my SOA - is this viable?

*zippy*

Think your estimate for council tax is about right. Not sure where in Wales you are, bands below are for Bridgend.


Council tax bands
Your property has been placed in one of 9 valuation bands based on its open market capital value as at 1st April 2003. The bands are:


Valuation

Band Range of Values

(As at 1st April 2003)

A Up to £44,000

B £44,001 and up to £65,000

C £65,001 and up to £91,000

D £91,001 and up to £123,000

E £123,001 and up to £162,000

F £162,001 and up to £223,000

G £223,001 and up to £324,000

H £324,001 up to £424,000

I £424,001 and above


Community Band Cost

Bridgend Town Council
A=£702.85
B=£820.00
C=£937.13
D=£1054.28
E=£1288.56
F=£1522.86
G=£1757.13
H=£2108.56
I=£2459.99

Yorkielass

Blimey I don't envy those 90 mile round trips to University, I always thought my 20 minutes walk was bad enough! At the Uni I went to students weren't allowed to live that far away (think 30 was the absolute limit) must add to the petrol a fair bit.

Glad you know about the council tax discount. Makes a real difference to us (OH is doing a PhD) the flat we lived in (before we bought our house) was pretty new and the council tax banding was high for what it was - wish we'd of appealed but there you go - we paid £88 a month after discount so I'm sure £100 will be fine - but you're right always better to be over cautious. You often get a couple of months off as well so our's actually worked out at £73 a month split over 12 months.

Don't forget you need a landline for broadband. We hardly use ours for calls (well a couple a week to parents) total bill for calls is never more than 50p.

Agree that you could get contents a lot cheaper. If you do go for furnished you just need possessions insurance but I found that hard to get when I was a student.

pavlovs_dog

its an hour each way, so its not too bad. my personal tutor did try to talk me out of it, but i wasnt happy living in the city where im studying.

re the phoneline business - i know we'd need a fixed line for net access, but not sure if we would need/want the line for phone calls as well. will have to investigate the various costings involved in the great landline vs mobile contest.

thanks to all for the advice. its especially helpful to have had some input from fellow students - i love this site :j

pavlovs_dog

shameless bump

anyone have any thoughts on whether the figures for water, gas and leccy are reasonable, or whether they need changing? 3 things ive never had to pay for before, so dont know what to expect

tobedifferent

Regarding the phone debate if you have to have a phoneline to get net access you therefore have to pay line rental. For calls that are cheaper to use the landline for (which is almost all) it would be silly to use the mobile. If you sign up to Primus Talksaver (via quidco and Uswitch for cashback) and your evening and weekend calls to other landlines locally and nationally are free!

For the utilities its hard to be sure, especially as you have never paid before and don't have any idea about what your normal useage costs. If your water is rated its almost certainly a lot lower than that, metered and it could be a lot higher if you like lots of baths, leave taps running etc. Same for gas and electric, careful useage and the cheapest supplier is the way forward. I live in a large 1 bed flat BF round 4-5 times per week (he contibutes). My water is £10.36 for 10 months of the year, Lecci £20-£22 per month and gas averages at £25. But I only have a shower and no washing machine - a bath and i'd be in there everynight and gas and water would go right up.

tobedifferent

Also my flat is not well insulated (but the very low rent makes up for this) and my appliances are quite old and not as cost effective. My last flat was pricier but swish and whilst the utilities were cheaper the rent outweighed that. This is something you need to look at and weigh up - along with your contents and car insurance, check out a few places and get quotes. Contents insurance was lower at my old place due to all the security features but my car insurance was dramatically higher.

Be very careful with your car insurance. The worst was when I moved a short way away to a different postcode area, my car insurance jumped by nearly 5x the previous quote for my old address, it took half a day before I got that quote down to more than double my original plan. Its unexpected things like this that can completely throw your budget and as they are often not thought of they hit you harder than anything else.

chivers1977

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

Try VOA.gov.uk or org.uk can't remember sorry. you could actually put in the house address and it will tell you exactly which band the property is in and then you can go to the council website to find out the cost.

I would say that your utility costs are too high for estimates. We are two adults plus toddler. One careful with lights/water etc and one that doesn't care! Ours are £45 for gas and electricity together. It is a £15/30 split but don't know which way round sorry. Our water on a meter in a 2 bd flat was £27 which it jumped to after having our son (more washing/ more baths/ Dishwasher on more for bottles) and now in a 3 bd house on rates is £21.

I also would not move yet. Noone can prepare you for the actual costs when washing powder/ loo rolls etc are actually having to be paid for out of your own money. You are doing so well with your savings, I would try and grin and bear it and make use of the hospitality (or not!)

tryhard_2

hi
look at petrol costs as not in your budget.

pavlovs_dog

thanks again to all for your comments and advice :beer:

just to pick up on some of the points that have been raised:

utilities - i'd rather over-estimate and find we have surplus money in the budget, than to underestimate and find out we cant afford things. not to mention the fact that i wouldnt be surprised if there are more price hikes now that inflation has gone up again. cant grumble, when im saving though....


car insurance - based on the property and location i used as the basis for my other figures, the car insurance should either stay the same or decrease, as they are actually 'better' postcodes than the one we are currently in but this is something i hadnt considered, so thank you for bringing it to my attention.


petrol costs - mentioned in post 9. are currently artificially high because of all the trips to uni. if we did move out i'd make more of an effort to take the coach, which at £5 return works out considerably cheaper than going by car.



at the moment, my feelings fluctuate by the hour as to whether i want to stay or spread my wings. im not going anywhere until the summer at the earliest, which gives me time to make my mind up one way or the other. its just reassuring to know that the budget is realistic and it is do-able without too many drastic lifestyle changes. in the mean time, we'll keep working on making things easier - by the summer, we may have firmly decided we want to stay put. at least i know that if we have/need/want to move out, we can :j

efrieze

Just another thought - you said you get a new pair of glasses every 2 years and costs around £100 each time. Every tried https://www.glassesdirect.co.uk or other online glasses shops. Got mine for £15 and they are very good. I would recommend that if your prescription is fairly standard.