My Budget - What Can Be Improved?

sharloid

House
285 - Mortgage
70 - Buildings & life insurance
95 - Council tax

Car
80 - Insurance
2.5 - Road tax
? - MOT/Service
50 - Petrol
175 - Car finance

Personal
10 - Clothes
25 - Eating out/treats
5 - Toiletries

Communications
10 - Internet
10 - Rob's phone
7.5 - Char's credit
13 - Home phone
12 - TV License
5 - Xbox live

Utilities
28 - Electricity
42 - Gas
40 - Water

Groceries
50 - Food
15 - Bunnies

Total for the month is £1030 which works out at £12,178.50 a year.

I'm not too sure about our exact spend on gas as we've only had the heating since October so I persume it'll be a lot less in the warmer months.

Anyway, this is for two adults. We bring in a total of £1600 a month or just over £19k a year combined. Is there anything that looks particularly high?

Thanks for the input!
Charlotte

CLAPTON

first thing is it really like that... do you actually have 570 spare per month?

but
80 for car insurance is rather high... are you a new driver or what?

food at 50 per month for two.... that's far too low
25 for eat out/trats doesn't seem a lot either

try keeping spending diaries for a month or so ..i.e. write down absolutely everything you both spend and see what the result is.

SKJ28

Chances are your car finance would be higher than a normal loan.

I saved about £45 per month by changing to a normal loan instead of the finance that the dealership set up.

Also car insurance: Check confused.com and moneysupermarket.com for cheaper deals.

Hope this helps.

sharloid

It's my partner's car, he's 24 with a few years no claims but i'll check to see if we can get this down. As for food, i've been tracking that for a few months and that's overbudgeted!

We're currently decorating our first house, surely but surely, so we don't see the £500 odd left as most of this is going to wallpaper/furniture and the like.

The OH expressed an interest at paying off the car loan in full, but we're unsure if this will save much money to be worth having to pay out a lump sum.

Thanks.

daveyjp

Building and life insurance are worth shopping around for. £70 seems high.