What is a comfortable salary for a family of 4?

This would be for a house etc in a suburban area, what would the total household income be for life to be comfortable?

This would be for a house etc in a suburban area, what would the total household income be for life to be comfortable?

you'll need around £250,000 per year in total for a big house, 2 cars 4kids and holidays definately. Kids are expensive , I know families who scrape by on £100,000 a year but then I guess personal debt is a major factor aswell

My household income is around 26k a year and we live comfortably as a family of 5 (2 parents, 3 kids - USED to be 4 kids), in a 4 bedroom house running two cars and have luxuries like Sky tv, decent food, technology in a suburban Greater London area and then leftover wages get put into savings, which further helps us keep comfortable.

So as long as you can effectively save after you pay all your bills you can get by relatively well (if your saving enough that is) you don't need to earn 50k or more a year to start feeling 'comfortable' despite what people say.

Great place to ask... a student forum... where most answers you get will be based on what the posters think their parents earn. Their impression of what their parents earn may be right or it may be totally wrong, having been based on a snippet of information which was actually quite misleading.

Quite apart from that, "living comfortably" means wildly different things to different people, particularly when they haven't experienced anything else and regard it as normal. So the last three answers, 26k, 60k and 250k are in fact all reasonable bearing in mind that both rich and poor people bring up families

As an example of how little sense you're going to get, there is already confusion as to whether a family of 4 means 2 kids or 4 kids

I don't know how your family can possibly run two cars and save on so little money. Not being funny, but do you get enough to eat? Do you eat from Iceland and Aldi? Fuel costs are so high now. Do the cars get driven?

I suspect either you are wrong about the 26K or is that after-tax plus your family get working tax credits and your mortgage is very low or paid off?

I'm not wrong since I went over my mother's earnings when we went through student finance. We've got 8 years left on the mortgage so is mainly paid off but even years ago when it was more my family income has never been higher than £31,000 before tax (Mum's got a new, lower paying job due to being made redundant in the recession.)

We shop in Tesco's and yes we get plenty to eat. One is a car, the other is a diesel van which is my dad's and yes they both get driven. My Dad does house clearances but earns too little for it to be taxed, he might get 2-3 hours a week if he is lucky but otherwise nothing as people are trying to save and he isn't getting the jobs in.

We haven't also just started saving. My parents have built up their savings from incomes around this size for years (they've never really worked at the same time due to one always being off to look after the kids) but mum told me they've got 12k+ in savings accounts from putting aside wages.

Do you get working tax credits?

Sounds hard to do what you do - I guess you must live carefully and have an affordable mortgage. Most people in your situation struggle with debts.

Rubbish. You can buy a decently sized house for that amount, let alone per year. I come from a family of 5 (6 before my sister moved out) and we get by on 1/10th of what you've stated with two cars and a 4 bedroom house.

I think my mum gets working tax credits.

But yeah my parents are huge 'savers.' They only buy those luxuries knowing we can afford them, my mum has never owned a credit card and my dad only uses his for emergencies and only because he knows he can pay it off without gaining the interest. They've never been in debt, before my mum met my dad she worked 2 jobs as a single mother to two kids and went hungry to avoid debt. They make sure they live in their means which means we live quite well.

I understand what you mean though, my sister earns about £500 less than my mum does each month, is living alone and yet has debts of 5-6k. She's considered the 'black sheep' of the family for her poor money management. But that was my orginal point, unless you earn pennies you can save and budget carefully enough on an income such as my own. But growing up I never wanted for anything and that was only on under £30k a year.

Coming out with figures like £250,000 or even £60,000 is a little silly, of course you can live extremely well on them and afford the greatest luxuries, but I was going for telling the OP a more realistic figure for 'comfortable' living.

A decent size house in the greater london area? Don't think so. A family of 4 or 5 would require a 4 bedroom house probably. Where I live that would set you back at least £500,000.

Md.