forget to run the numbers here. http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/MoneyTax...port/index.htm

izzi81

this seems a pretty straightforward website for working out if you'd be eligible for tax credits:
http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/taxcredits/st...stionnaire.htm

osnaith

It does sound a little low for the south of england however it does depend mainly on the cost of rent.

For example in the north east of england it would be "ok" as rents are around 450 - 500 pounds for a decent 2 bed house or flat but in Kent i would imagine that to increase to around 600 or more?

I hope to move to the north east (Darlington) next year and expect to make around the same to start off with and it should be ok to get on with as child benefit is around 1050 pounds a year and i hope to get around 1400 pounds in tax benefits. Not much in the way of extras but do able.

According to my dad, figure should be more or less (monthly)

Council tax 110
water 20
electric and gas 70-90 depending on condition of the house
bus tickets for 2 adults 100 ie monthly local tickets
rent 480
house insurance 30
food 300-350
tel and internet 30
tv licence 10

Good luck

linz3112

HI
You may struggle, again it depends on where you live, rent or buy, etc.
We are a family of 3 and my OH earns £21500 per annum. I work part time as we would struggle to live on just hubby's wages. We live in Lincolnshire.

Our monthly bills total approx £950 (we do have about £50 of that going on a loan though), this includes Mortgage, Council Tax, Elec/Gas, water, House insurance, Car insurance, 2 mobile phone contracts @ £25 a month each, TV/Phone/Internet bundle, TV License, Life Insurance, then as above £50 on Loan.

After tax and NI my OH comes out with approx £1400 so we would have approx £450 a month left for shopping and petrol and "treats" if we just had his wage.

When you think that we can spend up to £70 a week on shopping and £20 a week on petrol that doesn't leave a lot!

Please also bear in mind though, that we shop in Asda and although we don't buy branded all the time, we also don't buy smartprice! We also don't have to pay childcare costs etc (not sure how old your child is) and from what i can gather Kent is more expensive than Lincs.

HTH

Tr1boy

Well I'm in Surrey so not sure how that relates cost wise to Kent but £22k sounds very very low to me. Perhaps the best way would be to see how that converts to where you were living before and how you would have survived on that?

robin1234

Lowish, but it is more money than half the households in the UK live on. (Taking taxation & a reasonable expectation of benefits into account..)

Wikipedia, Income in the United Kingdom

Office for National Statistics, Household Income

Tr1boy

Bloody hell, I'd starve.