Sunday, September 16, 2012

Rich or Poor?

Interesting set of profiles in the Guardian. For a comparison, we make around £150,000 a year and have £230,000 in savings. Professor married to a researcher. Our monthly rent is £1300. I think we feel rich until we go to look at houses to buy :) The mortgage on the kind of property we are looking at would be £3,000 a month (we now got pre-approved to borrow up to $A780k). We don't live rich apart from living in exactly the location we want to live in and paying the rent that that means. We have an eight year old Ford car for example.

1 comment:

Financial Independence said...

At the moment it is different kind of fish in the UK - medical is almost free. Yes quality is deteriorating and it will not last long, but still.
The unpaid student - Obviously first example when semi-retired parents earn £50 K a year - it is their choice -enjoy themselves, not to support kid and have more time for themselves.

The second example £118 k a year - only rent + council tax is almost £2 K a month. Obviusoly is they would move somewhere simpler for a few years, they could easily save additional $6 k a year towards downpayment. The quicker they do it - the better. At least will be paying towards their mortgage, not rental.

The other thing that in the UK you do not need to convert salaries into dollars - the prices are exactly like in the US but in £. If you look at their family budgets more than 50% are rentals, council tax and bills (energy prices are outrages in europe) and this is after 30-50% income taxes.

It is a safe environment but people do count every penny.