Renting - Bills

jenny_f

Me and my b/f are about to get our own first rented place.

Just looking at how much we can afford a month for rent and so wanting to get an idea of average bills - electric, gas, internet/phone, water etc

Will be living in South Yorkshire

TIA

schueys_girl

More info would be useful on size of property - bedrooms etc and also whether it is metered for your gas and electric as this makes it more expensive.

As a guide to help, me and my fiance rent a two bed house, with gas and electric on a meter. Our monthly outgoings are as follows:

Rent ____

Gas - currently through the summer it has only been used to heat hot water so we are making £10 last over a month! BUT we are saving for winter as when it is very cold we used £5-£10 a week - PUTTING EXTRA LAYERS ON IS CRUCIAL!

Electric - we make sure we turn everything off where we can - only thing left ticking over is the fridge/freezer and this uses the most we spend about £4 a week on electricity

Council tax is your big one ours is £110 a month

Water bills - we pay half yearly first one was £117 this one £94....quite expensive we are thinking about going on a meter...but depends if landlord will let us.

Home insurance - you will only need contents depends what you have to insure we pay £80 a year

Internet/Phone/SKy - we have a Sky package as we love watching the motorbikes so we pay £28.50 for sky package, line rental for phone, free landline calls in evening and weekends and broadband (NOT BAD REALLY)

Food bills - depending what your like with cooking and what you like to eat we average about £25-£30 a month thats quite high because we like lots of fresh stuff which costs more money than some crap and we also have a kitten to feed on posh food and buy cat litter.
This also includes all the house cleaning products too

TV license - £147 a year

Apart from that you will have your other outgoings like

- Running a car - petrol, insurance etc
- Entertainment, going out etc how much do you do this?

I am sure there are lots of others that you will need to cover I will try and think of some more to help!

If you want to do a SOA (scheme of affairs) which lists all the outgoings you think you will have and your incomings we will be able to help more

Don't forget emergency money -what are you going to be able to save?
And do you need more for a deposit?

Have you bought all the things you need, cutlery, furnishings?

Hope this helps

PasturesNew

As a ball park, mentally think £250/month for the bills of: council tax, gas, water, electricity, gas, TV licence, contents insurance, TV landline, internet. That way if they come in a bit less you won't be in trouble.

jenny_f

PasturesNew wrote: »

As a ball park, mentally think £250/month for the bills of: council tax, gas, water, electricity, gas, TV licence, contents insurance, TV landline, internet. That way if they come in a bit less you won't be in trouble.

Thanks - would this be £250 each of £250 for the both (so £125 each)

jenny_f

schueys_girl wrote: »

More info would be useful on size of property - bedrooms etc and also whether it is metered for your gas and electric as this makes it more expensive.

sorry for being dumb - why does a meter make it more expensive?

SunnySusie

The cost per unit on meters is more expensive. It's not fair, but it's the way it is . Various campaigns have sort to change this as it tends to affect less affluent people more.

We don't make much effort to keep our bells down and normally spend about £500 a month on that kind of thing, but I suspect we could get that down with some effort.

superfran_uk

schueys_girl wrote: »

Food bills - depending what your like with cooking and what you like to eat we average about £25-£30 a month thats quite high because we like lots of fresh stuff which costs more money than some crap and we also have a kitten to feed on posh food and buy cat litter.
This also includes all the house cleaning products too

Surely you mean £25 - £30 a week! My partner and I spend about £200 in a month on food/drink/supermarket shopping bits (note - we could get this down if we had to but we can afford it so why the hell not). I don't know how you'd even survive on a tenth of this though.

superfran_uk

We have a 2 bed semi, and pay in to our joint account enough to cover the mortgage plus about £750 extra which goes towards bills, food, booze/going out, the occasional dinner out and a little bit of a buffer to go in the savings.

Yes, it's possible to get your bills down to almost nothing by only having one bath a week and cooking over a bonfire - but I like to be warm, clean and well fed.

tek-monkey

£30pm for a couple means 50p a day for food. I'm the king of bargain food hunting but I couldna manage that!

My place costs around £450pm on top of rent, thats for all bills and services but not food.

schueys_girl

Sorry i did mean per week - that was a typo cos I am doing it at work and mind is on other things!

Don't get me wrong - we are well fed, warm and clean! Not sure if that was aimed at me! As its warm in the summer, we only have the gas to heat hot water - no heating on, and as have a decent boiler it doesnt take much gas to heat the water.

Our gas will be awful in the winter but like most i would rather be warm!!

Electric cooker uses nothing at all and we run a tv, computers, laptop, internet etc but we do remember to turn stuff off when not used.

I do not know why meters are higher - but they are and it sucks!!

So what are you on, meters? And what size is the house/flat?

tek-monkey

I wouldn't have a meter, as said they cost more per unit and they are also inconvenient. I just pay the same using direct debit every month, much easier. I have all mine timed to come out around the 4th, to ensure I've been paid but not spent it yet!

I have a 3 bed semi, but it has a flat roof and rubbish windows so costs a lot to heat.