What is the perfect salary to be happy?

[Dan C]

Postponing expenses doesn't mean they just go away. You can still average it out per month to get a rough idea of your true budget. Your 'saving' is then basically car service, broken appliances and clothes. Not savings, just postponed expenses.

Anyway I think we're veering of topic.

'How much do you need to be happy' Seems to be subjective. Some are happy scraping together pennies, wearing clothes from 1998, driving an unreliable car and quitting fresh food if the fridge breaks. Others are less happy with that.

Clothes ? WTF is that ? Most of us work from home since COVID, have not opened my cupboard for over a year or used the washing machine.

 

[notayoba]

Grow your own food.
Invest in Solar and own water Supply.
Homeschool kids.
Plan car trips.
Max Ebucks for both you and partner. (Don't use from the allocated BANKS Cash from Credit Card, instead transfer over from Cheque to Credit on what you will be spending.)
House paid off.
Car paid off.
Only buy cash.!!!
No contracts and No, you do not need a R25/35 000 phone ever and never every two years. (Too use the same 10 apps you have been using since forever.)
Put R500 away a month for Car main.
Invest.!!!!

Life is actually pretty easy on R15000 for a family of four if the above can be done. You are stinking rich at R25000.

Your wants is what normally gets Every.Single.Person.
Live for what you NEED.

Explain how you buy solar power if you earn R15k, or pay off a house,

 

[ToxicBunny]

Great, an extra R1000 left over after a 50k cost to company salary in my calculation. You are nitpicking details, my overall figure is not more than maybe 10% off.

Your overall figure is way off... because you are classing these things against YOUR standard, not what the vast majority of people would have as a good standard.

R37k net per month is enough for a very very comfortable life in this country for a family of 2 or even 4 so long as you aren't retarded with your wants and cater to your needs properly.

 

[thestaggy]

Grow your own food.
Invest in Solar and own water Supply.
Homeschool kids.
Plan car trips.
Max Ebucks for both you and partner. (Don't use from the allocated BANKS Cash from Credit Card, instead transfer over from Cheque to Credit on what you will be spending.)
House paid off.
Car paid off.
Only buy cash.!!!
No contracts and No, you do not need a R25/35 000 phone ever and never every two years. (Too use the same 10 apps you have been using since forever.)
Put R500 away a month for Car main.
Invest.!!!!

Life is actually pretty easy on R15000 for a family of four if the above can be done. You are stinking rich at R25000.

Your wants is what normally gets Every.Single.Person.
Live for what you NEED.

I need to pay rent/pay my bond. I need to pay car installments. I need to pay insurance on both. I need about R10,000 for all of that.

I need to put petrol in my car.

Show me how I get my own meat? Farm animals in the townhouse complex?

 

[notayoba]

R37k net per month is enough for a very very comfortable life in this country for a family of 2 or even 4 so long as you aren't retarded with your wants and cater to your needs properly.

Completely disagree. for a family of 4, 37K net is poverty. With that you'll always be scratching, ducking and diving.

Remember I'm not talking about someone established with a paid for house etc. I would love to see how you propose 4 people life 'happily' (since that's the topic) on 37k. Starting from a base of 0.

 

[Paul Kemp]

Grow your own food.
Invest in Solar and own water Supply.
Homeschool kids.
Plan car trips.
Max Ebucks for both you and partner. (Don't use from the allocated BANKS Cash from Credit Card, instead transfer over from Cheque to Credit on what you will be spending.)
House paid off.
Car paid off.
Only buy cash.!!!
No contracts and No, you do not need a R25/35 000 phone ever and never every two years. (Too use the same 10 apps you have been using since forever.)
Put R500 away a month for Car main.
Invest.!!!!

Life is actually pretty easy on R15000 for a family of four if the above can be done. You are stinking rich at R25000.

Your wants is what normally gets Every.Single.Person.
Live for what you NEED.

Is this your real life or a lala land dream?
For starters grow your own food is very difficult for most of us.

 

[ToxicBunny]

Completely disagree. for a family of 4, 37K net is poverty. With that you'll always be scratching, ducking and diving.

Remember I'm not talking about someone established with a paid for house etc. I would love to see how you propose 4 people life 'happily' (since that's the topic) on 37k. Starting from a base of 0.

Quite easily actually... as has been pointed out to you many many times in this thread really. You just chose not to grasp it because it doesn't fit your "world" view on what is comfortable.

I know families of 6 people who live on monthly household incomes of around R20k (and even that R20k is very variable as it relies on tips and such) and they live quite well and are happy. And these families don't have paid of cars or houses or anything fancy like that.

I look at myself, and yes I spend a crap load every month on the place I stay in, and my cars but even those are luxuries purely because I can afford them. I could easily halve that bill if I had to and still live in a nice place and in some ways probably be more comfortable and more financially free.

 

[Felixbf1980]

bACK

Explain how you buy solar power if you earn R15k, or pay off a house,

If all the above can be done. Putting R2500 away in different investments monthly gained me personally just a little over R115 000 after 2 and a half years. More than enough for solar off grid.

 

[Felixbf1980]

Is this your real life or a lala land dream?
For starters grow your own food is very difficult for most of us.

Explain how it is difficult.?

 

[notayoba]

Quite easily actually... as has been pointed out to you many many times in this thread really. You just chose not to grasp it because it doesn't fit your "world" view on what is comfortable.

I know families of 6 people who live on monthly household incomes of around R20k (and even that R20k is very variable as it relies on tips and such) and they live quite well and are happy. And these families don't have paid of cars or houses or anything fancy like that.

I look at myself, and yes I spend a crap load every month on the place I stay in, and my cars but even those are luxuries purely because I can afford them. I could easily halve that bill if I had to and still live in a nice place and in some ways probably be more comfortable and more financially free.

Let's do the 6 people sum on 20k? ..
2 adults, 4 kids as an example. Just school fees at a government school is going to be over 10k.

No housing unit that houses 6 comfortably that I can think is available for anything under about 15k. rented or bought.

no. I can't I give up, does not compute..

Maybe in some far of remote area, but then transport costs go up, and earning potential goes down.

 

[ToxicBunny]

Let's do the 6 people sum on 20k? ..
2 adults, 4 kids as an example. Just school fees at a government school is going to be over 10k.

No housing unit that houses 6 comfortably that I can think is available for anything under about 15k. rented or bought.

no. I can't I give up, does not compute..

Maybe in some far of remote area, but then transport costs go up, and earning potential goes down.

So no, government school fees for 4 kids at a relatively respectable school can be around R8k, and that is assuming that all 4 kids are in high school level, which very often isn't the case. Also I find that for a number of these "poorer" families, the kids actually work bloody hard to get bursaries so school fees are even lower for the family.

Housing units that fit 6 comfortably can be had for a lot less than R15k rented, just not in your idea of a "good" area (so again your world view is tainting your perception) and no not in a remote area.

 

[Paul Kemp]

Explain how it is difficult.?

Space, pests, not knowing what the eff we’re doing. Easy to grow a couple of tomatoes and lose a crop to pests when it’s a little time wasting hobby but to actually feed your family it takes know how.
I remember reading an article in farmers weekly that explained how subsistence farming is a poverty trap. I can believe that.

Can we as humans grow our own food as communities, yes, can we easily pivot from where we are currently(consumers) to being self sufficient growers, difficult.

 

[Mike Hoxbig]

bACK

If all the above can be done. Putting R2500 away in different investments monthly gained me personally just a little over R115 000 after 2 and a half years. More than enough for solar off grid.

Which investments yielded a 35% gain in 2.5 years?

 

[notayoba]

Tapping out for now. got to run.

Remember the topic is the ideal salary to be happy. I would reckon that requires a lifestyle that resembles a true middle class existence. (a reasonable house in a safe area, a reliable car, fresh food, some basic modernities like a fridge and internet) and maybe a hobby or 2.

Not the poverty-tier 'LSM middle class' definition by the ANC. Their 2nd from the top level would qualify you for government poverty relief assistance in most 1st world countries if you have a kid, and our expenses are mostly no lower and for many items higher.

 

[notayoba]

Housing units that fit 6 comfortably can be had for a lot less than R15k rented, just not in your idea of a "good" area (so again your world view is tainting your perception) and no not in a remote area.

The topic is not 'salary to scrape by in a backwater' it's salary to be happy.

 

[konfab]

I need to pay rent/pay my bond. I need to pay car installments. I need to pay insurance on both. I need about R10,000 for all of that.

I need to put petrol in my car.

Show me how I get my own meat? Farm animals in the townhouse complex?

Tell your body corporate you will solve their cat problem.

 

[Felixbf1980]

Also on the subject of clothes.
Have people not heard of Black Friday.?
Or saving or selling your reward points at profit, to buy heavily disconnected clothes.?
Example saved Ebucks for two years, buys heavily discounted Macbook at R15 000 (40% off), sells same Macbook at retail on Carbonite. Profit.!
Put that extra cash in an investment account and let your money work for you.

Everyone and their dog talks about how private school is better than public. Yet zero schools teach the things we all need in life.
Investments.
How credit cards should be used.
Credit score.
Debit order rejections due to insufficient funds and how that affects your credit.
Buying brand new cars "for the peace of mind crap" every 3-5 years.
Paying all free extra cash, like Bonuses into your Capital Amount of your Car or house to pay it off early.
Buying the biggest house you can mostly "afford", yet the Bank buys it and you owe them almost double.
(++Family of 4 in a 6 bedroom house, totally dumb. Now the wife needs to buy crap to fill the extra 2 rooms and neither of you clean the big house, cos that what maids are for right.?++)

 

[Venomous]

I would say 15 000 for a single person and 25 000 for a couple.

Please tell me you're joking.

Some schools cost more than R10k a month. Bond on a property is roughly R10k/month per million you owe the bank.

Do I need to add a few more figures?

 

[RunningFromFat]

Please tell me you're joking.

Some schools cost more than R10k a month. Bond on a property is roughly R10k/month per million you owe the bank.

Do I need to add a few more figures?

Who said anything about kids?

 

[DreamKing]

never, when you have to pay more than half of your earning to this fxxking anc government.