Can we afford to rent?

mildredalien

Would you have any additional income while living together? Working tax credits? Can you get a part time job?

Personally I've rented since I was 18 and much preferred spending money on rent and being independent to having to live with my parents! Plus you are actually paying for somewhere to live so it's not actually throwing money away. Could you consider a houseshare where you both rent rooms in a bigger house together? Or rent a larger house but find an additional lodger? (That would have to be agreed with the landlord though, subletting usually isn't allowed).

It might be a good idea to complete a budget - you can use this template to figure out expenses: http://www.stoozing.com/msoc/soacalc.php

Rents vary wildly so look at 1-2 bed places in your proposed areas on rightmove or somewhere similar to get a decent gauge. Then you can make estimates for bills. You can look up online average utility prices for different sized houses, and check prices for things like landlines, TV /internet packages, weekly grocery spends, how much you might have to spend on travel etc. Shouldn't be too hard to get a rough estimate together!