Comfortable Salary

Ladies and gents,

I am planning a move to Birmingham and was wondering what kind of salary I should be looking for to be able to do the following:

 - rent a decent furnished 1-bedroom apartment
 - lease a car (nothing fancy, more like a Golf or a Jetta)
 - cell phone
 - internet at home
 - be able to go out to eat a couple of times a week
 - go out for drinks once a week
 - set some money aside for a rainy day

Of course, there are assumed expenses in the above items (apartment - utilities, etc), car (insurance, gas, etc.).

Thanks so much for your responses in advance!

Hi Lexington,
Whilst I and many others, do understand where you're coming from in terms of asking what a 'comfortable' salary is, that, and the examples below are too vague.

for instance, do you want the decent 1 bed apartment in an upscale part of town? a mid range area ? or perhaps in the budget end? - what engine size would you want in the car? Golfs/Jetta's range from 1.4 litre to 3.2..  What kind of level of mobile phone and internet package do you want? ultra budget? mid range or high end?  and so forth with all else.

To help, take a look at job postings for your area of work expertise and any listings in and around the Birmingham area. From there, you'll be able to ascertain salary levels and thus take the first steps into evaluating your potential move. You'll then need to compare those realistic salary levels, to your lifestyle choices to see if it meets your current standard of living, if not, you then need to evaluate where you can make changes to compensate.

also, please take a swift look thorugh various similar postings here on the UKY site to help you have another avenue of reference.

Hoep this helps

Cheers, DtM! West London & Slough UK!

DtM - thanks for your post. I guess I agree that my original post requires clarification, since ranges of budget to high end options can be quite large. And I did look through this part of the forum for similar posts before posting, but did not come across any posts about Birmingham.

I did look at websites to check prices for rent, cell phone plans, car leases, etc, but I am sure I will not be capturing all expenses.

So here is my original post clarified:

 - rent a decent furnished 1-bedroom apartment, midrange
 - basic utlities
 - lease a car (GBP 250-300 range)
 - car expenses (insurance, gas, etc.)
 - cell phone (I saw that 800 minutes/unlimited texts plan is about GBP 25)
 - internet at home (midrange)
 - be able to go out to eat a couple of times a week (dinner comparable to what I could get in the US for $20-$25)
 - go out for drinks once a week (2-3 drinks at a trendy but not overly exclusive bar/club)
 - set some money aside for a rainy day

I am not looking for someone to go on and do the research for me, but if someone has comparable expenses, or at least has an idea right off the top of their head how much money I would need to support that kind of lifestyle, please share. It would help me out in a BIG way.

You may not be able to get a mobile phone contract until you've been here a wee while (experiences vary from getting one straightaway with a big deposit on the phone to not getting one for a couple of years), but there are lots of good pay as you go deals that have inclusive texts as well. You just would probably have to pay for the phone itself.

For a single person I would guess that £20-25K would probably set you up nicely. £30K would definitely cover it with bells on I think.

Thanks Dr. Super. And in terms of salary, we are talking before tax or take-home?

Before tax.

Assuming that Birmingham is similar to Bournemouth (and I'd guess Bournemouth is more expensive since it's on the coast and very touristy) then 20,000-25,000 definitely should cover it. 

As SuperL said, the mobile phone might cause you headaches, but if you buy a phone then get a pay-as-you-go SIM, you might find that you spend less than £20/month on it.  That's the absolute max I ever put on mine, and I use it for internet every day. 

Hiya,

I'm going to extrapolate a bit!

1 bed flat, just outside of city centre, midrange approx £575-600 pcm. perhaps £70-90 pcm Council tax (estimate) and perhaps around £80-100 pcm for Electric, Water & possibly gas utilities, again rough estimates. Food (big estimate!) £80-100 per month. So around £850-900 p/month for living.

Car - lets say you do spend around the £250 for a lease. That should include all servicing, and depending on the deal, insurance, breakdown cover. It'll exclude fuel. Another big estimate here - £100 per month on fuel? - so £350 per month car travel.

Financial aspects - Savings, I think I read somewhere the average amount put away in the UK by it's population is something like £50 per month, the figures are skewed, in that there's a vast amount of people who save absolutley squatt diddly and another demographic that puts away substantially more. Single person, I'd say try to put in £75-100 into an ISA or High interest savings account. Perhaps a similar level into a Pension pot? - Think about things like house and contents insurance, perhaps also things like salary protection schemes in case of job loss etc. £175-200 per month in this area.

Phones, Internet, TV license - PAYG £20/month if you dont immediatley get a contract, 3 PAYG USB mobile dongle Internet £15/month again assuming you dont immediatley get a contract, and if you do, that's a good amount to get potentially a upto 8MB internet package the £25 one you mention is what I'll go on here. TV license is I think £155 per year? not sure so about £12-13 per month. total of around £60 per month.

Eating out a few times a week - nice decent restaurant £10-15 each visit for yourself - £120 per month @ £10 per meal/visit.

Drinks - 2/3 drinks at a trendy, cool type place - cocktail or spirits type trendy £4-6 each drink - approx £20 each evening out - £80 per month

So far around £1660-1700 per month in expenses overall from just the above. That'll equate to a salary of £1700 take home pay which before tax would be £27K.

I'd also put forward many of the lifestyle options you've not included - clothes, entertainment (CD's, DVD's Cinema etc), holidays, visiting other areas of the UK, etc - so perhaps another £2-3K required overall for those aspects. I understand however you 'could' spend on those out of the savings example above!

Does circa £30K tie in with reaslistic earning levels in the type of job/career you can aim for with your experience?! also, perhaps my initial extrapolations are a bit off, but they're a starting point! by the way, Average salaries in the UK are around the £23K mark, so you'd be needing to be earning substantially more than that level.

Hope this helps a bit !

Cheers, DtM! West London & Slough UK!

perhaps £70-90 pcm Council tax (estimate)

Really? Jeez, Dennis - I'm clearly living in all the wrong areas! We pay around 130 and thought that was a veritable bargain after Gerrards Cross costs!!!

and perhaps around £80-100 pcm for Electric, Water & possibly gas utilities, again rough estimates. Food (big estimate!) £80-100 per month. So around £850-900 p/month for living.

Sorry to second guess ya, D, but I'd up those too, actually. Our electricity direct debit is something like 50 or more (DH pays that one) and while we're on propane which is quite expensive, we pay around 85 or more a month. Water isn't metered still out here, so that's still cheap-ish. I spend around 250 - 300 on food a month for two of us, so if you're eating out a lot I suppose the grocery estimate is pretty close though. 

Thanks Denis and AnneR,

We have mentioned many times on here that it is difficult to give cost of living but this is at least a starter.

Every one has different needs and in my case I can live in the middle of nowhere and save money on the rent. I would like to have access to public transportation though. I'm a little old fashioned. Probably waiting at the bus stop on a rainy and cold night will put an end to that really fast.

Hi Anne!

Long time no see!

I'm very loosely basing the figures from Lexington's first post - and from that, I read it as a Single person. Council tax for a single person also attracts a 25% discount, plus just approximatley, food for a single person is half of your figures as you are including yer better half!

Master Jay - yep, saving on rent costs by living out in the sticks means you'll pay heftily for transportation costs!  and yes! please try out standing in the cold wet miserable grey a few times, then climb into a nice warm, comfy air conditioned car



Cheers, DtM! West London & Slough UK!

Everyone, huge thanks for sharing your experiences. And DtM, I really appreciate your detailed answer, I found it incredibly helpful. I actually already have an offer in the 30's. It just seemed very low and looked like I would need to count every penny and struggle. But from what I see from the posts, I shoud be ok.

Huge thanks to everyone for their input!

The average family income in the UK is £32k, just FYI. As it had already been mentioned, what's comfortable and manageable for one person may be completely different from another. I'm in Glasgow, living within the city limits, for under £20k (before tax) with a spouse....and we're not counting every single penny (perhaps every third or fourth, though...). I would think that £30k a year would allow a comfortable lifestyle for a single person pretty much everywhere but greater London, some areas more lavish than others.

So, essentially, GBP 34K before tax, should be ok?

So, essentially, GBP 34K before tax, should be ok?

Yeah, definitely - my mum basically supports a family of 5 on about that amount, so if it's just you, that'll be more than enough . For the last year, I supported myself on just £13,000 before tax (about £11,000 after tax) - out of that amount, I was paying rent (one third of the total rent for a 3-bed flat), bills (one third of total bills), petrol, car insurance, food and all other expenses (including buying new furniture, holiday to Serbia, holiday to France etc.).