Moving out and hope I can afford it all

Cakeguts

Have you made absolutely sure that the landlord of the property you are about to rent accepts pets especially dogs because an awful lot of landlords don't.

Savings aren't money that you save and then spend on things like Christmas presents. You could start the year saving £200 per month and end the year with no savings. Savings are for emergencies like for example if you lose your job but still have to pay the rent and all your other bills. So your savings amount is much too high expecially since you have credit card debt as well. You can't count £200 pounds as savings if you have £95 in debt. What you have actually is £105 in savings a month not £200.

If you sign a 6 months tenancy agreement you are liable to pay 6 months rent. So if you lose your job in the 2nd month how are you going to pay the next 4 months without any money? This is what savings are for.

The biggest problem you have is the car finance. You are spending £3,420 per year on that car. For that you could buy a used car this year and pay nothing for it next year at all apart from the odd service and the road tax which would probably save you around £3,000 per year. It is well known that the cheapest way to run a car is to buy a used one. Once you get into buying cars on finance you can't save enough to buy one without finance. Living at home you should have been able to save up to buy a car with cash rather than do it this way the most expensive way.

You don't really earn enough to have this car finance. £90 per month insurance is high but it might reflect the age and model of the car.

Your phone contract is high too. Why do you need to pay £45 per month on a phone?

There is nothing in for holidays. Do you think you might go on holiday?

You have to watch these only so much a month things. For instance out of your yearly salary you are spending around 25% on car related expenses. That is 1/4 of your yearly salary on a car and petrol according to your figures. A car is a tin box on wheels that you sit in to go places.

Your phone is costing you £540 per year. You could go on a holiday for that.

What has happened is that because you lived at home you have been spending money like someone who earns roughly twice as much as you do. You have been thinking of the money left over after your £120 board as spending money and you have got used to spending that money. What you should have been doing was saving as much as possible so that you had a nice little nest egg for when you moved out.

Cakeguts

loey93 wrote: »

Violalass - I have saved a little bit (Not a lot) but my money has mainly been going on holidays, days out, meals etc etc. I always say you only live once!

Also I moved out when I was really young, had a messy breakup and then moved back in with my mum a year ago.. So i've just been enjoying myself since

You can only do this because you know that if everything goes wrong you can move back in with your mum. This thinking is totally immature for an adult. You have to learn that it might not be possible for you to move back in with your mum if it goes wrong. You have got to plan for the fact that you mum might not be in the position to offer you a home.

Now start again. Your mum can't offer you a home if it all goes wrong and you have got to find a solution on your own. Have you got 6 months of rent in savings in case you lose your job? If not what are you going to do? If you can't pay the rent your landlord will evict you. People who don't pay the rent won't be rehoused in social housing because not paying your rent is regarded as making yourself intentionally homeless.

So you have lost your job, and you have lost your home and you have no savings. Where are you going to live? Not in the car because that will have gone because not having savings means that you can't meet the car payments if you are not working. The answer to where you are going to live is that you are going to be in one room in a shared house with strangers living on the low rate of benefits that single people can claim.

It is really really important that you have savings. You say you only live once but do you want to live that once in a room in a shared house?

At the moment there is no way that you will ever be able to buy a home because you don't know how to save.

TamsinC

Food wise - I feed a family of 5 (all adults as kids are grown up) and a dog (who eats expensive raw food) on £450 a month - it is very doable - cook from scratch, buy non brand products and for quite a lot of things you can buy the savers products. We do this and still buy free range meat as that is important for us. Sometimes we spend a little more and some times a little less, but it averages out. A meal plan is a very good idea.

When your phone contract is up, keep the handset and go onto a sim only plan - that will save you quite a lot a month. My daughter is on a decent data deal (10+) for around £20 a month (free texts and phone calls). She owns her own handset.

You can do this. Good on you for setting a SOA. Maybe you will find you can save a little more. Once you pay off those credit cards (and I would doit sooner rather than later) you will have freed up more cash. If you have a little in savings at the moment I would consider using your £200 a month savings to pay down those cards.

Candyapple

loey93 wrote: »

Presents (birthday, Christmas etc)? My savings will be used for any birthdays, xmas etc
Haircuts? I rarely get my haircut maybe twice a year
Holiday? This will come out of savings
Emergency fund? No emergency fund at the minute but again this will come under savings

Please heed the advice of Cakeguts.

So the £200 per month is to cover all of that? I think you need to re-visit your budget because those things aren't savings and if you are honest with yourself, at the end of the month unless you cut back on a lot of things, you will have 0 to put in the category of savings.

Fill this out and post it here:
http://www.stoozing.com/calculator/soa.php

Make sure any annual costs are counted for (divide by 12).

Will the cost of your travel/petrol increase travelling to work from your new home?

fairy_lights

I think your budget looks fine, you've got everything essential covered.
How finances look on paper and how they work out in reality can be quite different, you'll probably find that some things cost more than you expect and others cost far less (will you really spend £100 on clothes every month?)
Once you've been living together a few months you'll have a much better idea of your living costs and where savings can be made, and can do a more accurate budget.

Edi81

Where are your savings now?
Sounds like you are going to have a big wake up call soon if you!!!8217;ve been spending all your money.

[Deleted User]

I don't know if you can back track but it sounds to me like it would be better to get your finances sorted before moving out of home. You aren't overly committed to making sacrifices to get the more 'sensible' things (no criticism there, its just a statement of fact). It might be better if you delayed, get your credit card balances down by a lot more, get used to 'delayed anticipation' and not spending unless it acheived a 'grown up' goal.

That's if you really look at what you want and really do want to live independently. Its better if you practice this while living at home for 6 months - year, get some solid savings behind you in case something goes wrong and then move out, confident you can cope.

You need to find out what things cost before you leave too, so you know what you need to cover. Try getting food for meals, if you don't already so you know how much that costs and where you can save. My 22 year old never has any money, came back here for a while and was buying digestives from Waitrose lol. Little things like economical shopping and figuring out where to go help a lot. Do a price comparison for you car insurance, look at TopCashback (or similar sites) - you can get cashback on mobile phone deals etc, HotUKdeals (where reductions on goods are often listed). Make it a hobby or a science. There are a lot of savings to be made. (Apologies if you already do this).

loey93

cakeguts - Yes the landlord accepts dogs, I have triple checked this before putting the application in.

As for losing my job thats highly unlikely and if everyone thought the way you do then everyone will be living a very miserable life. Like I said I have savings and I'm planning on building those savings each month so I don't understand your comments and I think there quite harsh and unnecessary. I asked people for advise not to be spoke to like I'm a child!

As for the car PCP - yes I completely agree its very expensive, but unfortunately I am tied into it. I would love to give it back but I can't do that.

Again, I'm tied into my phone contract until September this year. I will then be getting a sim only contract and keeping my phone. So this will reduce by at least half.

loey93

candyapple -

If I'm completely honest I don't normally budget for birthdays or Christmas. If a birthday is coming up I will just buy the present out of that months wages. Obviously I know this is going to be a lot more difficult when I move out so you're right I will ensure I budget for birthday and christmas - also holidays!!

I will do a proper SOA tomorrow

loey93

fairy lights -

I definitely don't think I will be spending £100.00 a month on clothes when I move out, I agree that can be reduced significantly.

I will try and do an accurate SOA tomorrow