What is the absolute minimum you need to survive on?

greensalad

Interesting!

Rent - £1250
Electric - £65
TV license - £12
Contents insurance - £11
Phone - £7
Council tax - £135
Food - £160
= £1640

So it's over what I earn anyway, lets hope my partner doesn't lose his job

lhead123

This is an interesting experiment We are 2 adults, 2 kids... Let me work it out...

Rent £650
Council Tax £114
Water £25
Electric £65
TV Licence £12.12
Car Tax £12.68
Petrol £40
Home Ins £16.57
Car Insurance £39
Mobiles £75!! (currently locked for another year :mad:) Would each get £15 sim only or payg to cut down
School related £10 (uniform, shoes etc)

That's a total of: £1049.37

If we changed the mobiles is would be £1004.37

At the moment we spend nearly double that! Which means we have a hell of a lot we could live without if we needed to, including a second car...

My OH brings home £1300 on average, so it's nice to know we could survive on his money alone without benefits etc x

HappyMJ

greensalad wrote: »

Interesting!

Rent - £1250
Electric - £65
TV license - £12
Contents insurance - £11
Phone - £7
Council tax - £135
Food - £160
= £1640

So it's over what I earn anyway, lets hope my partner doesn't lose his job

Rent - £1250 ouch...have you ever thought about moving to a cheaper part of the country and taking a slightly lower paid job or even a job with less hours. You would have so much more disposable income and more time to enjoy each others company than you do now.

quantic

Our household minimum bills (shared between 2) works out as:

• Mortgage - £640
• Food - £200
• Council Tax - £145 (Over 10 months)
• Car Tax & Insurance - £80
• Petrol - £60
• Phones - £58
• Gas/Electric - £57
• TV License - £12
• House Insurance - £11

Total - £1263

In reality we usually spent about £400 more than this but still well within 1 of our incomes should either of us lose our job. We save the rest.

greensalad

HappyMJ wrote: »

Rent - £1250 ouch...have you ever thought about moving to a cheaper part of the country and taking a slightly lower paid job or even a job with less hours. You would have so much more disposable income and more time to enjoy each others company than you do now.

Literally just hit "submit" on my diary about us moving up North Not until next Spring, when our tenancy ends, but we are probably going to move to Leeds for exactly this reason. Surrey is unaffordable, shame as I love it here but off we go

faithcecilia

HappyMJ wrote: »

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.

This is all fair enough - I could go into the fact Im veggie, I freeze milk, etc etc but theres no need. The question was how much could we each manage on as an absolute minimum; I stated what I could, you what you could.

jackieblack

HappyMJ wrote: »

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.

:huh: A 4 pint regularly lasts at least 10-12 days in my fridge :huh:

andyfromotley

greensalad wrote: »

Literally just hit "submit" on my diary about us moving up North Not until next Spring, when our tenancy ends, but we are probably going to move to Leeds for exactly this reason. Surrey is unaffordable, shame as I love it here but off we go

Oh thats where i am, another refugee from the south. You won't believe what you can rent for that price up here!!

andyfromotley

quantic wrote: »

Our household minimum bills (shared between 2) works out as:

• Mortgage - £640
• Food - £200
• Council Tax - £145 (Over 10 months)
• Car Tax & Insurance - £80
• Petrol - £60
• Phones - £58
• Gas/Electric - £57
• TV License - £12
• House Insurance - £11

Total - £1263

In reality we usually spent about £400 more than this but still well within 1 of our incomes should either of us lose our job. We save the rest.

Wow, 50%+ savings rate is mightily impressive. :T

asparagus1968

some of you haven't included food /groceries though ?