How much do you need to earn to live in Sussex?

If it often feels like your hard-earned wages never stretch far enough, you might think it’s because you’re blowing your budget unnecessarily - but it could really be the cost of living in your town that’s behind your financial woes.

How to find out? A new online tool that reveals how much money Britons should be earning in postcodes across the country to realistically live ‘comfortable’ lives may have the answer.

Highlighting the huge difference between the cheapest and most expensive areas, the online tool shows us how the cost of living comfortably in Britain varies dramatically from one postcode to another.

For example, Bradford residents can live a ‘comfortable life’ on earnings of just £8.98 per hour, while Durhamites need to be bringing in £9.47 to do likewise and those living in Sunderland have to make £11.29.

Pack your bags and relocate to the big smoke of London, however, and you’d need to be earning £54.54 per hour to live comfortably, while for those residing in Edinburgh, an hourly rate of £21.15 is what’s required.

If you key in local postcodes, you’ll find out that on average residents in Lewes (BN7) would need to earn £24.65 a hour, people living in Newhaven (BN9) would need £19.26 and those living near Hailsham (BN27) need £25.73.

According to the tool Seaford (BN25) residents would need to earn around £20.84 per hopur, while those in Crowborough (TN6) would need to earn around £20.55 and Uckfield (TN22) a staggering £30.13.

The interactive widget, created by the team at www.web-blinds.com, analysed renting data from all 2,650 UK postcodes.

Users are asked to input the first half of a postcode or the name of a city and are then taken to a map of their chosen area that features a postcode-by-postcode breakdown of how much money they’d need to earn per hour to realistically live a ‘comfortable’ life, based on the recommendation from Shelter that rent should be no more than 35 per cent of tenant’s income.

Spokesperson for www.web-blinds.com, Kirsty O’Sullivan, said: “The most expensive postcodes and cities make for eye-watering reading, but there are still plenty of affordable gems out there for renters. They just might have to look outside of the capital for them.”

The interactive tool can be found here: https://www.web-blinds.com/resources/earnings-vs-postcodes/