A little potential budgeting help please!

Raquela

Hi guys,

I wonder if I could ask for a bit of budgetary help. As you may remember (but probably not!), people on here were a great help a while ago, and eventually I contacted the CCCS, and with their help, I arranged my own DMP with Cahoot. As you can see from my sig, I am slowly making inroads (despite being a full time student!).

Ok, here's the situation. I am currently studying abroad (trying to keep to a budget, but still haven't got to grips with how much stuff costs here... will work on!), but when I return next year, due to a personal family situation, I will need to get my own place. I could share (but would rather not), but if I do, it needs to be a big enough place to hold all my stuff (a one bedroomed flat would be ok), and if I did share it would need to be another student to keep council tax exemption. Where I study, I have figured out it is probably as cheap to get my own place, and nigh impossible to find somewhere unfurnished that I could rent with another student (to add on to this the difficulties in finding a student to rent with who wants somewhere unfurnished). I have contacted the council local to where I'd be living, but no answer :-(.

So, basically, I need to work out a potential budget so I know how much I can afford in rent. This is where you (hopefully!) come in. Is there anyone here who could give me some indicators as to how much I could expect to budget for water/gas/electricity? Is it better to get a place with gas and electric or one or the other? Obviously I will have to go with what's available when I get there, but there may be different options available. Also, rough estimates of contents insurance (I would estimate value of $5000-$6000?), or the best place to get this when it's all just hypothetical?

Apologies if this all sounds a bit contrived, and I know that it's several months away (May!), but I need to get a handle on this now in order that I can work out what to do and the best way to do it. It looks like my stuff will be put in storage from about February onwards, so I will want to get it out as quickly as possible once I return, especially if I wind up paying for the storage costs.

Thanks to anyone able to offer hypothetical figures!

Rache

PS It may be I need to adjust my DMP for a year, anyone successfully done this?

Raquela

bumping cos no one has replied, but more because I was just checking online and my student loan / grant has come in, so I've paid off my Mastercard, and updated sig! I also chucked £1000 of my loan into my ISA, as I've got a full student overdraft and might as well make some money off it! (got about 30 quid by doign this last year).

So any takers on my budget question? or shall I ask a shortened version elsewhere in the forum?!

freda

It is difficult to answer your question, as everything has so many variables.

For example, gas and elec:

It is much more expensive to get somewhere that only has elec - avoid places heated by storage heaters like the plague!

It depends on your tolerance levels for only heating to the min in the winter, and what priorities you place on having a warm house in your budget. Also, if you are sharing, it is harder to keep these bills down as it is rare that you find a MSE type flatmate! Although if you are sharing, you can have a warm house for half the price!

Also, how much you cook at home, and your method of cooking, and whether you have gas or elec oven.

FWIW we pay £40 pcm for gas + elec, for a 2.5 bed semi, 2 adults, don't mind wrapping up a bit in the winter and don't heat the whole house, just the living area.

For rent:

It depends where in the country you are living.

It depends if you are able to get cheap student accomodation.

It may be cheaper to live as a lodger rather than to rent your own place, with fixed bills etc.

For water:

It will be a fixed cost if you are paying rates (not Scotland), you should be able to find out the cost from the council

It will depend on your water useage, and that of your flatmates, if you are on a meter. Also on whether you have a powershower, whether you take baths or showers, whether you have a garden to water etc as well.

FWIW, we pay £25 pcm metered water for 2 adults, bath and shower most days and a garden to water.



Overall, I'd have a look at lots of SOA's on the DFW board for some indication of costs, you'll soon get a general gist of what is considered 'average' and be able to relate it to your prospective sitiuation. Re the rent, contact the universtiy you'll be studying at, and ask their advice re. average costs.

Raquela

freda wrote:

It is difficult to answer your question, as everything has so many variables.

For example, gas and elec:

It is much more expensive to get somewhere that only has elec - avoid places heated by storage heaters like the plague!

It depends on your tolerance levels for only heating to the min in the winter, and what priorities you place on having a warm house in your budget. Also, if you are sharing, it is harder to keep these bills down as it is rare that you find a MSE type flatmate! Although if you are sharing, you can have a warm house for half the price!

Also, how much you cook at home, and your method of cooking, and whether you have gas or elec oven.

FWIW we pay £40 pcm for gas + elec, for a 2.5 bed semi, 2 adults, don't mind wrapping up a bit in the winter and don't heat the whole house, just the living area.

For rent:

It depends where in the country you are living.

It depends if you are able to get cheap student accomodation.

It may be cheaper to live as a lodger rather than to rent your own place, with fixed bills etc.

For water:

It will be a fixed cost if you are paying rates (not Scotland), you should be able to find out the cost from the council

It will depend on your water useage, and that of your flatmates, if you are on a meter. Also on whether you have a powershower, whether you take baths or showers, whether you have a garden to water etc as well.

FWIW, we pay £25 pcm metered water for 2 adults, bath and shower most days and a garden to water.



Overall, I'd have a look at lots of SOA's on the DFW board for some indication of costs, you'll soon get a general gist of what is considered 'average' and be able to relate it to your prospective sitiuation. Re the rent, contact the universtiy you'll be studying at, and ask their advice re. average costs.

yes, totally understand on the sharing thing... I had that problem last year; numerous lights on, all the computers in the house on, the heating on too often (like overnight.. I'd wake up sweltering because some *%"£ had left it on then gone to bed!!).

Re water, I wouldn't have a garden, but would have shower every day, and bath once a week or so. I will look at the council for where I would most likely be living and see what it says! thanks, hadn't thought of that.

Elec / Gas - storage heaters... definitely won't do! My sister has told me horror stories! If I can get somewhere double glazed etc then would only need the heating on in winter really, but would budget year round for that cost. If it's a one bedroomed flat, I'm hoping it wouldn't cost that much to heat when necessary.

Rent.. I know this for my area, student housing is really out because it's not 52 week let and it's always furnished for that reason lodging is also out. So for private, I know I can get a studio for min 250 month. but I need more than that so my aim of this exercise is to see the max I can rent for.

I have been looking at SOA's but most peoples seems to be for families or couples in bigger places. guess it's difficult to know!

Raquela

PS interesting to note... private renting for some studios is less than what the student rental prices are for living in a shared house (I'm at Nottingham Uni). Nottingham student rents are astronomical compared to say Brum Uni! And I contacted the Uni's support department for specific advice on my situation? No.help.at.all. Gah!! I think I'll contact the mature student association and see if anyone's been in a similar circumstance.

freda

You may get more responses if you actually draw up a projected SOA and post it on the boards, with an explanation of any high/low costs and any questions at the bottom. This way, you can check that you've not missed anything out or dramatically over/under estimated anything.

Raquela

thanks, I will do that at some point. Unfortunately I can't do it yet because I don't know what my income will be (loan / grant amounts haven't been announced yet so I'm having to work on last years figures) nor whether I'll be able to work over the summer (although can't see there would be any problem with that provided I can find somewhere to live!), hence this rather backward way of doing things for now! It's a bit scary, because if I try and estimate the figures basically say "you can't afford to live, let alone pay your debt off at the same time" because you can't really include hypothetical money earned! Ah well, I've managed until now, I can carry on managing!

haven't been able to find a job here yet though. the terms of my visa are very strict, so I think that campus employers are just not interested. Oh well, more time for studying I suppose!

Thanks for all your help!