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Can I afford my own place?
Comments
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TV licence will be as the OP stated at the outset. You pay the first year's licence in six months. Then, after 6 months, you start paying it over the 12 months @ £12 per month.0
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NHS jobs are relatively safe, partly because the redundancy package is actually quite generous and hence it costs less to simply redeploy staff to other jobs. The NHS waste an awful lot of money... Just not on the front line staff.
You've got a similar income to me, so I assume you're somewhere between bands 2-5?
Your estimates look fairly accurate.. However a word of warning I rented a place at £650 a month, council tax £117 a month. And thanks to a couple of other relatively modest debts at the time I had very little money (if any) left each month. I hardly ever socialise and my grocery budget was actually really rather small.
Having no money most of the time sucks. I ended up moving back to my parents so I could pay off my debts and save up for a mortgage deposit.
Staying at your parents for a couple more years could give you the opportunity to buy instead of rent.
I'd say 4-5 if out of London as he gets 17,400 a year after tax.0 -
Indeed, I suspect they're a qualified nurse.
I included band 2 in my question because I myself am on the top of band 2, plus with unsocial enhancements and secure lead end up taking a similar amount home.:www: Progress Report :www:
Offer accepted: £107'000
Deposit: £23'000
Mortgage approved for: £84'000
Exchanged: 2/3/16
:T ... complete on 9/3/16 ... :T0 -
Hi OP - Try filling out a Statement of Affairs with your projected figures, then post it on here and others can advise if you are over or under estimating.......
http://www.stoozing.com/msoc/soacalc.php0 -
it sounds like you've planned everything out pretty well, however like someone has already mentioned, I wouldn't regard the full £569 as spare money for food etc. You will constantly encounter extra costs over time especially once you get a car (petrol is expensive!)0
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So, before you buy the car, you will have around £130 a week left to cover things like food, social expenses, haircuts, dentist, clothes, gifts and so forth.
And after you buy the car, perhaps £60 to £80 per week for all those expenses by the time you've made deductions for petrol, repairs, tax, insurance and so on? I take it you've got the funds now to buy the car in cash?
Not much wiggle room, is there? How were you planning to save for a deposit to buy your own place when your actual remaining disposable income after the car barely covers your groceries and leaves you with no social life?
Could be possible by cutting costs? OH and I tightened our belts to save for a place and have continued that to overpay the mortgage. Our spending budget is £100 a month, i.e. £25 a week. We still manage social nights out, clothes, gifts, etc. but we have to budget for them and save. So we don't go out every week, buy new clothes every month, go to the most fashionable hairdressers around, etc. We mealplan, bulkbuy, cook from scratch, etc. to lower the food bill (at our strictest, we could feed the pair of us for £60 a month and that included some household stuff like toilet rolls, cleaning products, etc.)
As a 21 year old I was not interested in going clubbing every week, I liked clothes but was happy to go for Ebay stuff (often new, with careful bidding I could get real bargains), I didn't waste petrol by driving friends around, etc., OP sounds fairly sensible, so could budget for savings.0 -
Have you thought about furnishing the place as well ? That will quickly add to your costs, even if just buying the basics - bed, chest of drawers and some sort of seating. A few unexpected surprises - birthday present to buy, dentists appointment, meal out can soon eat up that surplus.
Whilst a house share may not be your first choice sometimes it's the most reasonable. I didn't rent my own place until I was 26. It is lovely to have your own place, but you do need to be realistic. Chat to friends and see if you can perhaps rent somewhere together? Then at least you'll know your housemates."Does it spark joy?" - Marie Kondo
"Do not wait; the time will never be "just right." Start where you stand, and work with whatever tools you may have at your command, and better tools will be found as you go along." Napoleon Hill0 -
Could be possible by cutting costs? OH and I tightened our belts to save for a place and have continued that to overpay the mortgage. Our spending budget is £100 a month, i.e. £25 a week. We still manage social nights out, clothes, gifts, etc. but we have to budget for them and save. So we don't go out every week, buy new clothes every month, go to the most fashionable hairdressers around, etc. We mealplan, bulkbuy, cook from scratch, etc. to lower the food bill (at our strictest, we could feed the pair of us for £60 a month and that included some household stuff like toilet rolls, cleaning products, etc.)
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Yes, it's quite possible that the OP can manage to live quite happily on what appears to be a tiny disposable income after all his essential house and transport costs, including food, are taken into account.
That's if the OP has the bent and skills to live a no-thrills, ultra thrifty life full of cutting their own hair, wearing clothes from Primark and charity shops, getting essentials from freecycle, has the time/inclination to cook cheap recipes from scratch, bring their own lunch and coffee into work rather than grabbing them from starbucks or the canteen and so on, turning down expensive social events like stag/hen weekends away and so on.
However, the OP would probably halve or more the household expenses in a flat share since the rent would probably be much less and all other bills would be shared with others. Perhaps when the full number crunching has taken place, they might see they need to postpone having their own place until he/she meets the partner of their dreams or gets promoted. After all, their assumption that they can save towards a house deposit is very wrong - they have no income left over to put into a savings plan other than a peppercorn one.
It's a very optimistic scenario in terms of spending - it only takes one or two unexpected expenses to push them into debt, such as a big dentist bill or car repair. It also assumes that a future or current partner is happy to have a limited out of house social life and no weekends away or holidays.
To the OP - this website has a budget planner - download this as it will prompt you for expenses that you've forgotten. Be realistic about pricing your luxuries.0 -
NHS jobs are relatively safe, partly because the redundancy package is actually quite generous and hence it costs less to simply redeploy staff to other jobs....
They probably are relatively safe but in the same way that I want the OP to be a bit more pessimistic about his actual spending rather than his estimated budget and build in some miscellaneous expenses/contingency, I would like them to consider the risks that come with having an expensive tenancy if they lose their job or suffer a drop in income.
I'm not talking just the low likelihood of redundancy but what happens if they are long-term sick and just get SSP, for example.
A tenant under the age of 35 is only entitled to a Local Housing Allowance rate (Housing Benefit) for a room in a shared property. Anything above the LHA rate for a shared property is something that the HB claimant has to fund themselves.
The OP will never get anywhere close to the LHA limit (which they can find on their local council website) so how will they make the rent? Tenancies are either fixed term (with no obligation for the landlord to accept a request to terminate it early) or are periodic, which requires the tenant to give 2 months notice to the landlord with the expiry of it to coincide with the rental period (so this could be up to nearly 3 months rent).
Again, this is another potential risk where the OP will be catapulted into debt.0 -
Indeed, I suspect they're a qualified nurse.
I included band 2 in my question because I myself am on the top of band 2, plus with unsocial enhancements and secure lead end up taking a similar amount home.
Without London Weighing? Top of band 2 is slightly less then what he takes home after tax. I take home less than that and have London weighing (around £4k) + unsocial but then again I should be band 3 and they haven't sorted it out yet.0
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