Balancing the Budget

Net Income: £200pw (~£800pcm)

Outgoings:
Rent: £433.33
Utilities: £50 (water, electric, gas, internet)
Phone: £50
Council Tax: £152
Credit Cards: £60 (2x £30)
Travel: £80 (£20pw)

This comes to outgoings of £825pcm
You may, or may not have noticed, this is not including food costs of approx. £100 per month, which I actually can't afford at the moment, so the bf keeps graciously buying it so that I don't starve, but thus my outgoings are in fact in the region of £1000pcm, before any incidentals or disposable income.

This is, as shown, in all cases, more than my monthly income.
And thus, I am flat broke., in fact I am beyond flat broke and steadily getting worse and worse, as inevitably, I do spend money on a magazine, or some lunch, or the extra £5 return travel to see a friend once a week, and the £10 monthly spotify membership so I can carry my music wherever I am, so I lose more than just £25 per month.

There are some fine points to note; I pay all the council tax by myself as I'm the only working person in my house, so I'm effectively paying 3 people's share of it.  £1000 worth of outgoings sounds like a lot, but actually is fairly reasonable for someone living in London.  When you think about it, this requires a net salary of £12k, which works out at around £13k gross, so hardly extravagant.  I could live further out for cheaper, but that would involve longer commute times (not appreciated during 90 hour weeks), and incur higher transport costs, so a lot of the goodness would be negated.  I could get rid of my mobile phone, or my spotify membership, and sell my tv and computer and such, but I like to allow myself some form of entertainment and connection to the rest of the world beyond my house, my work, and the number 254 bus between them.

Like I said in my last post, I REALLY don't get paid enough for this shit.  At least not enough to stay in this job for an extended period of time.  And I think this also illustrates why we have the problem that emergency services staff often struggle to actually live in London, despite having to work there.  If only ALL jobs in London were subject to salary weighting.  Or at the least, if only this country had a proper concept of a living wage and actually paid it.  Currently, I'm 85p an hour below the rate set for the LLW, which equates to a difference of about £100 a month.  At least maybe then I'd be able to eat and not be systematically bankrupting myself.  In a perfect world, I'd like to actually contribute to my pension each month too.  £100 per month paid from birth till retirement gives you a nice tidy pension of £500k, before adjusted for inflation and accrued benefits.  My parents got me one and paid in it till i was 18, so I'm currently about £5k behind schedule.  I often live beyond my means but I'm not completely idiotic.


Addendum:  I also discovered I earn a mere 20p an hour more than the poverty level.  whoo. That makes me £30 richer per month than an official poor person.  This also puts me in the bottom 10% of full-time London earners, and sets me in approximately the 6th percentile, which let's face it, is a pretty crappy place to be, and sets me at worse than the majority of part time London earners.  WHOOP!