Renting a House, Managing Money?

The_Chandlers

Hey all,
Samm and Ash here, firstly, this is our first post here, so please excuse us for it being in the wrong place or something that is covered regularly.

We currently live in a house rent free, but we are desperate to vacate to somewhere a little bit more modern! Not going to get into the details of our current living arrangement. Its not bad, its just too small and is very old, needs new boiler, kitchen, and decorating throughout.

We have just been to view a house my friend is moving out of, for rent. Its £600 a month, three bed and in a nice place.

Before anybody goes off to mention we dont need a house that big. We very often have friends stay over and the Mrs wants a walk in wardrobe!

i earn between £1900-£2300 a month overtime depending.
Samm between £1200-£1300 again O/T depending.

excluding, rent, gas and electric and coucil tax. We pay out a combined total of £1000 in bills.

If we include the £600 rent, £118 tax and about £50 a month gas and electric ( the bills of our friends ).

Giving us around a total of £1800 in bills ( this is excluding food shopping ). We are wondering wether this would leave us enough spare cash to "live" our lives. We certainly live life to the full at the moment, we go out for dinner 2-3 times a week, cinema, movies, clubs etc. We are certainly happy to cut back on all this, but we still want to live our lives.

Does anybody else here have a similar financial situation. That might be able to shed some light on us?
We dont want to take on more than we can handle!

Thanks for any help

DCFC79

Depends what it costs for you to live your lives.

Lagoon

You should be fine. You'll be living in luxury, as far as I'm concerned.

Can you not just work this out from what you already spend, with the rent added, to see how much you'll have left over?

~Beanie~

£1300 per month disposable income is loads|!! I don't even earn that much per month, I pay a mortgage and bills and still manage to 'live my life'.

I think you are underestimating your gas and electric though. Mine is more than that and I live in a 2 bed terrace.

gezza2k

why don't you buy an house, saves throwing it away with renting and you got some security for later in life or your children.

Dunroamin

Why don't you stay in your rent free house and save for a deposit?

FreddieFrugal

DCFC79 wrote: »

Depends what it costs for you to live your lives.

Agreed.

Living your lives doesn't have to mean chucking money away. My partner and I feel that we have a very enjoyable life and we do all the things we want to but don't actually have to spend much money.

It's such a subjective thing to ask about. But as we do have similar combined income (based on lower estimate) and similar housing costs, I can say that we feel that we're living our lives.

Also managing to save up a lot up for future house deposit.

Biggles

As already posted, you have a golden opportunity to save up for a deposit on a house. If you start paying rent, you might blow this chance for good.

sacha28

Am I missing something here? You pay out £1000 pm in bills NOT including rent, council tax, gas and electric? What kind of bills are they??!!
You seem to be in an enviable position, we have about £200 disposable income once everything is paid every month so we live on different planets I'm afraid, and it's only you who can decided what's more important.......having a bigger, better place to live but perhaps cutting back on something (like maybe eating at home instead of out 3 times a week?) or continuing to live the life you have become accustomed to and putting up with the house you live in.
To be honest tho, it doesn't appear that you would need to cut back on anything as that is a massive surplus to live on.

ViolaLass

sacha28 wrote: »

Am I missing something here? You pay out £1000 pm in bills NOT including rent, council tax, gas and electric? What kind of bills are they??!!

I agree. Not clear whether this includes food either. What is it for?!