Pensions Planning: The NUMBER

SomeMadeUpName

SomeMadeUpName said:

Going back to the 'number': I spoke to a friend the yesterday, who is an active retiree in her early seventies. She has an income of £21k a year and cannot spend it (her words, and clearly I offered to help). She says she is saving £400 pcm. Call that £5k of savings pa and as that come from taxed income she is saying she could happily cope without £6k of her gross income. So her number is £15k.

Back to the number again: Just spoken to another single lady in her late sixties and she is also reporting that she happily lives (mortgage free) on £1250pcm (£600 state pension, £650 other income). So it's back to that same £15k a year. BTW I'm not harassing all these single ladies just for the prurient interest of the MSE forum. I am attempting to work out what a singleton needs to feed back the info to my very recently widowed MinL in Spain (who is in something of a panic right now).

michaels

CFrog said:

It's a bit difficult for me to 'un-pick' our grocery spend from my credit card statements but for a family of 4 meat-eating adults, I'm looking at £1000-1100 per month.  For the last 12 months we've been having a Sainsburys home delivery which typically runs to £150-175 per week (including c. £30-50 per week on wine and the 'usual' household stuff you'd buy at the supermarket). I know it's a bit more expensive but I always buy meat from a local butcher (typically £40-50 per week).  The monthly figure includes the occasional take-away.

Feeding 5: 1kg 5% fat mince £4.75 does 2 meals.  1kg chicken thighs bone in does 1 meal £1.65,  1kg chicken breasts does 2 meals £4.95. 600g pork chops does 1 meal £3.74.  It is possible to eat meat every day for a lot less than £40-50 per week....

savingmore

This is one f my favourite threads.  I am quite surprised at the amount some are spending in supermarkets, wouldn’t know what to spend to get near £1000 a month.  Dh and i have had a budget of £250 a month for supermarket shopping, that includes toiletries, cleaning supplies, occasional cards, tv paper, flowers, alcohol.  we just reduced this to £150 this month, eating really well.  i meal plan and buy what i need, but we are not deprived.  my husband likes a beer every night and whiskey (not every night).  i drink wine, usually at weekends. would really be interested to know what others are spending money on!

jimi_man

savingmore said:

This is one f my favourite threads.  I am quite surprised at the amount some are spending in supermarkets, wouldn’t know what to spend to get near £1000 a month.  Dh and i have had a budget of £250 a month for supermarket shopping, that includes toiletries, cleaning supplies, occasional cards, tv paper, flowers, alcohol.  we just reduced this to £150 this month, eating really well.  i meal plan and buy what i need, but we are not deprived.  my husband likes a beer every night and whiskey (not every night).  i drink wine, usually at weekends. would really be interested to know what others are spending money on!

I think we’d be more interested in your breakdown. £150 a month for two is astonishing. That’s £2.50 a day per person, for breakfast, lunch dinner, any snacks, alcohol and cleaning products. Maybe there is something we are missing out on? 

Gin_and_Milk

I'm so glad this read is up and running again, it's really useful to know people's 'numbers'.
Currently I have 14 years before retirement, and DB pensions should give me £18k in today's money.  I also started paying into an sal sac AVC with the Pru, which unfortunately is turning into a nightmare (and I'm far from being the only one).  Until my complaint is resolved I'm not even prepared to increase my payment, so that small pay rise might be going somewhere else!

Sea_Shell

jimi_man said:

savingmore said:

This is one f my favourite threads.  I am quite surprised at the amount some are spending in supermarkets, wouldn’t know what to spend to get near £1000 a month.  Dh and i have had a budget of £250 a month for supermarket shopping, that includes toiletries, cleaning supplies, occasional cards, tv paper, flowers, alcohol.  we just reduced this to £150 this month, eating really well.  i meal plan and buy what i need, but we are not deprived.  my husband likes a beer every night and whiskey (not every night).  i drink wine, usually at weekends. would really be interested to know what others are spending money on!

I think we’d be more interested in your breakdown. £150 a month for two is astonishing. That’s £2.50 a day per person, for breakfast, lunch dinner, any snacks, alcohol and cleaning products. Maybe there is something we are missing out on? 

Well that is exactly what we spent in February, a straight 4 week month.     All from Aldi, no branded products.

A typical day would be, for us 2, breakfast (equiv. Weetabix or Bran flakes with milk)   Porridge if its cold!!
mid-morning snack - Yogurt or cereal bar or fruit or brioche or toast and jam 
Lunch (main meals) - Chilli Con Carne,  20% mince (drained), packet mix, plus tinned tomato and kidney beans, with brown rice (makes 4 portions to 2 go in the freezer)
or Salmon fillet with Pasta and Tomato pesto.   We also had 32 day matured sirloin steak and chips too!
Afternoon snack - Fruit or popcorn or crisps  (or all 3 on a running day....munchies)
Tea - sandwiches (seeded batch) or wraps, with either ham, chicken or cheese etc
During the day we drink tea or instant coffee, sometimes hot chocolate, or herbal tea or diet lemonade.
A "biscuit barrel" pack for with a cup of tea. (nice, custard creams bourbons and shortcake)
One bottle of wine a week, shared.  or maybe a couple of beers or cider.

Household wise, we usually put on about 4-5 washes a week (light, dark, bedding, towels), and clean every room at least once a week.    So Kitchen cleaner, bathroom cleaner, toilet gel, bleach and polish.

Toiletries are just the usual's, but again all Aldi (other than my toothpaste, as I do like OralB pro-expert)

So, there you have it...that's us, typically.     


However, although this has been a cheap month, we're nearer £210 a month usually.  Some meals would already be in the freezer etc.  Toiletries not bought every week etc.

Bravepants

My partner and I pay £1000 per month between us into our joint account. Of that we budget £100 per week for "groceries", which includes alcohol, household cleaning supplies etc. Also, we are with TSB bank and we use their "Save the Pennies" feature to squirrel away "loose change" from rounding up each debit card spend to the nearest pound. This goes into a separate account with £80 from our £1k monthly budget and covers household and car insurance, car maintenance and replacement white goods. We've run like this for years with no increases for inflation!  We have paid off our mortgage.

Here's a breakdown (Weekly, Monthly, Yearly - I hope the formatting stays in one piece when I post this!):

Food & Household	£99.23	£430.00	£5,160.00
Council Tax	£27.12	£117.50	£1,410.00
Cleaner	£0.00	£0.00	£0.00
Energy (Gas & Elec)	£23.08	£100.00	£1,200.00
Water	£7.85	£34.00	£408.00
Car Maintenance	£7.69	£33.33	£400.00
Phone and Broadband (Now TV)	£8.31	£35.99	£431.88
Road Tax	£0.58	£2.50	£30.00
Car Insurance	£4.75	£20.58	£247.00
The AA	£3.00	£13.00	£156.00
TV Licence	£3.24	£14.04	£168.48
Coal	£2.69	£11.67	£140.00
House Insurance	£2.31	£10.00	£120.00
Sky HD	£2.31	£10.00	£120.00
Mobile 4G	£2.46	£10.66	£127.92
Window Cleaner	£2.00	£8.67	£104.00
Canary Security Cameras	£1.52	£6.60	£79.20
Ring Camera (Front) Plan	£0.48	£2.08	£24.99
Heating Servicing	£0.77	£3.33	£40.00
NowTV - TV	£2.07	£8.99	£107.88
Carbonite Backup	£2.19	£9.47	£113.64
Chimney Sweep	£0.96	£4.17	£50.00
Amazon Prime	£1.84	£7.99	£95.88
Amazon Music Unlimited HD	£3.83	£16.58	£199.00
Sub Total	£210.27	£911.16	£10,933.87

We share the Amazon Music Unlimited subscription with family members. We want to get rid of the SKY HD subscription, we only use it for the terrestrial stations, but I need to find a decent Free Sat setup.

I should say that my partner does the shopping and has an eye for a bargain. She likes the ASDA and Morrisons yellow labels. We got a side of trout the other day for £2.45 instead of £11. (Freeze on day of purchase - or smoke it! ;-) )

We generally cook from scratch and freeze sauces we make etc. We generally try to never throw a scrap of food away.

AlwaysLearnin

Bravepants said:
[Snip] 

We want to get rid of the SKY HD subscription, we only use it for the terrestrial stations, but I need to find a decent Free Sat setup.

[Snip] 

@Bravepants - We were in a similar situation and went for a Humax freesat recorder and have been very happy with it. We found a 'new-open box' one locally on gumtree. We also got an accessory to plug in to it to use the cabled magic eye network that we already had set up for sky, in case relevant.  Can find names/models if you wanted more info

tigerspill

jimi_man said:

savingmore said:

This is one f my favourite threads.  I am quite surprised at the amount some are spending in supermarkets, wouldn’t know what to spend to get near £1000 a month.  Dh and i have had a budget of £250 a month for supermarket shopping, that includes toiletries, cleaning supplies, occasional cards, tv paper, flowers, alcohol.  we just reduced this to £150 this month, eating really well.  i meal plan and buy what i need, but we are not deprived.  my husband likes a beer every night and whiskey (not every night).  i drink wine, usually at weekends. would really be interested to know what others are spending money on!

I think we’d be more interested in your breakdown. £150 a month for two is astonishing. That’s £2.50 a day per person, for breakfast, lunch dinner, any snacks, alcohol and cleaning products. Maybe there is something we are missing out on? 

Indeed.
A beer each night, a bottle of wine per week and some whisky.  Thats £50/months alone.

Amateurretiree

Bravepants said:

My partner and I pay £1000 per month between us into our joint account. Of that we budget £100 per week for "groceries", which includes alcohol, household cleaning supplies etc. Also, we are with TSB bank and we use their "Save the Pennies" feature to squirrel away "loose change" from rounding up each debit card spend to the nearest pound. This goes into a separate account with £80 from our £1k monthly budget and covers household and car insurance, car maintenance and replacement white goods. We've run like this for years with no increases for inflation!  We have paid off our mortgage.

Here's a breakdown (Weekly, Monthly, Yearly - I hope the formatting stays in one piece when I post this!):

Food & Household	£99.23	£430.00	£5,160.00
Council Tax	£27.12	£117.50	£1,410.00
Cleaner	£0.00	£0.00	£0.00
Energy (Gas & Elec)	£23.08	£100.00	£1,200.00
Water	£7.85	£34.00	£408.00
Car Maintenance	£7.69	£33.33	£400.00
Phone and Broadband (Now TV)	£8.31	£35.99	£431.88
Road Tax	£0.58	£2.50	£30.00
Car Insurance	£4.75	£20.58	£247.00
The AA	£3.00	£13.00	£156.00
TV Licence	£3.24	£14.04	£168.48
Coal	£2.69	£11.67	£140.00
House Insurance	£2.31	£10.00	£120.00
Sky HD	£2.31	£10.00	£120.00
Mobile 4G	£2.46	£10.66	£127.92
Window Cleaner	£2.00	£8.67	£104.00
Canary Security Cameras	£1.52	£6.60	£79.20
Ring Camera (Front) Plan	£0.48	£2.08	£24.99
Heating Servicing	£0.77	£3.33	£40.00
NowTV - TV	£2.07	£8.99	£107.88
Carbonite Backup	£2.19	£9.47	£113.64
Chimney Sweep	£0.96	£4.17	£50.00
Amazon Prime	£1.84	£7.99	£95.88
Amazon Music Unlimited HD	£3.83	£16.58	£199.00
Sub Total	£210.27	£911.16	£10,933.87

We share the Amazon Music Unlimited subscription with family members. We want to get rid of the SKY HD subscription, we only use it for the terrestrial stations, but I need to find a decent Free Sat setup.

I should say that my partner does the shopping and has an eye for a bargain. She likes the ASDA and Morrisons yellow labels. We got a side of trout the other day for £2.45 instead of £11. (Freeze on day of purchase - or smoke it! ;-) )

We generally cook from scratch and freeze sauces we make etc. We generally try to never throw a scrap of food away.

Our number is pretty much the same as yours though we only spend about £75 on groceries every week, we don’t buy any alcohol though as neither of us drink really. Our gas/electric is pretty high, big/old house, though we don’t have a chimney sweep!

Luckily my DB pension covers this, use DHs SIPP for holidays, home improvements etc .