Originally Posted by
170to5
Wiz
For info, and living at home sounds brill...for the UK (sorry, don't have a pound symbol on my keyboard), I did some sums on the back of a napkin for your standard 2+2 family who want a decent little life when they get home:
- Mortgage, 4 bed in a decent area of Cheshire: 1500/month*
- School fees, 2 children: 2400/month (
Private education 'costs £286,000' on average - BBC News)
- 2 cars, big and small: 700/month
- Monthly spending money: 4 x 400/week (minimum)
Must have missed plenty of other stuff. If they then want to save, they'll need, what, 300/month spare to make it even count.
That's before saving for the annual family migration to Spain, which is going to cost you 2500. Christmas is going to cost 1000 before it's done.
That means that if you don't want to get into debt and take loans or credit cards, you'll be needing about 82000, net, per year. That works out to 135,000 gross, 150,000 if you're putting 5% into a pension scheme yourself.
I believe that a TRE in a UK lo-co generally makes about that, or a BA/Virgin skipper.
How many TRI/TRE jobs are on offer at the moment?
- Numbers from thesalarycalculator.co.uk
*350k mortgage, 70k deposit, 22 years repayment
As one of the guys who left to return to the UK in the last 6 months, I thought I might be in a good position to offer a realistic and balanced view of things.
As always, it's all about personal circumstances and expectations. I did 7 years in Dubai with no regrets, but by the end of my time there that lifestyle and atmosphere simply wasn't sustainable
for me.
I joined an airline as DEC based in my preferred location of MAN and fly 2 sectors a day mainly taking holidaymakers to Spain and back.
It is less money than my EK salary but the take-home after tax still averages 6k, after a recent salary raise to 92k basic plus duty pay of about 8k. To suggest a captain will struggle to maintain a decent life on that pay seems a little prima-donna-ish.
THE JOB:
Workload-wise, I will be probably be working 90 hours a month in the summer but only a few days a month in the winter season. At the moment that equates to about 600 hours per year because of the seasonal nature of leisure flights. It gets a little boring being sat on standby most of the month but with a 2-hour call out time you can easily enjoy your standby doing something local in the countryside. No night flights at the moment (could always change in future of course) and home in my own bed every night except for the odd call-out to a different base. Also the atmosphere at work is very relaxed, and "normal" for want of a better word. You'll have to bring your own sandwiches for a short flight, or a frozen dinner for a longer flight - no crew food here but free Typhoo, Nescafe and water at least!
PROPERTY:
We now live in Mid-Cheshire 30-40 mins from the airport - the real cheshire with dairy farms and country pubs, not footballer's wives and Ferraris. The price of property is far cheaper than what you suggest in North-Cheshire and 200-250k will get you a substantial enough family home in a village with no crime and pretty scenery.
STATE EDCUCATION:
My boy goes to a country village state school with only 11 kids in his class. His education here so far has been better than at JESS in our opinion. Whilst it is true that the facilities are not as extravagant, he's certainly happier with what he has around him.
THE COST OF LIVING:
We did 7 seven years in Dubai and used some of the money we saved along with the provident fund to buy a modest family home. We also bought a 3-year-old family estate car and a 5-year-old compact car for the missus using more savings from Dubai. Therefore by being sensible and realistic we have no mortgage or car loans to worry about and we allow ourselves to enjoy a couple of weekends away every month staying in the very reasonable Premier Inn around various parts of the UK. My little boy loves it! We still save a good chunk of money to top up the 8% pension from the company. And we have a nice week booked in the med in August at a 4 star hotel for less than 2k.
Of course that's just what
we wanted in terms of lifestyle and everyone has their own different goals in life.
It's also true that a brand new EK first officer probably wouldn't have the same level of provident fund or savings to enable a debt-free life in the UK so maybe this is only really an option for 7-year plus Skippers.
If you have a realistic expectation of lifestyle and do not rely on the Bentley or the speedboat, an average UK lifestyle is easily achievable on 6k a month. Maybe not in London of course if that's your bag!
Admittedly I've only been here six months but we are extremely happy with the way things have turned out. Horses for courses and all that...