Here comes the sun

When we get to welly in August we should have joint income of $100 000 so im guessing $76 000 after tax. We need to send £600 home each month
($1800) for the forseeble future. For a rental we are looking at a max of $400 per week and the car will be bought out right. Although commute of 20 mins each 5 days a week will add to fuel costs. We are a family of 3, please offer opinions on wether this wage will allow us to pay the rent and eat! Ive had a look at a couple of cost of living calculators but its not the same as getting advice from people out there.

Nerine

That's quite a chunk of money to be sending home each month. Do you intend renting permanently or are you thinking about buying a house eventually and taking on a mortgage?

$400 a month for rental, don't you mean 400 a week? that would be a total of $3,400 leaving you around $2900 a month for food, petrol, electricity, clothing, entertainment, holidays, medical and other insurances...etc. So you're not going to starve how affluent you'll feel really will depend on your spending habits.

However, just double check your tax calcs & make sure that figure of $76,000is correct.

Here comes the sun

Thanks i meant to put per week! The tax calculator i looked on individual income of $50 000 would be $38000 after tax, does this seem wrong? Is tax worked out differently for a couple or is it on individual basis?

We will rent for 2 years until we can sell our house in the uk, part of the £600 is the difference between rent and mortgage, the other part is for a loan. We only bought the house recently so need 2 years to gain some equity as only had a small deposit. Big mistake really as we then decided to emmigrate! plus tied in to a fixed rate so there would be a penalty if we sold before then.

Nerine

Lol!! wouldn't it be lovely if it were that much a month though . Yes, tax is worked out on an individual basis.

I may be wrong on this so please don't get your hopes up.....sure someone can set me right...but I think you may be able to claim back income tax on some of the mortgage if the income from rent is less than the interest payments you're making, there may be other expenses to you can claim for too.

Those UK fixed rates are a complete pain when it comes to cashing them in early, we lost a couple of thousand quid that way. (Fortunately it's different in NZ, our bank only charged a penalty if the base rate had fallen at the time you repaid the mortgage, all we paid when we left was a $250 fee because the rates had gone up in the interim)