Completely new to all this!

Trunk_z

Hi all,

I am looking into move out of my parents house into rented accommodation with my partner (I'm 24, it's time for me to go!). However, I know nothing about the system whatsoever.

At the moment, I'm looking into whether we can afford to or not. We will have about £2500 a month total income (after tax), so I was thinking of renting somewhere for about £500 a month? Does this sound reasonable?

Bills so far that I can think of:
Water - no idea how much this would cost
Gas - no idea
Phone line - £13 a month?
Internet - About a tenner
Food - literally no idea

Are there any other costs which I may have missed? And has anyone got any estimates on how much these things may cost?

Any help would be much appreciated!
Kind regards,
Chris

go_cat

Council tax is the biggest after rent depending on band of house or flat

Plus you mentioned gas but not electricity

blunther

Water would be around £25/month, gas/leccy about £100 depending on useage. Me and the missus spend about £250/month on food.

Ones you've missed - Contents insurance is £20. TV licence another £13 or so.

£2,500 will be plenty to live on your own, put a bit aside, and enjoy your life.

Would recommend what we do - get a joint account, have all the bills and rent DD from there, and whack your money in at the start of the month. Overpay on what it actually costs, and it's your savings too. Then what you each have left in your own accounts is yours to !!!! up the wall

picklepick

I wouldn't recommend getting a joint account if one of you has a bad credit rating though. Best to keep finances seperate in that instance.

Are you going to be using a TV package? Virgin/Sky etc or stick to freeview?

hellokitty08

My take home is about 1/2 that and I rent for £450 a month and manage fine!
My council tax is £86 a month
My Water £20
Gas £20
Electricity £20
Mobile phone £26
Internet £19 including line rental
Conentens insurance was £60 for the year
TV Licence £17 I am sure its something stupid like that


You can get by spending £20 a week on food (or less) depends on how MSE you are!

motherofstudents

Don't know how you manage to spend only £20 on gas, electricity and food ! Not saying it can't be done but I don't know how you don't freeze or starve to death !

OP, you have plenty of income to manage on and save some. Just make sure all the bills are paid first, then put whatever amount you want to save into the highest interest account you can find and the rest.....have fun !

BitterAndTwisted

To test the water I would suggest that you both put away £500 a month each into savings and see if you can both manage on what you have left.

You are going to need about a couple of hundred pounds for referencing plus a month's rent as deposit and a month's rent in advance as an absolute minimum.

The big killer to any budget can be debt-repayments as on the face of it, it looks like you should be able to easily afford to rent a property at £500 a month between you but if you both have very expensive cars on finance it might not be so simple.

ladyrider260

Don't forget to add on non-household bills such as mobile phones, car/travel expenses (petrol, car tax, MOT, insurance). You'll more than manage on 2.5k a month, I know people who live on less than half than that and their rent is higher. It's all about being organised with your money.

BitterAndTwisted

It might be worth having a look at the "SOA" sticky on the Debt-Free Wannabe part of the forum which could prompt you to consider expenses which you may not be aware of at the moment.

Apart from rent and council tax some people's other major expense could be travel rather than lighting and heating.

Trunk_z

Hi,

Thanks for the replies all!

Oh, I did miss out electricity! That'd be a big one.

The £2500 was our combined income, sorry, I should have made that clearer.

I can add more detail now that I'm back from work! We are both looking to move out of our parents house, and currently have very few out goings. We drive fairly old cars (circa 1998).

It would temporary, as we would be looking at saving for a mortgage, but we (had a long discussion) felt that renting first would be a good idea, as it seemed like there are less financial commitments should anything go wrong! Because of this, we would probably be going for a 'furnished' place. Would we still need home contents insurance for this? Although from what we are saying in this thread it doesn't seem like that big a cost - the only insurance I've done is car and motorbike, they are a lot more!

We've never had a problem with anything credit related, so I'm assuming that our credit ratings are fine.

TV wise, we would probably see how we get on with Freeview - I have Netflix and am fairly happy with it (although I will miss Sky, it's just so expensive!)

£20 for food a week was what I had thought =]

A couple of hundred pounds for referencing? I've not heard of that. I have heard of needing a month's rent in advance however.

Thank you all so far for your advice! Feel free to keep it coming

Chris

BitterAndTwisted

I would say that as neither if you have had to house-keep before that £20 a week each would be very optimistic. As you're both living with parents at the moment it would be sensible to ask them what their average spend is per prson per month as they are the ones who have been doing it for decades.

The cost of referencing and holding-deposits can very hugely, so I think it would be wise to budget for at least £100 each.