How much for bills?

Lyncroft

Apologies if this is the wrong place for this.

After 10 years living near to each other me and the girlfriend are going to try living together

This is going to be a bit vague but can anyone give some indication of how much bills would be for 2 people. How much do people spend on heating, etc.

Hobo17

OK these are the totals for my flat - I split these costs in half with my other half:

Rent £650
Council tax £123
TV License £11
Gas £10
Electric £30
Water £21
Sky £43
Phone (BT) £13.50
Call18866 £5
Cleaning stuff/loo roll/milk/bread £10
Contents insurance 8.75

Groceries I can't help with as we each do our own food shopping. The rent and council tax will obviously vary depending on where you live, we're in London.

Woby_Tide

you live with your other half yet you eat/buy different food?

Lyncroft

Thanks for that. Have to say it probably does sound odd but I think we'd probably do our own food too. She's vegetarian and has totally different eating habits.

£650 rent isn't bad for London. Is that a 2 bedder or 1 bedder?

calleyw

Lyncroft wrote:

Thanks for that. Have to say it probably does sound odd but I think we'd probably do our own food too. She's vegetarian and has totally different eating habits.

Can't see why if you have different eating habits that you are not shopping together and buying it from a household budget

I mean there are few things my husband eats that I can't stand but I don't say you must find the time to go all by yourself to go shopping to buy your own food and I will go and buy my own at another time. Makes no sense and takes extra time and energy.

Does that mean it will be like in a student house with your own bread, tea, coffee, sugar etc.

Mind you I thought living together was about sharing and that meant sharing everything. Seems I got that bit wrong.

But as they say each to there own.

Yours

Calley

basill

The list above looks pretty good to me, food will vary so much being `old style` or take away, depends how you do it.

If your interested heres how we organise our shared expenses.

My gf and I opened a joint bank account after we started living together. We set up standing orders for half shares of the expected total and set up all the bills on direct debit etc to come out of the `joint`.

This worked fine and we now pay rather more than the minimum each so the joint account can cope with the odd emergency like a plumbers bill, new washing m/c or a meal out. When the surplus builds up a bit it goes to a joint savings account incase of more expensive needs.

Our `joint` now pays for pretty much all our shared expenses including holidays and leaves each of us with the financial independance of our own personal bank accounts. I dont moan about her buying expensive clothes or makeup and she cannot complain about my own shiny things habit!

I hope you enjoy your life together, I know its probably obvious, but I have posted the above as before we opened that joint account we were always skint and found it could get rather stressful when the bills arrived!


B

Lyncroft

Cheers Basil. Helpful advice.

"Mind you I thought living together was about sharing and that meant sharing everything. Seems I got that bit wrong." How judgemental. You didn't get anything wrong. Thankfully, people are different. I wasn't after Mariella Frostrup advice thanks very much, just some indication of bills.

Woby_Tide

bear in mind things like heating could be more or less depending on what sort of setup the place you move into has, i.e. storage heating/gas/electric/combi so always take a higher view of most bills to start with, if you find it's a lot less, you've just earnt a takeaway/meal out extra!

Hobo17

That's for a 1bed flat in greater London.

I'm veggie and eat fairly healthily (and cheaply), my diet is based around pulses, beans, veg, fruit, and the odd "veggie substitute" like Quorn. My partners diet consists of crisp sandwiches, takeaway pizza, burgers, chips, fishfingers, hot dogs and coco-pops. Tomato ketchup is the nearest he ever comes to eating a vegetable! I think it's safe to say that our diets are not entirely compatible, I would the size of a house if I ate like he does! We do put £10 a month into a kitty to cover things like bread, milk, margarine, cleaning stuff etc which we both use. I never realised it was so odd until now!

KTF

basill wrote:

My gf and I opened a joint bank account after we started living together. We set up standing orders for half shares of the expected total and set up all the bills on direct debit etc to come out of the `joint`.

That is a really good idea! I have always wondered how it was best to deal with something like this as I doubt it will be too long before my other half turn up with a suitcase :P

It will give me a proper use for the spare bank account as well.

black-saturn

Here's my monthly bills for me and 2 children:

Electric - £13.00
Gas - £5
BT - £25 (got a deal with them to ring lone distance numbers for a set price)
Sky - £35
Water - £11
TV Licence - £10.something
Internet - £17.99

I don't have a mortgage or rent anymore.