How much to live on

Arthurian

Organgrinder said:

blue.peter said:

Organgrinder said:

Personally I see no reason to pay more for anything.

Isn't that what MSE is all about?

For me yes. However there are people who have brand loyalty. Or seem very stuck in their ways. Totally their choice of course. 

Also, there are many exhausted families where both parents have full-time jobs, expected to work extra hours in the evening, several clamouring children all with differing needs, and the time taken to research and change suppliers is just not worth it in terms of time and stress.

blue.peter

Albermarle said:

3) We still use a landline ( lots of people have the number and still use it) Some providers do not have a landline facility once you go fully fibre, and/or if they do they only offer expensive PAYG calls.

This is true. PlusNet is an example of a provider that doesn't (AFAIK) offer a landline with FTTP. I was already with PlusNet when I was forcibly* converted to FTTP a year or so ago. (I live in one of the first two towns to have their copper networks decommissioned.) Since I also still use a landline, I had to either (a) switch ISP, (b) give up the landline or (c) find a third-party VOIP provider. I settled on the third option, and now have my landline provided by Voipfone. I needed an adapter** to go between my router and the phone primary base unit, and that was it. All pretty painless.

*I was perfectly happy with FTTC, and didn't want to switch to FTTP because I knew that it'd mean having to have my router in the hall instead of the top-floor study where it was. Some of the kit I use in the study isn't wi-fi capable. I therefore needed to find and pay a fellow to instal ethernet between my hall and study, which was a bit annoying.

**£40 + VAT at the time, now £52 + VAT. Not all routers require an adapter; some have it built in.

Albermarle

blue.peter said:

Albermarle said:

3) We still use a landline ( lots of people have the number and still use it) Some providers do not have a landline facility once you go fully fibre, and/or if they do they only offer expensive PAYG calls.

This is true. PlusNet is an example of a provider that doesn't (AFAIK) offer a landline with FTTP. I was already with PlusNet when I was forcibly* converted to FTTP a year or so ago. (I live in one of the first two towns to have their copper networks decommissioned.) Since I also still use a landline, I had to either (a) switch ISP, (b) give up the landline or (c) find a third-party VOIP provider. I settled on the third option, and now have my landline provided by Voipfone. I needed an adapter** to go between my router and the phone primary base unit, and that was it. All pretty painless.

*I was perfectly happy with FTTC, and didn't want to switch to FTTP because I knew that it'd mean having to have my router in the hall instead of the top-floor study where it was. Some of the kit I use in the study isn't wi-fi capable. I therefore needed to find and pay a fellow to instal ethernet between my hall and study, which was a bit annoying.

**£40 + VAT at the time, now £52 + VAT. Not all routers require an adapter; some have it built in.

Did you keep your landline number. We did with BT 'Digital Voice'

Yes one problem with switching to FTTP, is that they want to put the internal connection on the wall where the connection enters the house. So our router is now in one downstairs corner of the house, whilst BT's own advice 'is to place the router centrally to get the best wi fi coverage' 
Luckily the mesh wi fi system still means it works ok all over the house, but not really in the garden anymore.

blue.peter

Albermarle said:

Did you keep your landline number. We did with BT 'Digital Voice'

I could have ported it from PlusNet to Voipfone, but chose not to do so.

I actually had an overlap (of about a month) when I had both the old landline and the VOIP service. My house phones were pretty old and I wanted to replace them anyway. This approach gave me a more easily-remembered landline number and plenty of time to tell everyone who needed to know. Voipfone had a long list of numbers available, and I was able to choose whatever I wanted from that list.

RoysV

Albermarle said:

RoysV said:

RoysV said:

Short time lurker first time poster as they don't say. I've read through quite a few of the pages on here, not all obviously and found it really interesting so thought I'd put my budgets up. Here goes, be gentle

Mortgage free
TV, broadband, dual fuel, water, c/tax £425/mth  £380/month

Credit card which is virtually everything  house/car ins, car tax, servicing, food, clothes, eating out  £600 paid in full every month  £800/ month

Maybe £100 cash, if that

DC/SIPP £160k      £195k
DB @ 60 approx £6.5K
Stocks and shares ISA   £85K   £116k
Premium bonds £50k                 £9k
Cash ISA £15k                         £38k mix of ISA and cash 
Company share scheme £11k   £0

Well it's a year since I packed in so just an update. The figures above were in Jan I packed in end of April so my pay from them months aren't on there, so the figures might seem a bit skewed. The new figures are in bold.
Just below my original post I said I spend about £1300/month, this year it's been about £1370. I had one off costs of new washing machine, new hoover (them bloody Dysons aren't cheap) a repair to my boiler and a week abroad.
I'm starting to withdraw from my SIPP this month so we'll see what the figures are like next year.
I'm pleased how it's gone, I haven't gone without anything and I'm enjoying being retired the year has flown over. 

If you add up all the one offs and divide by 12, what does that make your actual monthly spend over the year?

I probably didn't word it too well the £1370 includes all of the one off costs. I also missed off about £1k I spent on my car, again included in the £1370. If I stripped out what I called one off costs I would have spent about £1100/ month

Organgrinder

Well my mobile switch went through yesterday, just before Three's rip off cpi + 3.9% rise. My old contract wasn't exactly expensive but the new rate was just over £10/month for 30gb data but had no roaming plus of course more above inflation rises in the future.

I'm now using ID mobile...which uses three's network. Checked speeds..... 56mb/s down, 46mb/s up. Happy with that.

So £9/month gets me 45gb data, eu roaming, plus unlimited calls and texts and no annual rise. With £96 cashback over 2 years it's effectively £5/month.

And of course I've kept the number I've had for 25 years or so. 

Happy days.

KittyS

blue.peter said:

KittyS said:

Love this thread - just being made redundant at 56 and have a lot of health issues.  So it is helpful  I had a financial adviser who told me I needed £24k to live on!! So been writing down my outgoings for a couple of months definately barking up the wrong tree.   The maximum I spent was 1800 one month due to car costs and prescriptions.

£1,800 a month sounds plausible. However, I don't think that a couple of months is really enough on which to base an assessment. I'd recommend going through your bank statements for at least a year, and preferably more. You don't need a detailed breakdown of your spending for this purpose. You just need to see how much you spend over a longer period, not where every penny goes.

When your adviser said £24k a year to live on, was s/he referring to the gross or net amount? £24k gross salary/pension comes to £1,809.50 net for a basic rate taxpayer with the standard personal allowance. In other words, it's almost exactly what you calculated.

By the way, redundancy at 56 rings a loud bell here. That's exactly what happened to me in 2015. I made a conscious decision not to look for another job, and have no regrets. Your savings are considerably greater than mine were then, but my private pensions totalled significantly more than yours.

A bit of number crunching (probably duplicating some of what you've already done) says:

£18,000 p.a. gross = £16,914 p.a. net = £1,409.50 p.m. net

which leaves about £400 p.m. to find from savings (if your £1,800 p.m. is reliable).

£160,000 / (£400 * 12) = 33.33 years - but this is ignoring inflation and interest.

Your state pension will, in any case, kick in long before that.

So retirement at 56 sounds, on the basis of this very crude calculation, as if it might well be manageable. Good luck!

Thanks Blue Peter that is really helpful.  At the worse case scenerio I can get a little job for one day a week.  Still not working long hours xx

KittyS

Organgrinder said:

Careful.....that amount of interest would result in a tax bill of £1350 pa and would diminish in real terms.

That said @KittyS said the financial advisor said £24k was needed so with the £18k in pensions it's definitely doable imo. 

Basically there's a £6k shortfall pa (if we're talking gross) which at 67 is more than made up for by the state pension. 

He was really good to be honest but I don't earn that amount now so it was a bit pie eyed.   It was £24k no tax allowance.  I think if you pay rent yes possibly as rent is expensive and going up.  But I don't have a mortgage and a very small house.   I'm going to see how I get on for a couple of years and if everything else fails just get a job with very low hours.  I plan to do some crafting as a side hussle as well.  

Organgrinder

Could I urge everyone to check for old pensions.

This week Mrs O received a letter from a pensions company saying she had a pot of almost £40,000. 

It's come as a complete surprise, more so as I'm sure people are aware that I regularly review our finances.

I once worked 3 months for an IT firm. Pretty certain I had a pension there too. So that's worth a look.

So at 61 (our planned retirement), we're now on track to have savings of £30k, pension pots of £150k and DB pensions of £30k rising to £53k at age 67. (Priced at today's rates for ease of comparison...... hopefully the pension pots grow in real terms).

Our expenditure net of savings/investments/mortgage is roughly £30k pa currently, so fingers crossed retirement looks good. 

Albermarle

This week Mrs O received a letter from a pensions company saying she had a pot of almost £40,000. 

Like winning the lottery !

I believe the pension companies have a duty to try and track down old clients who have lost touch. Usually when the client is starting to approach retirement age.

The usual problem is that the client has not updated the company when they move address, otherwise they should get annual updates.