Single person bill budgeting.

lulu650

Son is moving out into rented accommodation and accepting a new job @ £16,000.

The rent will be £450 per month for a one bed unfurnished flat. He will be using Freecycle and ebay for furniture but finding it difficult to know how to budget for bills. Anyone else's thoughts and experiences would be really useful

Numpty_Monkey

Hi i'm on my own about the same sallery
A few things depeneds on where he is moving to,
My budgeted bills per month
council tax is £62
Electric £45( got energy saving bulbs, nothing on standby)
Gas £45
Water £10 (on a water meter better for single people)
TV £12
Phone/Internet £20 (With talktalk)
Sky £20 , (I should ditch it and go with freeveiw or freesat:o )
you can get deals for new subscribers for the 3 for £30 from sky/virgin
i think

Groceries £140

He should allow for home insurance aswell,
and emergency things( washer/fridge breaks other unforseen things

And remember to sign up to utilities and things through Quidco or any other cashback sites

Hope it helps and good luck:A

newyorkcitybride

Hi there Lulu,

I'd suggest to your son to check our your local council website, with the address of where he is moving to, he should be able to find out what the council tax payment will be per month.
Also see if they offer a discount for single persons, ours does, but not sure if they do everywhere.

Dependant on what utilities he will have, i.e all three, I would say £25 a month each.
He can also contact the utility companies and ask either to be put onto monthly direct debit plan, whereby they calculate their expected usage and you pay that, or he can go on quarterly billing.
I preferred quarterly billing, and I also made sure when they sent me the bill, i checked my meters and contacted them with the exact readings, and then they would re-issue my bill as they just estimate.
One time I did that and they had put on an extra £100 over a quarter!

I would also suggest to your son that he sets up an additional bank account, nothing fancy, just so that he can set up a standing order for the utilities budget (so £75 a month) and then its put aside, so when the bill comes in (after 3 months) he has the money ready aside to pay the bill, rather than trying to pay a 3 month bill from one months salary.

Phone and internet as Numtpy suggested. there are lots of deals out there at the moment so he should be able to score quite a decent saving.

£140 for food for one person is quite a bit (but then I'm still struggling with our grocery shopping as well!).... I would say with some meal planning etc he could be spending more like £100... His first monthly shop will probs be quite high with buying all the first time bits and pieces, such as condiments, oils etc.

As for sourcing things for his flat, maybe ask around friends and family to see if anyone has things going spare, pots and pans being replaced, cutlery, plates etc. if he doesnt mind it not matching for a short time, then he can buy things as time goes on without shelling out all in one go.
Bootfairs are also good (this time of year I think they're pretty good with the weather, more people out and about) to source things like plates etc, as people just want rid. I got a complete set of 6, plates, side plates, bowls and mugs for £2 at a bootfair, and plenty of people have odd kitchen bits and utensils.

on a £16,000 salary I think he'll be fine but sometimes its just about finding your feet....
Please also have a word with him about anything offered to him on credit. I didnt have any debt when I lived at home, but soon as I was in my own place, creating my own (at the time,) good credit score, thats when I got into trouble. No need to lay it on thick, but maybe just a quiet word, if he's struggling to talk to you, maybe do number crunching and planning before buying anything big.... etc....

Thats about all I can think of, hope it helps in some small way, and apologies for having gabbled on!

Ames

I'm in a one bed flat, I don't pay council tax but my electric (there's no gas) is £50pm and my water's £27. It was the same in my last place as well.

tealady

Hi I would suggest that he put money each month in a high interest account for emergencies and yearly bills. What I do is pay most of my bills by monthly direct debit then whats left is divided by 5 (usually!). Each week ON THE SAME DAY I take out one weeks money for food ents and other stuff. 8 months out of 12 I have a weeks money in hand for treats and birthday/Xmas fund.
I also save monthly as it helps when things need replacing.
Oh and dont forget daily clicks, I do Pigsback every day, and collect Boots vouchers.

cantcope

Firstly find out whats included in his rent... when i was renting the maintenance charge was paid as were buildings insurance and water rates.

for contents insurance make sure he goes through a cashback site like quidco... contents on my 1 bed flat just cost me approx £86 for a year and i got £80 cashback (this was through churchill).

my bills excluding rent for a 1 bed are as follows:

water (2 bills, water and sewage) = 26
gas/elec = 50
council tax (over 10 months with single persons discount) = 80
contents insurance (ready for next year) = 7
phone/bb = 26
maintenance/ground rent = 25
groceries = 80
emergencies = 35 (i'd like this to be more but this is all i can afford at the moment)

total excluding rent = 329

he also needs to put aside money if he has a car for tax/insurance/maintenance.

It's an exciting time getting your first place i remember it well. Make sure friends/family know he's moving out. I found people had lots of things they gave me to set up home ranging from bath towells, glasses, sandwich toasters... all things they'd bought and never or hardly used.

Get him signed up to pigsback, pinecone (they are recruiting now) and the cashback sites as these will all save/make him extra money.

I wish him well





mobile = 10

lulu650

Thanks every one this has been really helpful.

He cant afford a car but luckily the flat and job are both 5mins from their respective rail stations. He'll have to incorporate his fares into expenses too.