Is it possible to live on the national minimum wage?

Scroll to see replies

Reply 20

Darrell90

Trefusis1234445

what do you mean, from experience? - I assume you're still alive? And, as such, survived your time on minimum wage :p:

Yeah but I was living at home so I didn't actually need to pay for anything. On 5.95 an hour doing 55-65 hour weeks you're earning about £400 a week.

Take off 20% for tax and you have £320 a week to actually spend.

I would spend about £40 a week on shopping.
£5 a week each for gas/electricity/water/internet - £20.
£40 on insurance and petrol for a car (yes, it is essential).
Rent + council tax would come to about £100 a week probably (that's a guess, I've never paid council tax but you would have a 25% reduction so probably about £10-15 a week).
Mobile phone £5 a week minimum.

Total essential outgoings: £205
Amount left: £115

£115 a week left over sounds like a lot but that is literally just the essentials, you'd have other stuff to pay for as well. That's also assuming you can average 60 hours a week, every week of the year. On a more realistic 45 hours a week you only have £40 a week left.

Reply 21

Rusty360

I know people that have been on the minimum wage for 20+ years, they also get a lot of welfare payments.
Both parents work on minimum wage, have a decent house and 3+ kids.
But bearing in mind this is way up north :smile:

Reply 22

Tefhel

IGX_RSV2

Please post the nutritional values of some products. You're going to find that they tend to be the same.

Oh on the student thing; they eat what pasta everyday? Well pasta as a whole is just asking to put on weight. They also probably don't even bother exercising as much either so its just a recipe for disaster.

I'm not scouring the net and posting up nutritional values for you. Do it yourself. I have found that they are worse, because I look at the nutritional value of stuff I buy - I don't just avoid cheap food for the sake of it. If you look at things such as Sainsbury's Basics - they have a little pie on and all the segments are red, because they are full of crap. The branded things are (sometimes only marginally, I'll admit) better.

It's not even about brands though, it's the fact that cheap food is cheap because it's full of chemicals and 'filler' that makes nasty food taste better, MSG, saturated fats and sugar, they just shove them all in, and if you eat them for a long period of time you're going to get fat and feel ill. You and your friend really need to wise up on nutrition if you think cheap 'value' food is the same as other food.

Related discussions

Latest

Articles for you

What university is really like

What is an LLM and how could it benefit your career?

Powerful questions business students forget to ask their career advisers

Why I chose a law degree and what studying law was like

Is it possible to live on the national minimum wage?

Related discussions

Latest

Trending

Trending

Articles for you