Life Expenses in the UK

[Fatboxingfan]

it's 2020 now so imagine how much worse it IS NOW than the following study

The 2015 study found that a single adult would need £682.80 a month to cover essentials. This includes £79.28 on fuel bills, £197.98 on food and £125.60 on travel. This would also cover £88.09 for household goods and services such as detergent or getting an appliance fixed and £69.24 for personal goods and services, such as toiletries or a trip to the dentist.

Assuming rent was £394, that would leave £94.20 a month for everything else, including clothing, any socialising, leisure activities, birthday and Christmas presents, holidays, pension contributions and general savings.

Amy, 32, from Huddersfield, who did not wish to give her surname, knows just how difficult it is to keep to a strict budget. She has struggled on a minimum wage of £6.90 an hour as a retail assistant. She lives on her own in a council flat, which she couldn't afford without housing benefit. It would be far too expensive to run a car, she says, and so she relies on local buses. Most months she must decide between food and bills.

@Gandalf

[Gandalf]

If you need that to cover essentials, then what is the issue there? If you are on say 15,000 a year by today's minimum full time standards, then why would you be struggling so much? Granted it is not a great salary, but at the same time if you are grown up in terms of how you are living, that is not a struggle. I would like to know more about Amy as people who complain about money are in my experience sometimes pretty bad with money. Oh, weekend trip. Oh, nice restaurant. Oh, Thursday night 5 pints down the pub. Oh, must have those shoes next day on hangover shopping trip. Suddenly.....credit for the month. I am not Scrooge like, but balance and moderation is sometimes lacking in a consumer society.

[Fatboxingfan]

If you need that to cover essentials, then what is the issue there? If you are on say 15,000 a year by today's minimum full time standards, then why would you be struggling so much? Granted it is not a great salary, but at the same time if you are grown up in terms of how you are living, that is not a struggle. I would like to know more about Amy as people who complain about money are in my experience sometimes pretty bad with money. Oh, weekend trip. Oh, nice restaurant. Oh, Thursday night 5 pints down the pub. Oh, must have those shoes next day on hangover shopping trip. Suddenly.....credit for the month. I am not Scrooge like, but balance and moderation is sometimes lacking in a consumer society.

Oh you want to know more about Amy do you?

"I don't have home internet and I only have freeview TV and I have to be very careful with supermarket shops. I occasionally have to turn down socialising with friends, especially if it involves more expensive pubs or restaurants."

Amy spends £20 a month on a pay as you go phone, which she swapped to from a contract to save money. Her electricity bill is normally around £20 a month while gas can vary from £20 to £50 depending on how cold it gets.

"I normally don't have much left over for socialising - £50 a month if I'm lucky. I have generous friends who help me out with this," she says.

"At the moment I have a Netflix subscription [currently £5.99 a month, and typically watched on her phone using wi-fi at university or the pub, or using her mobile data package at home], but that's my only real indulgence. I can't remember the last time I had a holiday."

She thinks a wage increase to £8.20, "would probably get spent on gas and electric as I'm on prepay meters, or on food."

[Gandalf]

If you need that to cover essentials, then what is the issue there? If you are on say 15,000 a year by today's minimum full time standards, then why would you be struggling so much? Granted it is not a great salary, but at the same time if you are grown up in terms of how you are living, that is not a struggle. I would like to know more about Amy as people who complain about money are in my experience sometimes pretty bad with money. Oh, weekend trip. Oh, nice restaurant. Oh, Thursday night 5 pints down the pub. Oh, must have those shoes next day on hangover shopping trip. Suddenly.....credit for the month. I am not Scrooge like, but balance and moderation is sometimes lacking in a consumer society.

Oh you want to know more about Amy do you?

"I don't have home internet and I only have freeview TV and I have to be very careful with supermarket shops. I occasionally have to turn down socialising with friends, especially if it involves more expensive pubs or restaurants."

Amy spends £20 a month on a pay as you go phone, which she swapped to from a contract to save money. Her electricity bill is normally around £20 a month while gas can vary from £20 to £50 depending on how cold it gets.

"I normally don't have much left over for socialising - £50 a month if I'm lucky. I have generous friends who help me out with this," she says.

"At the moment I have a Netflix subscription [currently £5.99 a month, and typically watched on her phone using wi-fi at university or the pub, or using her mobile data package at home], but that's my only real indulgence. I can't remember the last time I had a holiday."

She thinks a wage increase to £8.20, "would probably get spent on gas and electric as I'm on prepay meters, or on food."

So on 6.90 she would have been on 1200 a month and 14,350 a year and the government was topping up her rent in a council house? Where was she living? Did she have a partner? Any children? There is more to that than meets the eye.

She was using wifi at a University? Was she a student too?

Let's do some math for a single person called Amy living in Huddersfield.

14,350 pounds a year (untaxed up to 12,500 pounds, so basically little income tax), meaning about 1200 a month.
Rent would be say 500 a month for a reasonable flat (yet she gets housing benefit).


So where is the money going?

Something going on with Amy there.

[Fatboxingfan]

Minimum income required for acceptable standard of living, excl rent (Joseph Rowntree Foundation study)
Item Cost per month for a single adult
Social/cultural participation £196
Food £187.98
Travel costs £115.61
Energy bills (electricity/gas/water) £96.50
Household goods and services £78.09
Council Tax £64
Personal goods and services £59.24
Clothing £31.42
Alcohol £21.15
Total £849.99
Families on the minimum wage must also contend with a raft of other costs from nappies to nursery fees, which are partially offset by child benefits and tax credits.

Tracey's latest money worry is how she will afford her son's new uniform. She lives in Blackpool and works part time in a shoe shop while her husband works full time at a factory. They are both on the current minimum wage of £6.70.

"I always have to think carefully about money. I can't just buy what I want in the shops and plan all our meals. If I want to take my son out for the day to the soft play or the cinema I have to plan it a few weeks in advance and save up."

The couple aren't eligible for housing benefits but they are just able to afford to rent their house because it is owned by another family member. If she had the money Tracey would love to get passports for the family and move to a place with a larger garden for her son to play in. The couple spend £100 a month on gas and electricity.

"Our son comes first and we go without. We had a birthday party for him, I was paying it off in £10 instalments for months. He is four now, but since he was born we have only been on one holiday to Cornwall and that was with my family's help."

The family got caught in a spiral of debt after Tracey went on maternity leave and they relied on payday loans. They are now putting aside money each month to pay it off through a scheme with the debt charity Step Change.

The National Living Wage of £7.20 is due to rise to £9 by 2020. However, it currently falls short of the UK Living Wage, an hourly rate based on the cost of living that businesses can choose to pay workers voluntarily. That is currently set at £8.25 outside of London and £9.40 inside London
@Gandalf

[Gandalf]

Social/cultural participation? Go to a coffee shop for coffee and a cake. It will set you back a fiver a week.

[Fatboxingfan]

Social/cultural participation? Go to a coffee shop for coffee and a cake. It will set you back a fiver a week.

dude if you work for a company they have Christmas parties and they have things like that and you have to go there they have baby showers and they have things like that and they have wedding receptions for co-workers and you are invited and you have to buy a wedding gift or something or a baby shower gift this is what is social participation. You're living with people and working with people you can't just sit inside like a hermit and not go to the office Christmas party for example or the grab bag or the potluck dinner