First house budget

AprilR · 4 May 2017 at 2:31PM

Hiya,

So me and my partner are in the process of buying our first home. We're trying to sort out a budget and it's difficult when you've not had to pay those bills etc before. I've asked my parents for advice on how much to budget for each thing, but where I currently am there's 5 of us (1 here all day - so that will use more electric etc) and when we move it'll just be the two of us. We just wanted to gain an insight into how much to put aside for each bill, approximately. It's a four bed detached house with double glazed windows. I know there will be a lot of factors involved in figuring how much our bills will be, but just wanted a rough idea.

If anyone can help us out with how much approximately to put aside for utilities etc that would be great. We're currently budgeting for about 240 a month for food, toiletries, cleaning stuff, etc, however I feel it won't be as much as this for the two of us. We both like to have home cooked meals and want to batch cook then freeze.

We're basically looking for any advice on budgeting for first home time buyers.

Many thanks,
April

FabFifty · 4 May 2017 at 3:00PM

Two of us living in a 4-bed house currently pay £400 each into a joint account to cover all supermarket purchases (food, drink, cleaning materials, lighbulbs etc), gas, electric, broadband/phone, house & contents insurance, rates, TV licence. Don't forget to set a little something aside for maintenance costs.

AprilR · 4 May 2017 at 3:10PM

Thanks for your reply, I think that's roughly what we were looking at putting aside, just wanted to make sure that we're definitely budgeting right.
I have found house insurance just shy of 200 for a year and people are telling me that it seems to good to be true and we received a quote from another company for 400. We used a compare site for the 200 a year quote which included everything we needed. Maybe other people are overpaying?

EachPenny · 4 May 2017 at 4:27PM

AprilR wrote: »

Maybe other people are overpaying?

This is a problem you'll have with the question you're asking - everybody will have different figures and they aren't always directly comparable. We all consume stuff in slightly different ways, there will even be some differences between you and your partner - some people like the central heating on full-blast, some want the windows open even in Winter.

You're going to have to produce the best estimate of costs you can, then keep it under regular review for the first year or so. Try and minimise non-essential spending in the first three to six months so you have a savings buffer if bills come out higher than you expected. You also don't need to wait for your first gas and electric bills to work out how much it will cost per month - as soon as you move in take meter readings on a weekly basis and calculate the cost yourself. That way you can make any adjustments you need rather than waiting till you get a £1000 bill after three months and discovering, say, that your immersion heater is on 24/7.

One good souce of typical figures is the IVA spending guidelines - an agreed set of expenses used in the approval process when someone in debt applies for an IVA. Because these are designed to allow the debtor to have a reasonable life whilst being fair to the creditors the figures should represent what someone being careful with their money would be spending. In reality some of the figures are, shall we say, generous compared to what some people on this forum would advise.