If you’ve spent most of your young adult life travelling and exploring the world, finally settling down with a family can come as something of a culture shock. That’s particularly true if you are living in the UK. Here, the cost of being a parent is far higher than in any other part of the world when compared to average salaries.
The hard truth is that Brits tend to spend more than we earn on average per family. That means the wages of most parents are simply swallowed up with the cost of living and there’s nothing left to spare.
According to an interesting infographic from Moneysupermarket.com, should you like your income to go further once you start bringing up kids, it might be better to look abroad.
That’s great news if you love travelling.
It’s Cheaper to be Single in the UK
The average salary in the UK is around £24,000 and, if you’re on your own, that means you’re only paying out about half that in terms of rent and other living costs like food and utilities. Once you start adding children, however, things change dramatically. A family of 4 could be forking out around £44,000 a year which is about 100% of the combined salary of an average couple.
The price of living has gone up in the UK, particularly when it comes to affordable housing. While you’re probably going to need to lay out around £500,000 for a London home if you have a family of 6, renting isn’t that much cheaper. You could well be spending £2,000 a month just to put a roof over your head and for most families that’s a huge chunk of their income.
A family of 4 will spend around £48 on their food shop while it can cost anywhere from £15,000 up for transport, more if you invest in a SUV for the kids. The big news is that if you live in the London area, you can expect to spend at least 103% of your monthly income which means you have absolutely nothing left over.
You Like To Travel, It’s Time To Move
If you’ve spent a lot of your time travelling around the world and you like nothing better than experiencing new cultures, you might like to think about setting up home in another country. Hit the US and you’ll only spend 90% of your average combined income.
There are much cheaper places to live. Travel to Australia and you’ll only be parting with about half your salary and in Germany it’s about the same. By far the cheapest place to live is Sweden where rent is around £1,200 a month and compares favourably with average salaries. While the USA is actually the most expensive country to live in, the salaries there make up for the extra cost and make it cheaper to live than in the UK.
If you feel the need to travel abroad but still want to bring up a family, it’s well worth taking a closer looking at the Moneysupermarket.com research.
