Another one of those 'how expensive is it to live alone' threads

ThisIsMyUsername_2

Hey guys, I'm looking to start living on my own for the first time, so at the moment I'm just trying to work out a monthly budget to figure out whether I can actually (comfortably) afford to do it, so any help with my figures - whether I've budgeted too much/not enough etc - would be brilliant, espeically for water and electric usage in a double glazed 1 bedroom flat with electric heating/cooking.

Before I move onto the figures there are a few points I want to cover:

* I'm looking to rent, I'm not interested in buying right now. I have savings and could afford a decent deposit on a house, but right now I want the flexibility that renting offers. Also, as this will be my first time living alone I want to test the water first before I commit to owning anything of my own.

* My savings mean that realistically I'm not going to be forced to struggle for cash, however that doesn't mean I will be on a spending spree, I ideally want to be able to rent, and still have money spare at the end of the month to put away to continue to build up my savings.

* I have a couple of luxuries which really take up a lot of my cash, the first is my phone, I could look to downgrade to a cheaper tarrif and would do that if I absolutely had to, but would prefer not to. The other luxury is my car, due to the nature of it it's expensive to tax and insurance is quite high. Having said that, cars are my passion and I would prefer not to sell it.

* The company I work for are going to be relocating offices next year, and so I am going to be commuting by bus and train (at present I drive to work), but I would still like a car for evenings and weekends, hence why I'm trying to budget for public transport and keeping my car - yes this is expensive but unless I am in a situation where I desperately needed to get rid of my car I will be keeping it.

* As I work full time I would be out for approx 12 hours a day during the week but would be home the majority of the time over the weekend.

* I'm vegetarian, so won't be buying any meat or fish. Plan to take advantage of any BOGOF offers on the stuff I use. I don't have any preferences for brands so will use whichever deodrant, showergel, cleaners etc are cheapest/on offer.

* Will be doing my own haircuts with clippers so won't have any barber charges.

So, onto my work in progress budget: (all figures are pounds per month)

- If I don't work any overtime, my take home pay after tax, NI, and pension is 1140, of which 40 of that will be used as a contingency/to build up my savings, so I'll be working to a total of 1100 per month

- Rent 375.00

-Council Tax (with single adult discount) 60.20

-Water and sewerage 19.34 (used a wizard on the Yorkshire Water website to work out my usage, they said I'd be using just under 100 per year but this seems low to me. The average YW bill is 368 per year, so I took a figure of 232 which is in the midpoint of those two numbers even though this is probably far more than I would use)

-Electric 42 (again unsure of how much I would actually use, this is an 'average' figure from the uswitch wizard)

-Internet+landline 11.75

-Netflix 6.00

-Xbox gold 2.75

-MetroCard 102.00

-Car Service 21.00

-Car Insurance 67.00

-Car Tax 22.00

-MOT 3.75

-Fuel 30.00

-Food 160.00

-Household/Misc Groceries/Cleaning products etc 40.00

-Mobile 32.00

-Dentist 3.33

Which gives me a total spend of 998.12, leaving me with 101.88 per month 'spare'. This will be used for the odd drink after work and a few pints at the weekend. Anything left over will go into my savings.

Do those figures seem reasonable? I'm having a devil of a job trying to work out how much I would use and I guess I won't really know till I try it, but would like to get at least some idea.

If you made it this far down, well done, have a beer

Ulfar

First piece of advice ditch all the expenses you don't really need.

If you find you can afford them after a couple of months take one or two back on board.

SailorSam

£160 food for a month and you're on your own ?
You need to read some of the threads on here where people live for £10pw or even less.

http://agirlcalledjack.com/tag/recipes/

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/326929

moneyistooshorttomention

Well, you're certainly trying to work it out in detail. Good for you for that.

One thing that no-one ever seems to factor in though is the one that's difficult to quantify. That is = you don't have anyone to share the cost of major household items and repairs with. You buy the washing machine AND the cooker AND the fridge-freezer AND AND AND....etc.

You can't turn round to A.N. Other and say "I bought this, so your turn to buy that" etc. Most electrical items are made to such poor quality that they only last a fraction of the time they are supposed to/used to. So you cant say "Got my cooker and that's me sorted for that for the next 20 years" - as the darn thing might have been designed to last only 5 years:eek::mad:

Re looking up ideas for eating for one. It is possible to pick up a lot of ideas from these "cheapie food" websites and threads and worth giving them a read to do so. You will need to bear in mind though that many of the recipes given have small quantities and/or unhealthy ingredients and need adapting to be enough/healthy enough. "Agirlcalledjack" for instance will certainly give you ideas, but the quantities are very low and I have to increase them myself on the recipes I've tried from there (and I'm a little woman). Your calorific needs will be higher (judging from tone = you're a man).

Duskylady

All your figures look fine. I would say just go for it. It sounds rash but you'll never know how well you can budget until you do it for real. When I first left home I didn't do anything like this planning and just rented a house and did as I pleased :eek: a few months of living on £0 until my next payday (most memorably for 2 weeks) soon sorted out the budgeting.

Lagoon

SailorSam wrote: »

£160 food for a month and you're on your own ?
You need to read some of the threads on here where people live for £10pw or even less.

http://agirlcalledjack.com/tag/recipes/

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/326929

It looks like the OP is going to have enough money with the £140 a month food budget, though.

OP, I agree, it all looks fine on the page, and so the next step is to go and see what happens. Like you say, with theoretical money left over, savings set aside and a car that you can get rid of if you really struggle, it's not all going to go wrong before you have a chance to make adjustments.