Will Mr/Ms Average please step forward...

[Stonehead]

From the BBC...

The average person in the UK spends around £32,000 a year. This is made up of £25,000 on basic expenses (transport, food, clothing etc) and £7,000 on mortgage repayments.

The upshot is that the average person needs a gross salary of about £45,000 just to break even.

That is why, I reckon that the average person won't be happy unless they earn around £50,000 a year. However, it is may still be a hand-to-mouth existence.

Hand to mouth? On £50k a year? And spending £25k on "basic" expenses? Even breaking even at £45k sounds amazing.

And if Mr/Ms Average are a couple, then their income is doubled while they will save on some shared expenses. Of course, two average children will add a fair bit more to the expenses but even so I'd quite enjoy getting Mr/Ms Average's solo income as our entire household income.

So will Mr/Ms Average please step forward and confirm that it is indeed tough scraping a living on £50k a year?

[oldjerry]

Don't matter how much you earn , you still got to give the bbc £150 a year to come up with this crap!

[homegrown]

Even the rich are poor as long as they continue to buy into consumerism

[Silver Ether]

oooooooh thats a lot of money ... and still they manage to waste it ....

[Green Aura]

This is all ridiculous - it's not long ago I heard that the average salary was £24k - and that took bankers etc into account. So assuming the real average salary is lower than that either the general population will be bankrupt in the next few weeks or their figures are rubbish.

I wonder if, as is the BBC's wont, they're counting Inner London as the centre of the universe and not considering anywhere else!

[grahamhobbs]

Being a builder in London I meet a lot of wealthy people, they always plead poverty before the work starts - can't you do it any cheaper? - but once the work starts suddenly they have loads of money to waste things on. For example

1. We priced a job including a very basic steel bath, immediately we were on site this was changed to a teak (!) bath costing over £5000.

2. On a job now, the basic stairs we priced at £4k, and this guy really pleaded poverty and wanted to cut all our prices down, is suddenly changed to one costing £24k he is sourcing from another firm.

3. And the number of clients that strip out perfectly good kitchens and bathrooms, and think nothing of then spending £40 to £50k on just replacing the kitchen fittings.

[Millymollymandy]

I don't think it's so crazy.... we don't have a mortgage and no travelling expenses for work, but the cheapest year we ever managed was about €18,000 just for everyday expenses, living extremely frugally, no eating out and I didn't include any renovation/maintenance to the house in that figure, which adds quite a few thousand euros on every year. And that was with a meal budget of €2 max for dinner for 2 people. Life is expensive, period. If we lived in an appartment and didn't garden or have any animals/livestock we would be a lot better off though.

[oldjerry]

We havent made more than £13000 in a year in the last 10 years,and a lot less last year,but we still run an (old) motor and are far from starving,( 2 adults,3kids).

[Masco&Bongo]

We earn just over £50k a year combined (before tax), but have no savings or spare money a month (though we're not completely hand-to-mouth)

I'm presuming that in those figures, they are counting for potential debts other than mortgages (as "everyone" seems to have credit cards etc.)
I would estimate that, as a couple, we pay over £15,000 in debt repayments a year, not including our mortgage. If you include our mortgage with those figures, our total debt repayment comes to more than half our combined salaries over the year (and indeed every month)

I'd rather not be Mrs Average

[fran]

Some people are rich and some people have money - Coco Chanel. I know which I'd rather be

[Stonehead]

I would estimate that, as a couple, we pay over £15,000 in debt repayments a year, not including our mortgage.

Yikes. And it bothers me having to find £636 a year to repay a car loan.

The mortgage does take out a big chunk of money, but we're up to 45% equity now so it's worth screwing down all our spending to pay a little more off than we need to. We've been working on the basis that interest rates will inevitably rise, so the more equity we have at that point the less pain we'll feel. (Fingers crossed.)

[Masco&Bongo]

Yup... there are often sleepless nights, especially in the week before payday...

All due to us being silly with money when we were younger; we moved out of our parents and had help in buying a house, but we were both students and often ended up having to buy food/essentials on credit cards; or pay for a new washing machine/cooker on them etc. We have even bought a car on a credit card (not a new one). Then of course we got suckered in with the consolidation loans...

I guess it's just par for the course, everyone makes mistakes, don't they. The way I look at is that we've got a house that we love, both have decent well-paid, fairly secure jobs, and we've got each other. It could be worse...

[battybird]

quote]guess it's just par for the course, everyone makes mistakes, don't they. The way I look at is that we've got a house that we love, both have decent well-paid, fairly secure jobs, and we've got each other. It could be worse...[/quote]

I think that sums it up ..its not what you have its who you share it with...back to the "poverty" thread! We have just taken a cut from £17000 wages a year to half that plus £7000 rental income from a property we bought instead of a pension. But we are well off in that we have everything we need ( not everything we want!! ) and no mortgage. Health could be better but able to walk, talk and go places some days, and enough time and energy to laugh! We are certainly better off than a lot of people!!

[Milims]

What planet was that on????
And back in the real world............

[123sologne]

I think someone at the BBC wants a pay rise, so they came up with this....