We all talk about it but what is the right rate

[ratewhore]

Assuming your rent listed is for your home, not a 2nd house while contracting away:

Groceries: £150/week (generous but hardly excessive if you add it all up)
Clothes: £200 /month (some people spend virtually nothing, hard to judge)
Water: £50/month?
Electric+Gas: £150/month?
Council Tax: £200/month?
Petrol: £50/week?
Insurance: £100/month
= about £1600 per month

Your £166.50/day, given 20 working days/month = £3330

You have somewhere about £1700/month left for servicing loans, savings, etc. That's about the take-home pay of someone on £30k IIRC. But not a huge amount to build up a war-chest if you want family holidays.
Tell the missus to get a job...

Looking at these figures, you are talking about how much you personally earn net, from whatever type of vehicle you use for contracting. Otherwise you would be quoting all your taxes, personal and company, yes?

Incidentally, the rate you need/want/accept is dynamic, and based on many variables on the day you sign your contract. So quoting arbitrary figures is not that helpful...

[Signo_cypher]

Costs

I earn £400 a day...
Minus £50 a day for expenses = £350
Minus +/- £87.50 (approx) a day for tax - £262.50
Minus £46 a day for rent (London) = £216.50
Minus £50 a day for childcare (London!!) = £166.50
So £166.50 left for food for four, clothes for four, bills, petrol, car payments, pension, insurance....warchest? What friggin warchest?

It's all relative, your spending a £1000 a month on childcare and £1000 a month on expenses. Not everyone has those high costs every month. Thats your choice. £200 a day is minimum before I would consider rethinking contracting.

[Turion]

The key to contractor financial success, is to live on the equivalent permie income or stick below the higher rate limit (whichever the lowest). Keep 6 months rainy day fund and everything else to go into paying off loans, mortages first, then build up saving and pensions. In later years you may be able to justify spending more as it's already been earnt. In good years you can pay yourself a bonus or waste money on a new car, but never borrow or start spending like Beckam. Even living on the equivalent permie wage you will be better off as you will have no mortgage and not need to save from that money.

[Benno]

Minimum? £100pd. We don't get silly money in rollout/support, and I know how to live within my means. Also don't have wife/kids to drain my earnings!

[AlfredJPruffock]

and here I am....

There's no doubt that, if your skills are easy to replace, then the market will push your rate down very quickly if there is a supply of candidates willing to take your place. And the supply of newbie contractors onto the market is healthier than its ever been.

Happiness (in contracting terms) is spending less than you earn, and then enjoying the excess in your own time.
£250/day income -£200/day expenditure = happy
£500/day income - £550/day expenditure = unhappy

Ah - well as the song has it Everybody's Got Something To Hide Except for Me and My Monkey ...

[Fred Bloggs]

The key to contractor financial success, is to live on the equivalent permie income or stick below the higher rate limit (whichever the lowest). Keep 6 months rainy day fund and everything else to go into paying off loans, mortages first, then build up saving and pensions. In later years you may be able to justify spending more as it's already been earnt. In good years you can pay yourself a bonus or waste money on a new car, but never borrow or start spending like Beckam. Even living on the equivalent permie wage you will be better off as you will have no mortgage and not need to save from that money.

Good advice. Kind of hare and tortoise approach but if you're a career contractor, the tortoise approach works in the end for sure.

(Signed- Fred "debt free and building up a big retirement pot" Bloggs).

[AlfredJPruffock]

There's always someone out there better than you at doing what you do, and willing for work for less, and their reasons for doing so can be quite complex.

If that was true - why doesnt Man United sack Ferguson and replace him with the manager of Doncaster Rovers ?

Sure they would get him plenty cheapness...