Tuesday, Jul 06, 2010
What about a really expensive shoe box?
BBC: Living 'costs at least £14,400' for a single person
There seems to be no mention of mortgage in this arseicle. We must remind ourselves that a £150,000 mortgage for 25 years @ 6% costs almost £1000 a month. This really ought to be in there somewhere in the article because that is the size of a mortgage on the "average" house - assuming a 10% deposit!
You would need a salary of £16,000 to pay for this mortgage alone! Add in council tax and basic bills and its about £20,000. Remembering nobody has eaten a thing yet this should be a little worrying!
Posted by brickormortis @ 08:33 AM (1670 views) Add Comment
11 Comments
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1. tudorian said...
@ bricko'
"a £150,000 mortgage for 25 years @ 6% costs almost £1000 a month .......... a salary of £16,000 to pay for this mortgage alone! Add in council tax and basic bills and its about £20,000"
This alone is evidence that housing in this this country cost double its sustainable value (imho). As stated on this site many times, the whole damned pyramid would have collapsed by now wher it not for government intervention.
When I tell Mrs T that we cant afford to buy the place we want / need, it these kind of figures that are rolled out.
2. drewster said...
Full report available at Joseph Rowntree Foundation [PDF]
Life's not much fun if you earn very little. I would dispute some of the JRF's estimates though. For example they budget food costs for a single person at £44.34 per week. I'm sure I could live on less than that. (Granted I would need more food if I had a particularly active job).
Also clothing at £7.73/week doesn't sound like much, but I suspect the JRF researchers haven't been to Primark recently. You could buy a new outfit there every fortnight for about £15.
Travel costs estimated at £19.72/week - in my neck of the woods a bus pass costs £65/month, don't know where they find the rest.
Basically, despite what the JRF say, lots of people somehow manage to live on low incomes.
3. need-a-crash said...
@2. I also dispute JRF's whole idea of relative poverty in the UK based on 60% of average earnings, is incredibly insulting to less developed countries and simply panders to our consumerist society that thinks you're poor if you can't keep up with the Joneses.
These charities have a VI in saying the poor need more help otherwise they'd be out of a job.
@1. Presumably the average houses is capable of housing more than 1 person though, so mortgage & bills etc are shared?
4. mark said...
i would love to see a breakdown of our labour force.
EG 30% work in supermarkets, 90% work in councils etc, if we could get hold of these figures then you can see what the real people can really afford, I am pretty sure people on the ground floor do not earn much more than 13k i bet a good 60% to 70% of the country falls into this..
everyone I speak to either works in government or supermarkets, when i say government i mean anything from councils to NHS..
5. need-a-crash said...
@4. Quite possibly, but while supermarkets probably do pay quite low pay, councils actually pay quite high thanks to our friend Gordon Brown. Plenty of bureaucrats on £30k - £50k.
6. mark said...
i am curious has anyone ever seen a litter collector over the past years? they seem to have vanished from our area
7. Muzzman said...
1 week holiday is something you save for not a human right. If Ryan Air rasise fares are people entitled to more tax credits to counterballance this?
I guess Sky tv is a human right along with a brand new Iphone.
All of these studies show an envy based aproach to what is acceptable.
People in the UK see the more successfull or the less frivolous enjoying things they cannot; they think everything that every luxury becoming a basic human right. The JRF are confusing want with need. We are not talking about shanty town levels of poverty in the UK.
Ireland is the Emerald Isle the UK is the Entitled Isle.
8. Goldbug9999 said...
"Basically, despite what the JRF say, lots of people somehow manage to live on low incomes."
Most are probably doing so by faking it in various way: getting credit, simply not paying rent (a viable option if your a council tenant with no assets that they can seize), getting tax credits or other benefits (often fraudulently).
9. Goldbug9999 said...
We need a crippling recession to break the spine of our high living cost economy. It needs to be forced to find vastly cheaper ways to deliver housing, food, energy, transport etc.
recap - everyday siberia :-)
10. tenyearstogetmymoneyback said...
tudorian
You have missed the obvious which is from about 1997 to 2007 houses cost nothing. They were a actually a cash cow that could be milked every year by Mewing. In fact if you could get two or more people didn't need to go to work (and that is probably before letting the surplus ones out).
Of course things might be different for the next few years. I can remember calculating in about 1995 that (including depreciation) my
£65000 house on Scumsville Dump had cost me £1200 a month.
11. nickb said...
@need a crash
Relative poverty isn't a simple issue IMHO, though you are no doubt right that 3rd wold poverty is far worse. e.g. in many parts of the UK it's difficult to get by without a car, because everything is designed for car users, whereas if you have a car in many parts of the 3rd world you are thereby rich.
Your VI argument is rather crude - it licenses ignoring any body that is specialised on researching anything! why were JRF set up in the first place and why do people choose to work for them?
@tenyears
But what if you got your mortgate in 2007, 8, 9 or 10?
Nick