£13,400 - How much it costs to live in Britain

Published by Robert Brown on July 2, 2008 under Misc

An interesting study by the Joeseph Rowntree Foundation was published today, which claimed a single person in Britain needs at least £13,400 a year for a minimum standard of living (as reported by the BBC here)

This is compared to the national average wage of £26,000 as reported by the National Statistics Office.

In reality this average is a mean, not a median score which would more accurately reflect the chance you bump into someone earning more than this figure half the amount of times, since the top 20% wage earners earn 80% of the cash - this gap is widening.

A guardian news story estimates that supermarket staff need to work 94 hours a week to reach this average.

A recent NY Times story ran showing that contrary to some peoples belief, money DOES buy happiness, in a study carried out there.  Another interesting conclusion was it was more a countries relative income that governed happiness; if a country’s poorest were close to the richest, the happier the citizens overall. 

It is an interesting look into the fundamentals of capitalism, both in its revealings of those deeply involved in the system spending to sustain it, and how the perception of fairness within the society helped everyone’s happiness levels. 

£13,400 a year would be an absolute fortune in a country like Armenia, which wiki currently reports an annual income of $1562 (~£750) - this equates to a minimum British wage being enough for 17 Armenians - are we 17 times more happy than Armenians?

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The power of “No”

Published by Robert Brown on May 15, 2008 under Budget tips

Last month I spoke of going onto pay-as-you-go on my mobile to try and cut expenses, they offered me an £18 a month contract which despite hard work from the TSR at the call centre I said no to. Pleads included “This offer is only going until next week!”

Well today I was phoned up by another salesman from 3 (My mobile phone provider) asking for me - nowadays I always answer “Is this Robert Brown?” with “Who’s speaking?”, and I was about to launch into a murder scene interrogation…..

…but as I was lining it up with grunts and obscure mutterings (I doubt I could of pulled it off with the Tom Mabe style) the guy at 3 offered me £10 a month for life for 500 minutes anytime/any network. 

This works out over £300 a year less than what I was paying for up till this month, with 100 minutes more text/calls.

Just goes to show how desperate companies are to fix you into a contract - no doubt the iPhone is taking away a lot of business so they get me locked in for another 18 months, hell they even threw in a new phone (Nokia 6500 Slide), which I read a few reviews of and it breaks a lot, but I could always sell it on ebay.  I’m pretty happy today since I would have probably used about £10 a month in top-ups.

Anyway, a good lesson for me: never accept the first thing they offer you.  Just by saying “no” I’ve saved probably £100 a year.