Remain to live

The reste à vivre, the residual income left to live on, is the amount a household has for its day-to-day spending once all its fixed expenses and loan instalments have been paid. Unlike the debt-to-income ratio, which is a ratio, it is expressed in euros, which makes it far more telling: two households can show the same debt-to-income ratio of 33% and be nowhere near equally able to carry the same instalment, depending on their income level and the make-up of the household. There is no single legal threshold, each institution sets its own scale, often expressed per person in the household. Its reliability depends entirely on how exhaustively the expenses have been captured.