What is a comfortable salary for a family of 4?

Also I do wonder if some people on this thread have a real grasp on the difference between gross and net salary and the real incidence of things like tax NI and student loans. I would also question understanding of the cost of living!

Me and my husband are 20 years old with a one year old daughter and we manage on 8k a year. We have sky TV, broadband, two contract mobile phones, laptop and computers and HD TV's etc. We eat well and our daughter does not go without clean clothing and toys to play with.

It is not a case of what budget you have, no matter what your income, getting by is do-able

One thing I notice on this and other threads is that people are nervous of admitting their true incomes, or else they are exaggerating the lifestyle they enjoy from their family income. However this may just be a case of parents not discussing their true incomes with their kids.

I also notice on similar threads like the Rich Parents one that some people who are middle or lower-middle class believe that others would think them more well-off than they actually are, whereas the reverse appears to be true of the genuinely "comfortable" or wealthy - they claim to be rather normal.

Me and my husband are 20 years old with a one year old daughter and we manage on 8k a year. We have sky TV, broadband, two contract mobile phones, laptop and computers and HD TV's etc. We eat well and our daughter does not go without clean clothing and toys to play with.

It is not a case of what budget you have, no matter what your income, getting by is do-able

That is good, but thread was not what salary is needed to get by. With respect I would also suggest yo don't get by on simply 8k and there are other perhaps non cash benefits that haven't been accounted for

Our daughter has everything she wants and in my eyes, is a little spoilt because she gets little treats such as toys and the like for no reason. But I have known nothing other than a poor/working class background my whole life so managing on 8k a year (that is my income - no more) has become second nature.

I was just trying to point out that not a lot of money is needed to be "comfortable" in my eyes. We are fit, healthy and enjoy life - that is comfortable to me

Our daughter has everything she wants and in my eyes, is a little spoilt because she gets little treats such as toys and the like for no reason. But I have known nothing other than a poor/working class background my whole life so managing on 8k a year (that is my income - no more) has become second nature.

I was just trying to point out that not a lot of money is needed to be "comfortable" in my eyes. We are fit, healthy and enjoy life - that is comfortable to me

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.

Just curious, how do you actually manage? I don't mean that in a snobby way. We aren't rich either, but we have a bigger household income than you and money is still tight (we don't waste money and stuff either) Thanks

I know families who scrape by on £100,000 a year

We manage perfectly fine, I don't really know what to say, my parents are very big on saving so I guess that's why, we've always got money put away for those unexpected things like when your car breaks down or anything else gets broken. Then this also means we can afford really nice things if we want them, which is quite rare, anyway I mean even at christmas and birthdays there's never anything I want because I'm happy with what I have and mum has to buy me random presents.

Thanks for the info Do your parents have a mortgage? I think my thwarted views are due to the house prices round here (Surrey-London is way more expensive) Most people I know live in a mahoosive house and the smaller decent ones are generally 200,000 up with a mortgage which would cripple us

Sure, the very large figures are associated with people's expectations based presumably on a very upper-middle class upbringing; there is a massive difference between upper-middle class comfort and lower-middle/working class "comfort".

It sounds like part of what has worked for your parents is that they were very careful to not take on debts. So many people have their lives ruined by the rapacious credit card companies and banks. These institutions exist to prey off working people.

I don't know if that's the only reason. I mean I am in a similar situation as him. Household income of £27k and live in a nice 4 bedroom house (£250k I may as well say).

We have a mortgage (as well as 2 other mortages on 2 other houses, but their rent is paying themselves while not making immediate profit so we'll discard the thought of those), and my parents use (now less than before) credit cards all the time. They always shuffle around overdraft between different cards so not to get screwed by banks - they know what they're doing - but they've been in debts as high as 15k at points (particularly when first buying each of the 2 other houses mentioned) but they spend effectively and my dad tutors part time for an extra 3k a year or so and right now we're in about 1k debt due to us just spending £4k on a holiday.

Not to sound spoiled but they literally buy us (me and my 2 brothers) anything we'd like - we however don't take advantage of this because it would be unfair - but we do get bought things regularly, an xbox game or 2 every month or whatever, gadgets, new phones with contracts every couple of years etc. Oh we also have 2 cars (actually 1, we had one which surprisingly just broke and will soon be replaced - it was only 3 years old) where one gets driven 80 miles per day and the other is driven a good 10 miles every day on average.

So we manage perfectly well and never feel too strong a struggle - I guess it's all about how you budget and how much effort you put in to getting a bit extra out of everything. I'm very grateful for the effort my parents do put in and they clearly care a lot - my dad insists when the 3 other houses get out of mortgage (he's planning to buy another) in 20 years or so one house will go to each child but we're all hoping he keeps it for himself as retirement money.

Back to OP:

It depends, if you want to be comfortable with absolutely no major financial struggles I'd say about £40k pa - or in london more like £55-60k. But you can survive perfectly well on lower incomes of £23-24k+.

you'll need around £250,000 per year in total

Do you mean your household income is £27K a year after tax? That's a huge difference from £25K before tax which a previous poster alluded to and which we were discussing. You sound like a fairly wealthy family with additional properties, etc - your parents have substantial savings as well?

Nope my dad's a secondary school teacher getting an unqualified teachers pay (he doesn't have a PGCE, his pay will increase by about 3-5k later this year when he gets it). My mum doesn't work (but is applying - not getting JSA but I don't know why that is). So £27k before tax/NI etc. My parents keep me quite in the know on finances because they think it's important that I understand what's going on. My mum had SOME savings from her parents - not a lot over the 20 years of being married to my dad and living on their own (like £15k or so). My family have gone through a lot of struggles since moving to England (especially over the first 8 years or so, been here 16 years now), my dad had a physics degree and a masters (both at 78% so a very high first) but nowhere would accept him even with a valid visa, so for the first 2 years here we lived in a £50k house (got us a lot further then than it would now obviously) and my dad worked in a pizza shop. But he put loads of effort in and has got us where we are now. We're certainly not a wealthy family - and I do feel sometimes where some of my friends get things and do things which I can't do (and this is at a standard state school) but overall I think we live a very good life.