UK taxes vs US taxes

[no name 1]

You claim you made 60K & paid 400pw. With 20,800 in annual rent - that left you with (roughly) 39,200 to 'play' with. That's plenty of money to entertain yourself in London & beyond.

Don't I wish. When your gross income is £60k, your net is only about £40k, which leaves

you with about £780 per week.

My bad, so 19,760 is not enough to 'play' with?

[chloe 1]

What a load of claptrap!!

Maybe if you have champagne tastes, you need 75k!!

I lived a very comfortable life in Central London on half of that salary and supported my daughter alone, no problem.

London is a big city and theres a huge variation on rents.

Areas such as Kensington, Belgravia etc are going to be up there with Manhattan rents, though other

areas would easily compare rent-wise with Bum Creek, Tennessee.

What about choice of lifestyle. To drive half as much as you do in the US or eat out as much you most definitely need a decent salary. Same goes with renting an equivalent size house.

Last time I was there 65 quid barely bought stuff at tesco. Whereas with that here you can comfortably buy food. Lets not even comapre it to AUS where you would buy two trolleys full of food.

PS The trolleys where also quite small in the UK..

Point taken about the trolleys.

Good thing about London is firstly you dont have to drive anywhere, as everything you could possibly want is within walking distance and secondly you don't have to eat out all the time, because the supermarkets sell such a wide variety of food.

As a result of the above 2 points, We ( londoners) have toned, little bottoms that don't need to be able to afford oversized apartments to house our mass.

Edited August 31, 2007 by chloe

[no name 1]

Good thing about London is firstly you dont have to drive anywhere, as everything you could possibly want is within walking distance and secondly you don't have to eat out all the time, because the supermarkets sell such a wide variety of food.

As a result of the above 2 points, We ( londoners) have toned, little bottoms that don't need to be able to afford oversized apartments to cater for our mass.

I miss walking.

[mawilson 2,133]

You claim you made 60K & paid 400pw. With 20,800 in annual rent - that left you with (roughly) 39,200 to 'play' with. That's plenty of money to entertain yourself in London & beyond.

Don't I wish. When your gross income is £60k, your net is only about £40k, which leaves

you with about £780 per week.

So earning 60k we didn't buy and threw away 400 a week on rent because....?

Couldn't be bothered really - at that point I already knew I wasn't going to stay.

Good thing about London is firstly you dont have to drive anywhere, as everything you could possibly want is within walking distance and secondly you don't have to eat out all the time, because the supermarkets sell such a wide variety of food.

As a result of the above 2 points, We ( londoners) have toned, little bottoms that don't need to be able to afford oversized apartments to house our mass.

Sure if you're into that sort of thing.

I personally like driving and eating out.

[Trompe le Monde 1,107]

Couldn't be bothered really - at that point I already knew I wasn't going to stay.

If you left in 2004, at what point did you start living and renting in London?

[mawilson 2,133]

Couldn't be bothered really - at that point I already knew I wasn't going to stay.

If you left in 2004, at what point did you start living and renting in London?

I was frequently sent overseas and was in and out of the country at the whim of my employer

between 1999 and 2004.

[mawilson 2,133]

My bad, so £19,760 is not enough to 'play' with?

Not in London it isn't. What can I say, entertainment is expensive, and we only live once.

[Trompe le Monde 1,107]

Couldn't be bothered really - at that point I already knew I wasn't going to stay.

If you left in 2004, at what point did you start living and renting in London?

I was frequently sent overseas and was in and out of the country at the whim of my employer

between 1999 and 2004.

So you threw your money away on (unnecessarily high) rent and missed out on the housing boom? If you made those kind of choices, no wonder you got yourself in so much debt.

[mawilson 2,133]

Couldn't be bothered really - at that point I already knew I wasn't going to stay.

If you left in 2004, at what point did you start living and renting in London?

I was frequently sent overseas and was in and out of the country at the whim of my employer

between 1999 and 2004.

So you threw your money away on (unnecessarily high) rent and missed out on the housing boom? If you made those kind of choices, no wonder you got yourself in so much debt.

No-one's perfect.

[no name 1]

So you threw your money away on (unnecessarily high) rent and missed out on the housing boom? If you made those kind of choices, no wonder you got yourself in so much debt.

He has a 'different approach' which works for him. Hookers must be expensive in London! 20K's worth of 'entertainment' dontchoo know....

Edited August 31, 2007 by devilette

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Well a lot of people who work in London don't live there - in fact 33K would get you a fairly decent standard of living in one of the satellite towns on a commuter rail route (I've done it). To live comfortably in London you need around 75K to make it work. But even so - you'd still think twice before living there. Apartment rents are as much or more than NYC.

Agreed - at the same time you don't need $150K to live comfortably in NYC.

I'm not sure about that - we make approximately $100K between us. We can't afford to pay manhattan prices and get an equivalent living space.

[Widge 0]

Something wholly missing from this whole debate .......... you pay health care costs/taxes ONLY while you are working in the UK you are covered from the cradle to the grave (regardless of employment status/retirement or bad times) factor that into the equation and see where it leaves your calculations.

Having lived here three years now I am of the belief that the "haves" are doing wonderfully but to my way of thinking you judge a society not by how it looks after its haves but how it cares for its have nots. I pass no judgement here on where that leaves a comparison of the UK/USA but I know where I'd rather be as a have not.

Edited September 1, 2007 by Widge

[Killer_Clown_2009 0]

What about the medical insurance that you need to purchase for yourself?

[no name 1]

What about the medical insurance that you need to purchase for yourself?

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