What is the absolute minimum you need to survive on?

andyfromotley

So i was just messing around with YNAB tonight and thought i'd tot up the absolute minimum i need to get by. So i have totted up the things that i have to pay or in one or two cases think that life would be just too tough without.

I don't need to live on this amount but it was an interesting exercise and it was actually more than i thought.

Mortgage - £250
Child support - £165
Council tax - £80
Gas/Elec - £82.50
Water £40.90
House ins - £11.87 *
Prescription - £10.40
Moblie - £37**
phone/internet £7.80
Tv Licence - £12.12 ***
CC repayment £124
DFS sofa £10.56
Food (1 adult 2kids) £250

*I think house insurance falls under essential. Its my only asset.
** TV licence? hmm i think realistically most of us view this as an essential.
*** Phone is on a contract obi i don't think a £37pcm bill is essential if it wasn't!!

So there it is to live on the bare bones it comes to a grand total of £1082.15.

If i add in my car which is only borderline essential for me as i don't work but i do have to run two kids about a lot!

Insurance £20
Tax £15
Serv/mot £10
Petrol £40

That adds another £85 per month totalling £1167.15

I must point out B]B][B]this isn't what i do actually live [/B][/B[/Bon but it is the absolute minimum that i would need to live. I haven't included clothes, dental treatment, entertainment, holidays, kids trips, pocket money etc as i reckon these are probably not essential and i could live without them for a considerable time or use an EF.

Intersting?

bexster1975

Hi Andy

This is interesting as I have been doing similar calculations in advance of a big job move. If I decide to use most of my savings to completely pay off the mortgage then essentials total £600 a month. Otherwise if I leave the savings where they are for now it's about £800. Again, I do not have to live on this, but all essentials and a bit of wiggle room would be paid with this.

Bexster

enthusiasticsaver

I have been doing the same exercise since January as we plan on retiring in 2018 and I need to know our essentials will be covered.


Ours is


Council Tax £155
Gas/electric £123
Water £60
TV Licence £12
Food £160
Phone/internet £49 (we pay extra for superfast broadband so this could be reduced to £25.
Mobiles at present £33 but this could go or be reduced to payg only if needed so not included
House insurance £10
Car £60 to cover petrol, mot, insurance for local driving only.
Total £662


We are lucky in that we have no mortgage but we are still aiming for a monthly income of £2k so almost £1400 in discretionary spend.

HappyMJ

I worked this out in another thread but I'll post it here if you couldn't find it....it was buried in a thread.

Income £9 p/h monthly net pay is £1,265

2 Adults.

Rent = £475 pm
Council tax £1,170 pa = £97.50 pm
Prepayment certificate £104 pa times 2 = £17.34 pm
Travel to work costs £25 per week (48 weeks) = £100 pm
Dental check's every 6 months £30 each times 2 = £10 pm
Eye checks and replacement prescription glasses £120 every 2 years times 2 = £10 pm
Mobile phone unlimited mins/texts/data £12 pm times 2 = £24 pm
Home phone line rental plus unlimited broadband = £18 pm
Estimate of water usage @ 150L/person/day = £23 pm
Estimate of gas/electric at 12,000kWh and 2,500kWh = £67 pm
TV Licence (I pay quarterly) = £13 pm
Groceries £280 pm (this will go down-we've been building a store cupboard from nothing) estimate going forward = £210 pm
Unavoidable fees for taking on this property on divided over the 24 months we think we'll be here = £18 pm

Total £1,084

That gives us £91 each per month (£21 per week) spending money we can use to pay for days out, meals out, visits to pub, debt repayment, self insurance (I don't hold any insurance policies), savings etc...

andyfromotley

Hmmm our three examples all have relatively low or no mortgages/rent. I guess thats the killer for most.

Mine is hampered a bit by my debt repayment which hopefully won't be around for longer than a year or so. Getting rid of that and my phone contact would reduce it by £160. Then set about the mortgage! could have it down to £750 in 5 years or so. :-)

faithcecilia

I did something similar a few days ago as I need to buy a fairly expensive item of medical equipment and wanted to see how quickly I could afford to do it. I came up with the following:

Council tax £19 (Im on benefits, this is what I actually pay after discounts)
Gas £8
Electric £11
Water £5
Internet £18.50
Mobile phone £15
Contents insurance £5
Medical £30
Groceries £25

Total £136.50 per month

If I was in absolute dire straights (as I have been previously) I would cut the unlimited data from my phone and cut right down to £5 and I could probably get my groceries down to £18. This would make my 'absolute absolute' minimum £119.50 a month.

The medical costs are for a few things I cannot get on prescription but are to my mind essential as the alternative would be even more hospital admissions, and I already spend nearly half my life there as it is, so I would cut almost anything else before this.

I havent listed rent as it is fully covered by housing benefit. If I added in rent and also the rest of the council tax which is covered as well it would be an additional £468.27 a month, giving a total of £604.77 (or £587.77 with above further cuts.

HappyMJ

faithcecilia wrote: »

I did something similar a few days ago as I need to buy a fairly expensive item of medical equipment and wanted to see how quickly I could afford to do it. I came up with the following:

Council tax £19 (Im on benefits, this is what I actually pay after discounts)
Gas £8
Electric £11
Water £5
Internet £18.50
Mobile phone £15
Contents insurance £5
Medical £30
Groceries £25

Total £136.50 per month

If I was in absolute dire straights (as I have been previously) I would cut the unlimited data from my phone and cut right down to £5 and I could probably get my groceries down to £18. This would make my 'absolute absolute' minimum £119.50 a month.

The medical costs are for a few things I cannot get on prescription but are to my mind essential as the alternative would be even more hospital admissions, and I already spend nearly half my life there as it is, so I would cut almost anything else before this.

I havent listed rent as it is fully covered by housing benefit. If I added in rent and also the rest of the council tax which is covered as well it would be an additional £468.27 a month, giving a total of £604.77 (or £587.77 with above further cuts.

£18 a month for groceries. 60 pence a day? That would barely cover just the essential breakfast items the tea, milk, sugar, bread, butter, jam, loo roll and soap. That's a grocery list I'd love to see.

faithcecilia

HappyMJ wrote: »

£18 a month for groceries. 60 pence a day? That would barely cover just the essential breakfast items the tea, milk, sugar, bread, butter, jam, loo roll and soap. That's a grocery list I'd love to see.

Yes, it doesnt make for a very exciting diet, and thankfully I don't have to cut to that level just now, but I did about 10yrs ago when clawing my way out of debt. Watering down milk, buying whatever fruit/veg/bread etc was reduced to 10p at the end of the day, lots of economy pasta based meals, that sort of thing.

Very quick sample list based on Tesco

8 pints milk £2
1kg oats 75p
500g cornflakes 31p
500g spagetti 20p
Pasta sauce 45p
4 tins carrots 76p
4 tin potatoes 80p
2 tins spagetti hoops 40p
4 tin peas 84p
2 tin baked beans 48p
4 tins soup £1
2 tins sweetcorn 70p
3 tins fruit £1.40
500g dried split peas 53p
500g dried green lentils £1
4 loaves bread £1.60
Butter 85p
2 x 4 pack yogurts 66p
Cream cheese 49p
Hard cheese 75p
Toilet roll £1

Total £16.77 leaving just over £1 for YS bargains

Its not a perfect diet and thankfully I dont currently need to stick to such a tight budget, but it is possible.

Aphidgirl

HappyMJ wrote: »

£18 a month for groceries. 60 pence a day? That would barely cover just the essential breakfast items the tea, milk, sugar, bread, butter, jam, loo roll and soap. That's a grocery list I'd love to see.

I can do around £20 a month on groceries by buying the value products and another trick is going into the supermarket in the evening when things have big reductions. I can usually get a loaf of bread for 15-35p (buy a few and freeze them). This week I also got a punnet of cherries for 20p, packet of 10 mini pork pies for 35p,packet of fresh mince for 60p and 5 bananas for 45p.

If you're only having to feed yourself then you really can get away with spending very little, although as said, sometimes its not exactly fine dining

I'd say the minimum I need to survive at the moment is around the £600/month mark. This covers rent, bills, groceries and travel costs, although the travel is to see family and friends at the weekends so not strictly needed for basic survival but possibly needed to maintain mental health!

I do have some debt I'm still repaying so if I include debt repayments I need around £950-£1000/month. Aiming to clear the debt by xmas though. Once thats gone I'll have more disposable income each month than I'll know what to do with!

HappyMJ

I couldn't do that. There's no meat to start with. I can't see how you could get 90 meals out of that...it's not a month and no soap, no deodorant, no toothpaste, no washing up liquid, no washing powder and only a £1 loo roll for a whole month. That would barely last me a week. Just taking the cornflakes 500 grams makes 16 servings as per instructions on box and only 112 calories/serving....that's a children's sized serving. I'm a 6 foot tall man...I'll eat twice that so 8 days. 8 pints of milk? 1 pint per day so again that's 8 days. A 4 pint bottle of milk worth £1 only lasts for 4 days in any case before it needs to be thrown. You'd need to pricing it up based on expected life span of the product. If you are only using 8 pints in a month then you need to price up your shopping list using pint bottles at 45p each or £3.60 in a month. There's no way a 4 pint bottle of ordinary milk will last 2 weeks in the fridge.

Forget the debts decent quality fresh food comes first. My shopping list includes plenty of fresh (not tinned) fruits, vegetables and meat no matter the income I'm earning or the debt I'm in. I'll pay for food before anything else including rent and council tax. I'll even go into debt to eat a balanced diet. My feeling is if my tummy is happy then I'll have more inclination to get out of the house and find a way out of a income/debt problem.

elsien

I worked this out when I lost my job last year. Not including the mortgage which I had insurance for, what I needed was a heck of a sight more than the JSA which was all I was entitled to.
I know people don't have a choice, but I have no idea how they manage it - I'm talking single people btw.