Is £650 a month ok to live on after paying rent?

moneyistooshorttomention

always_sunny wrote: »

What's in percentage of your income? £650 is a lot for one person to live on but not everyone has the same habits.
Is that excluding CT?

That depends on the individual I would say. £650 to me is my definition of "I could survive on it temporarily if I had to". To have enough to actually live on (though I live very modestly) I would need somewhat more than that.

I know that because I had a gap of quite some months in between retiring at 60 and having the State part of my pension click in at Revised State Pension Age and my income whilst I waited was around about that level. I was resorting rather more often than I was happy with to taking out a bit of my savings to subsidise the income until my revised SPA.

Add "bits and pieces" of individual circumstances, eg I have a free buspass on the one hand v. recently moved into current house and it's surprising how many "bits and pieces" of things one needs/particularly wants when starting living somewhere different and/or slightly different lifestyle.

Don't forget to factor in what I call NHS bills - ie things like visits to dentist, cost of wearing glasses/contact lenses (if applicable), etc, etc. Big difference there between someone who isn't "bothered" and would feel fine about having a pair of cheapest basic glasses from B*ots for instance (£25) and someone who was a woman/wanted to look reasonable/etc and will choose according to the ones they like most (make that £300-£400 mark then - ahem!) or, according to a friend who would otherwise have "bottle" lenses - make that £600 then.

csgohan4

don't forget the upkeep for your live in scroungers like friends/flatmates or partner.

Costs for pregnancy kits and contraception, drug paraphenalia e.t.c

Pitchshifter

Get all your bills out, a pen and paper and a calculator, sit down and work out what your outgoings are. Ideally put it all in a spreadsheet for easy editing.

The bills are easy, it's there in black and white, and are fairly fixed month to month. They are usually:
Energy
Water
Phone/internet
Council tax
TV licence
Insurance

The other main expenses you have are more variable from week to week and you're in control so you need to keep an eye on what you're spending. They are usually:
Food
Transport

Personally, my budget is just over £600 pm and that includes running a car, home maintenance, and an annual contingency of £800 for unexpected things.

£650 is fine and I think once you work it out in black and white you may find it a lot less than that.

goodwithsaving

Bear in mind there's a difference between wanting to live cheap to save etc. and having to live cheap.
The second is more wearing (in my opinion)