my SOA - is this viable?

pavlovs_dog

right, i know what im technically about to post should be on the budgeting board, but the DFWs are so good at this sort of thing i'd appreciate if the board guides would let it run its course here before moving it :beer:

bit of background for you: Oh and i have been together 2 and a half years. we currently live with his parents whilst we save for a house deposit, but things are getting a bit claustrophobic and we're contemplating moving out over the summer (has to be over the summer so it doesnt interfere with my uni work).

ive been researching how much it all costs to see whether it is financially viable for us to move out. whilst it will be great to have our own place, it will be considerably more expensive than what we currently pay out :eek: and i dont want to do it if it means our savings will really suffer - i'd rather put up and save up

anyhoo, here come the figures (figures based on a nice property ive seen for the money in the local area). all figures are per month.



INCOME

Me – wages £400
-student loan £4482 (£373.50 pcm)
-HE grant £1500 (£125 pcm)

OH – wages £640

Total income =£1040 per month (or £1538.5 including student loan money)


Projected outgoings

Rent £430
Council Tax £100 (speculation, pretty confident ive over estimated on this)
Contents insurance £17 (based on some rough numbers tapped into direct line. dont know if this is a competitive quote? we would only need contents ins if renting, im guessing?)

Electric £30 (all 3 of these purely speculative - have i underestimated?)
Gas £30
Water £30

Food £120 (based on what we currently spend - we're foodies - can and would be cut down a bit, as would have to include cleaning materials, all lunches etc etc)

Phone/broadband/tv £30 (just a figure pulled from ntl. dont know how competitive this is? )
Tv license £131.50 (£11 pcm) would be paid in full annually, so just put the money by each month for next year
Mobile phone £20 +£5 (£20 is OHs monthly contract. im on PAYG, and £10 could last me 3 months :rotfl: would we need landline and mobiles? )

Car insurance £417.90 = £35pcm again paid in full to avoid paying any extra. £35 would be saved towards paying in full each year. cover =both of us on 3rd party, F&T)
Car tax £120=£12
Mot£30= £3
Savings for ongoing repairs/maintenance £20 (bro & FIL are both mechanics. we have a ford fiesta so parts and cheap and readily available on ebay for the most part. touchwood, we've never had to use this yet)


outgoings = (based on income from wages alone) = £893 (leaving a surplus of £147)

and then more costs i havent yet factored in, such as :

Health insurance vs opticians/dentists fees
Savings
Christmas/birthdays

as you can see from my sig, im not doing too bad on the savings front, considering im a student. by the summer, we would easily have £5000 available to furnish the place (which should more thna cover it ) which i would be willing to use the furniture and decorating fund for.

in savings, we have £20k between put by for the house, which i wouldnt want to touch. ideally, i wouldnt want to use my student loan/grant money if at all possible - this is predominantly what im using to bulk out the house deposit fund.


i really appreciate any comments and ideas on whether the figures are realistic, is what i've proposed viable, would we be able to cope with rises in utility bills, are there any costs i've forgotten?


pavlov

lynzpower

hio pavlov

Yes, the contents insurance would be lower, Ive seen people get it for about 6 a month. shop around

My feeling is couldnt you rent somewhere furnished, so you dont have to shell out your savings?

pavlovs_dog

well from the research ive done it is cheaper to rent unfurnished, and we'd have to buy furniture eventually. i have mixed feelings about it :think:

thanks for confirming my suspicions re the contents insurance :beer:

mh1923

You won't know if you can get by on mobiles alone until you try and get a signal in your new flat. Mine is a basement flat, and I get very little signal. I'd never try to do without a landline here.

CLAPTON

a very very good start.
just a few comments/suggestion.

firstly do add those costs for xmas/birthday presents just as you have included the costs for car insurance etc. (i.e. work out the full cost and divide by 12 and save that amount each month so you have the money when you need it)
similar add the costs for health/dental/optical
also consider how much you spend on socialising, any holidays /weekends away , any newspapers/magazine, haircuts, clothes, hobbies, sports
food at 120 for two seems very good to me , are you sure this is all you spend including lunches etc?

poorbutrich

pavlovs_dog wrote:

well from the research ive done it is cheaper to rent unfurnished, and we'd have to buy furniture eventually. i have mixed feelings about it :think: QUOTE]

If you're anything like me, and not too proud, you'll find some fantastic furniture on Freecycle! It's amazing what people offer!

efrieze

One thing about furnishing a rented flat is that you then have to get big vans/trucks to move your stuff when you move on. The advantage of renting for me was always that you coudl load up your own car (sometimes several times) to move hosue and didn't have to incur the cost of a removal van. I would always rent a place furnished as the difference in cost is not that high and you don't know what furnishings you will need/want in your bought home in the future.

pavlovs_dog

mh1923 wrote:

You won't know if you can get by on mobiles alone until you try and get a signal in your new flat. Mine is a basement flat, and I get very little signal. I'd never try to do without a landline here.

a very fair point, i hadnt thought of that! i had that problem in halls, and got used to not using my mobile..which is why £10 of credit can now last me three months :rotfl:

CLAPTON wrote:

firstly do add those costs for xmas/birthday presents just as you have included the costs for car insurance etc. (i.e. work out the full cost and divide by 12 and save that amount each month so you have the money when you need it)
similar add the costs for health/dental/optical
also consider how much you spend on socialising, any holidays /weekends away , any newspapers/magazine, haircuts, clothes, hobbies, sports
food at 120 for two seems very good to me , are you sure this is all you spend including lunches etc?

re the cost of prezzies - im quite generous so im scared to try and put a figure on how much i must spend. this is one area that would have to be scaled downed.

health costs. i wear specs, normally get about 2 years wear from each prescription. works out around £100 a pop, sometimes more if i need prescription sunglesses too. oh and i will both need dental work at some point. might be cheaper to look into the cost of health iinsurance?

fun stuff - well we'd pay ourselves 'pocket money' using a proportion of the money left over. this would have to cover newspapers/mags (only bought infrequently), OH's dvd obsession, my gym fees etc.

holidays and trips would have to be budgeted and saved for, as they always have been

lunches - eating out is a bit of a shared vice, but if its coming out of our pocket money im guessing it would be cut back im normally quite disciplined about taking lunch to work and uni anyway.

pavlovs_dog

some good points about furnished vs unfurnished flats for me to mull over. and no, i wouldnt be too pround to accept freecycle stuff, or hunt bootsales for bargains


ive just realised i'd forgotten to include petrol... which bumps things up considerably. i need to actually start monitoring how much we spend on petrol to get an acccurate figure.

i can get a £5 return to get to uni and back (a 90 mile round trip several times a week, which inflates our petrol spend considerably :eek: ), so i may have to make the effort to get up earlier and catch the coach

Timmne

What does your OH do for a job? £640 is a low wage; does this mean he does less hours and thus could get a second job?

I hope as a student you've (carefully!) maxed out your interest free OD and invested it in a good savings account? That could be making you another fiver a month in interest? (OK it's not a lot but could cover your mobile use)

In my opinion, you really shouldn't move out if you're a student unless it's absolutely necessary. My GF and I moved in while she was in her summer break between 2nd and final year, and we've been through some really tight (see my signature!) periods with cash. Remember you don't want to be working when you have your finals on - that's 2 months wages down the drain already.

Your Council tax will however be discounted by 25% as you're a full time student (i.e. not actually a person in the council's eyes!! ) Ours is £107 a month at full rate in a 2 bed apt in Leicester City centre worth £150k, just so you know for a very loose comparison!

Do you really want to be insuring your car on TPFT? If this is your only car, irrelevant of it's value, you should have it on fully comp IMO, as it's a car however much it's worth - if you crash it and don't have the money to replace it you're down a brown smelly creek without a paddle.

As mentioned above, your food budget can, but probably won't be cut down any further. ~£30 per week is already quite tight... what if you need some washing machine liquid, a new mop and other bits on top of your usual shop? Bit OTT I guess but worth considering...

pavlovs_dog

Timmne wrote:

What does your OH do for a job? £640 is a low wage; does this mean he does less hours and thus could get a second job?

640 is his absolute bare basic. its normally more than this because he works what our company deems to be antisocial hours. i figured it made more sense to work out if we could afford it on the money he definately *will* have, rather than money that he *might* have. trouble with the nature of our jobs (we both work for argos) is that its the overtime which makes the job worthwhile, but this is strictly dependant on how busy the company is. christmas we rake it in, spring is slow, summer is busy again, and so on

a second job - feasable i suppose, but he's quite shy so im not sure how comfy he would be with the idea. a definite possibility if we fell on hard times

I hope as a student you've (carefully!) maxed out your interest free OD and invested it in a good savings account? That could be making you another fiver a month in interest? (OK it's not a lot but could cover your mobile use)

believe it or not, i have never once touched my overdraft. i dont intend to either. its my safety blanket for if times get really bad (all £1250 of it). was hoping that a clean record sheet would also aid with the getting of a mortgage when the time comes


In my opinion, you really shouldn't move out if you're a student unless it's absolutely necessary. My GF and I moved in while she was in her summer break between 2nd and final year, and we've been through some really tight (see my signature!) periods with cash. Remember you don't want to be working when you have your finals on - that's 2 months wages down the drain already.

i only work weekends, and fully aim to plan my holiday entitlement around my finals, so not too worried about that. as for moving out.. yes, it will stretch the budget, bu the questing im asking at the moment is what price do i put on my sanity? im not sure if this is the right environment for me to be in during the pressure of my final year.

Your Council tax will however be discounted by 25% as you're a full time student (i.e. not actually a person in the council's eyes!! ) Ours is £107 a month at full rate in a 2 bed apt in Leicester City centre worth £150k, just so you know for a very loose comparison!

i was aware of this, but hadnt included it in the figures, as the council website doesnt make it very clear what our tax band would be. better to over estimate than under


Do you really want to be insuring your car on TPFT? If this is your only car, irrelevant of it's value, you should have it on fully comp IMO, as it's a car however much it's worth - if you crash it and don't have the money to replace it you're down a brown smelly creek without a paddle.

its a 11/12 year old ford fiesta. a cheap little run around which has incurred various degress of damage. its cheap and cheerful to run and maintain. we hope to run it into the ground before replacing it. this is one area where we would willingly dip into the savings if need be. we'd get a fab little car for £1K- £2k


As mentioned above, your food budget can, but probably won't be cut down any further. ~£30 per week is already quite tight... what if you need some washing machine liquid, a new mop and other bits on top of your usual shop? Bit OTT I guess but worth considering...

fair beans, will take into consideration. but im an OSer - you'd be amazed what we can achieve

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