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A reasonable level of income?

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nioka

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I'm interested in the level of income deemed necessary for a reasonable standard of living for a couple. An article today suggests $50,000. Another suggests $26,851 as an income for a basic standard of living for a couple in retirement. The aged pension is around $24,000 for a couple. I doubt if I would be at all happy to try and live on the aged pension and suggest it would be a battle. I need around $40,000 to maintain the living standard that we have, any less and some things like medical benefits would go. We live on a fairly low cost basis with solar hot water, a bountiful garden, plenty of fish and crabs and no need to travel as we live a resort style life at home. Extra income is used to maintain a modern car and a boat.

What income level is suggested as necessary by others?
 
Re: A reasonable level of income.

I'd say that as long as you own your own home, then $40k would provide a decent standard and $50k would ensure enough spare cash for lot's of holidays and other lifestyle extras (for a couple).

Cheers,

Beej
 
Re: A reasonable level of income.

Great thread topic Nioka.

Given that you should own your own residence and car by that age, a lot of the costs associated with having debt ought to be a non issue. And daily commuting costs like public transport or milage on the car should be considerably lower

I think that 40-50k is reasonable for a comfortable standard of living.
 
Re: A reasonable level of income.

Well my initial target is several hundred Gs
 
Re: A reasonable level of income.

My old man always said (and i think its true also), that 100k between 2 people is more than enough.
 
Re: A reasonable level of income.

prawn_86 said:
My old man always said (and i think its true also), that 100k between 2 people is more than enough.
Click to expand...

100k p.a over a working life of 40 years
purchase a say.... 400k house in melbourne? total loan cost probably around double that over 20 years

leaves 3.2m over 40 years....

doable if you keep to domestic holidays.
 
Re: A reasonable level of income.

as long as the salary went up with inflation itd be sweet, speaking of which after watching a video in another thread who knows what the REAL inflation figure is anyways...
 
Re: A reasonable level of income.


I'm still in my 20's so wouldn't have a clue what the more experienced folk call a good standard of living, but at a guess, 50K sounds like it would be enough if the couple have no debt and don't require an overseas holiday every 3 months
 
Re: A reasonable level of income.

Largesse said:
100k p.a over a working life of 40 years
purchase a say.... 400k house in melbourne? total loan cost probably around double that over 20 years

leaves 3.2m over 40 years....

doable if you keep to domestic holidays.
Click to expand...

Yeh my old man has the benefit of a lot of tax write offs due to being a primary producer.

Also, i wont be buying a house until yields on rentals are greater than the interest re-payments, makes more sense to rent and save the difference. So i'll be buying a house either when rents increase or house prices decrease.
 
Re: A reasonable level of income.

prawn_86 said:
Also, i wont be buying a house until yields on rentals are greater than the interest re-payments, makes more sense to rent and save the difference. So i'll be buying a house either when rents increase or house prices decrease.
Click to expand...

Or, when interest rates are a lot lower......

Beej
 
Re: A reasonable level of income.

hello,

amazing everything gets back to prop. prices

thankyou
robots
 
Re: A reasonable level of income.


Aged pension plus healthcare and travel and other elements is *just* *barely* enough if you own your home ... my parents do it comfortably but things like hobby vege gardens and shopping trips to markets for bulk fruit and veg help.

$50k is *definitely* *easily* enough for a sensible young person renting basic accomodation with basic social life in syd. Less in just about every other city.
 
Re: A reasonable level of income.

white_goodman said:
as long as the salary went up with inflation itd be sweet, speaking of which after watching a video in another thread who knows what the REAL inflation figure is anyways...
Click to expand...


There is your answer.

If you have 30 yrs of retirement in 30 yrs your $50k a year will be fuel money.
You need to be able to generate passive income which keeps abreast of inflation.
Unless you have several million now and can put that to work rather than just draw on an annuity.
 
end of the day

it's not how much you earn, but how you spend it,

even doctors who have good incomes are in debt
 
I reckon for a couple without children living in an average-priced Sydney house (meaning reasonable rates and maintenance costs) with no mortgage and one or two average cars, $50K-$55K pa in today's dollars should be comfortably doable provided there are no excessive medical or travel costs. However, if they have some investment structures, like trusts and companies, then a few thousand more to cover tax returns, etc.

Depends a fair bit on lifestyle though, like how they like to furnish their house, how often they replace those furnishings, how much they spend on entertainment, whether they smoke or like to spend every night at the pub, etc. For example, if they like to buy a new bedroom suite every year, and a new car every second year, then that will blow it out somewhat.

GP
 
agro said:
even doctors who have good incomes are in debt
Click to expand...
Too true. I once had a tennant who was a doctor and he was always behind with his rent. ( An Indian and at Bundaberg but not the famous,or infamous one).
 
I agree that around $50K for a couple is reasonable for the sort of lifestyle most retired people feel inclined to pursue. With no mortgage and no need for a new car every year, there should be enough for an overseas holiday every couple of years.

For people on a couple government pension even, it's doable but I would think damned hard for a single pensioner on about $14K p.a.

With allocated pensions retirees can be forced to take an income which is more than they need depending on level of capital which always strikes me as a bit ironic. We spend years investing and saving and then the government says, hey you need to start using up that money people, increase your monthly withdrawals!
 
If you can get to retirement owning your own home then you probally could live a comfortable life on $26,000. If you never got around to owning your own home you would need much more though.

I think if you owned your own home and had income of about $50,000 you would live a much better brand of comfortable though,

There was a study that showed if you doubled a persons income from 25G to 50G then you pretty muched doubled that persons happiness rating, how ever doubling it again from 50G to 100G didn't really increase there overall happiness rating,... the reasons for this is that at 50G you can afford a nice home, a car, recreation activities, annual holiday etc. etc,.... But at 100G you still have the same stuff but generally just a more expensive version of it which once the gloss wears off doesn't increase your happiness especially if you work longer hours and more stressful position to get it.
 
Interesting. Just put on a spreadsheet how much we pay for food, petrol, insurance, rates, electricity, water, vets, medicine, wine, going out, clothing, m/v expenses, furniture, house repairs, rego, holidays, pay tv, internet, phone etc etc and it comes to a lot less than we actually spend.

Maybe need to go on a budget, like yesterday!

yeah but probably need only about $50,000 after taxes.
 
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