How much to cover living expenses?

Mountaingirl

I'm not sure if this is the right board to post this but I read the threads here and everyone is so friendly and helpful that I thought I'd tap into your collective wisdom. If there's a better place to post it perhaps you could tell me?

We have been living outside of the UK for some time and it we are looking at moving back home sometime next year. We have capital to buy a house, so we'd be living mortgage free but I have very little idea of how much everything costs in the uK nowadays and how much, realistically, you need to live on. Of course I know a lot of it depends on how you live and where you live, but I'm just trying to get a feel for the figures.
We'd be in the south west, a two-3 bedroomed house, probably not too large (we're searching now for places to live). 3 people of which one is a child. A single car probably, we are quite old style in our living (I cook from scratch most of the time) and we aren't particularly extravagant in our ways. We would be paying for activities for our child (10 years old) and travel to Central Europe 3 times a year (to return to where we are living now, visiting etc.).

We have two older kids who will be away at university so we'll have to sub them but we have money put aside for that.

Any ideas on what our outgoings are likely to be? Roughly? In the first instance we'll be living out of our capital so we need to keep it cheap...

I'm also going to have a look through the debt free wannabe board because they seem to be very good at budgeting although we shouldn't have to be quite so frugal.
Thanks in advance.

HappyMJ

Excluding rent £300 a week should be enough plus whatever you want to spend on travel. Random figure really as everything depends.

GreyQueen

HappyMJ wrote: »

Excluding rent £300 a week should be enough plus whatever you want to spend on travel. Random figure really as everything depends.

I was going to say £15k per annum but £300 p.w. is £15,600 so we're nearly on the same page. Wouldn't be living large, but do-able if you're not in London, I think.

Mountaingirl

Gosh, that seems very little - I'm surprised actually, in a good way. I guess we'd have to add on clothes, holidays/travel and any extras onto that, but for a baseline figure it's really encouraging.

GreyQueen

Mountaingirl wrote: »

Gosh, that seems very little - I'm surprised actually, in a good way. I guess we'd have to add on clothes, holidays/travel and any extras onto that, but for a baseline figure it's really encouraging.

A large chunk of the UK population lives on under £15k a year and has housing costs to pay out of that, so you should be OK if you own your house outright, although you will have maintenance and will (almost certainly) have gas central heating and need to pay for its annual servicing/ safety check and any repairs.

ETA These stats are now 18 months old but incomes are static or falling for most people:http://www.theguardian.com/money/2014/mar/25/uk-incomes-how-salary-compare

These are gross not net figures, of course, and a common work pattern in the UK for couples with children is f/t for him and p/t for her.

Feral_Moon

As nobody can possibly know the type of things you like to buy or eat then it might be an idea to look at some supermarket sites and do a comparison shop to get an idea of costs. A good comparison site is http://www.mysupermarket.co.uk/

Likewise with energy and water company sites...most will give you a rough calculation of energy costs based on house size to give you an idea.

Mountaingirl

Interesting figures in that article - thanks. Sorry if I sounded flippant when I said it seems very little - I live in Switzerland which always comes near the top on the 'most expensive countries to live in' tables. Health insurance alone is about £ 1200 per month for my family and you still have an excess on that to pay. So it's a little difficult to really judge the UK compared to what we have to earn here to get by.

I have a good idea on food as I come back every year for a while and go shopping but I'll also visit the energy suppliers - I don't know which one serves the town we want to live in, have to check it out.

Also I would be able to work more easily in the UK which could help.

Thanks for your replies

Feral_Moon

No, you didn't sound flippant at all. I've watched quite a few of these "emigrating to Oz/NZ" type programmes and they always do a financial comparison of wages, utilities, groceries etc. so that would be my first port of call too.

Switzerland isn't a cheap place to live so you may find cost of living cheaper back in the UK, especially if you won't have housing costs. It's how much you can expect to earn going forward in your relative careers that will become important and ascertain your standard of living in the UK.

Good luck

moneyistooshorttomention

To me - a rather basic question is "What standard of living are you looking to have?".

Is it "as cheap as possible", "normal", "bit luxurious", "very luxurious"?????

Re healthcare - it depends to a large extent on what standard of health your family have. But - to have a reasonable standard of healthcare - you will (almost certainly) have to subsidise the National Health Service to some extent. However - it shouldn't be anything remotely like what you are paying now. Realistically = there is a very good chance you will need to have a private dentist, rather than an Nhs one (that will be because in some areas NHS dentists are difficult to get on the one hand/you may not be satisfied with standard of care NHS dentists are allowed to provide on the other hand).

You will also have to factor in transport costs. You may be living in an area with decent public transport and its fine/all you need for basically getting around on the one hand. On the other hand - you may be planning to live in an area where buses are rather infrequent (rural areas may only have hourly buses and little/if anything in the evenings/Sundays). That also has to be taken into account. Very rural areas - and it could be eeek! time as to what buses are available!

GreyQueen

Mountaingirl wrote: »

Interesting figures in that article - thanks. Sorry if I sounded flippant when I said it seems very little - I live in Switzerland which always comes near the top on the 'most expensive countries to live in' tables. Health insurance alone is about £ 1200 per month for my family and you still have an excess on that to pay. So it's a little difficult to really judge the UK compared to what we have to earn here to get by.

I have a good idea on food as I come back every year for a while and go shopping but I'll also visit the energy suppliers - I don't know which one serves the town we want to live in, have to check it out.

Also I would be able to work more easily in the UK which could help.

Thanks for your replies

You can have any energy supplier you like, it isn't geographically-determined. Your only restrictions will be your water, which will be from the monopoly suppier in that region.

Your council tax, which will be set by the local authority; you home-to-be will be in a banding and that will be your bill. You can look at the local authority website for areas you are contemplating moving into and see what different bands are; a few miles apart but within the same area can save about £100 per annum in this area. Doesn't sound much but extrapolate that over a decade or two or three and it adds up.

Mountaingirl

I guess our living standard is probably about average middle class, we don't eat or do anything too luxurious (except skiing which is normal here but probably expensive for a UK resident).

We have to pay for dentists here, at a cost of about £150 for a filling. The health system is very good, a little bit too good sometimes in that they really over treat.
I hadn't realised there was a choice of energy suppliers, that's something to look at.