Living Alone: Average Costs and Social Tariffs Questions

uv_goth

I live in East London and I'm unemployed currently. Looks like I need to move out but shared accommodation housing benefit+JSA would barely pay my bills, let alone food, etc so other option is to live alone and get council tax and rent paid for in total. I'd love it if people could give me some average costs for bills for 1-bed/studio to use in my calculation, as no-one I know lives alone. Or a site that could help work out cost/usage would be good too! I've been told water/gas/electric providers often have "social tariffs" to help those of us who are unemployed, etc. Does anyone know of any?

Fire_Fox

It's a lot more expensive to live alone compared with living in shared accommodation as you will have all the TV license and all the phone line rental/ internet to cover, not half or a third. Jobseekers Allowance is only meant to 'barely pay your bills', tiding you over until you find employment. It is however possible to live comfortably on as long as you don't expect to have new clothes, the latest phone or run a car.

Social tariffs are often not the cheapest tariff, the only way you will be able to afford to live alone is to be very frugal with your heating and hot water - not use the heating unless it is literally freezing outside, wash instead of shower etc.

KimYeovil

The advantage of living alone is you can be as frugal as you like. If you live in an insulated tenement or high-rise you can limit your use of the central heating to a few days (literally) per year. This varies with the climate. The advantage of living in a flat share is your bills are higher but you are toasty as everyone abuses the heating (but it is a lot less than keeping a single person's flat to that temperature.)

Unfortunately unless you have children or the social have harassed you into pretending you are disabled (less hassle for them having sick clients than unemployed clients) you will not receive a social tariff - the sick thing is if you are too poor to put the heating on you will not use enough power to qualify. Having said that I do believe British Gas Essentials is one of the few social tariffs that is available to anyone claiming unemployment benefits.

Of course, not qualifying for a social tariff is irrelevant - the best direct debit online tariffs are as cheap. EDF's Online 5 is a good tariff just now - the great advantage is that it is suitable for low to medium users (not just national average users) so while you are finding out how efficient/inefficient your new digs are you will have a decent price for a range of consumption. If it is available in your area I would suggest that would be an excellent starting tariff (don't be fooled by the three or four other tariffs that pip them on the charts - that is just for national average consumption and lower useage is much more expensive.)

It really is impossible to give a figure as the less you use the more chaotic will be the variance when you do kick on the power - you will be paying anything from £300 per year to £9000 per year!

KimYeovil

(Uh, I meant "£300 to £900 per year". )

property.advert

I live in East London and I'm unemployed currently. Looks like I need to move out but shared accommodation housing benefit+JSA would barely pay my bills, let alone food, etc so other option is to live alone and get council tax and rent paid for in total. I'd love it if people could give me some average costs for bills for 1-bed/studio to use in my calculation, as no-one I know lives alone. Or a site that could help work out cost/usage would be good too! I've been told water/gas/electric providers often have "social tariffs" to help those of us who are unemployed, etc. Does anyone know of any?

I feel for the OP. I'm a single parent with my child and that qualifies me for a LHA on a 2 bed property which is fine. If you are single, then your age comes into it and you only qualify for a 1 bed place.

What the OP has to do is find his LHA and get a place which is at least £15 a week cheaper as he will be given the extra £15 a week or £65 a month. Essentially, he will "profit" from getting his rent paid. Please send me a message for more details or help as I've just gone through nearly the whole benefits system.

My electric bill of hot water and heating (no gas) would be the same save for a couple of percentage points whether I lived alone, had a partner or had two of us and a couple of kids. The problem is that with kids you get so many (probably too many) benefits and without kids, you don't get enough when unemployed to pay the bills. I reckon my electric and water come to £25 a week, winter may prove this to be more, but if all you are getting is £64.30, that leaves you only £40. With one child, your income balloons up to £64.30+£54.31+£20=£138.61 and your costs go up by zero for heating and water and even nappies, clothes and all nice things for the baby probably only cost £30 a week. So instead of £40 a week for food and things, you have £110 or so. It is a massive difference.

If you are single without kids, then unemployment is not an option. 25 years ago it was the same, your giro came once a fortnight and you had enough for that weekend and then you were skint for 10 days. There was never enough to replace anything.