How much to live on

Organgrinder

For your irregular spends, look up last year's. 

In my spreadsheet everything is accounted for and it works on a rolling 12 month, done monthly. I make sure all my known spends are in there.

I have my regular monthly spend eg
Mortgage
Council Tax
Energy
Subscriptions
Phone
Broadband 
Food
Fuel
Pension
Savings
Credit Card

My discretionary spend 

And I have one off's
Christmas 
Birthdays
Water
Car Tax
House Insurance
Car insurance
Holidays

I then have income split in the same way. Monthly.
Main salary
Pension A
Pension B
Pension C

And one off's
Exam Marking A
Exam Marking B

In addition I track savings and stoozing.

The above works for me. 

That said it appears my stoozing has "caught up with me". I applied for 2 new cards today and was going to apply for a third but after the second application went from "we've pre-approved your application" to "we need to do some final checks" with a relatively small balance transfer, I may need to revise my plans. I had been hoping to keep stoozing about £30k but £15k looks to be my limit for now. Oh well it's still worth about £1.5k of free money, just not the £3k I'd hoped!

Nebulous2

I'm well over £2k on insurances alone, but I have some unusual circumstances. I do shop around, but I'm limited as many insurers won't quote me. I've seen a big increase in the last few years. 

Even breakdown cover is difficult as I need European cover and tow a caravan, with limited companies willing to offer that. 

Organgrinder

It's always amazing to see how different people's circumstances are.

Anyway, I've decided that my credit card applications this morning were the kick up the backside I needed and so I've closed my Amex Visa and my HSBC visa. 

I still have my main stooze purchase cards (X5) and two balance transfer cards, a Barclaycard and an M&S card. The latter two are next for the cull!!

Phossy

Tastiger said:

Finally retiring this summer - no mortgage, no debt, pensions/ISAs/cash all in place, plus an emergency fund. Just doing final checks. Monthly normal spend is covered. I just wondered how everyone works out how much to put aside for the irregular occurances such as car/house insurance, medical/dental. We put £100 a month aside for Christmas. We only have the one car. So if I said an extra £2-3k a year for the irregular, would that seem reasonable? Just want to be sure the necessaries are in place, so that anything extra can go on fun/holidays/meals out etc.
Thank you for your thoughts. Not long to go now.

For insurances I account for the on a monthly or yearly basis (depends how each is paid). Dental I just deal with from an emergency pot, which varies in size though I tend to keep it in the several thousands. I also have a 'personal' spend that I budget on a monthly basis for me and my wife which covers clothing, subscriptions eating out etc.. I haven't detailed that below so as to keep those that will nit-pick over individual amounts guessing.. The coloured items are where my retirement spend estimates are lower/  removed all together. Hope the detail helps give you some feel for the level of Insurance spend and/ or a way to track your own expenditure.

LL_USS

@Phossy I am afraid TV licence is £15/month now already ;-)

Lifematters

		The coloured items are where my retirement spend estimates are lower/  removed all together.

@Phossy why would food, Gas / Elec be cheaper for you in retirement?

Phossy

Lifematters said:

		The coloured items are where my retirement spend estimates are lower/  removed all together.

@Phossy why would food, Gas / Elec be cheaper for you in retirement?

I expect our kids to have finally moved out - that's a big part of it. The intention is also to move to a smaller, more modern, better insulated house.

MarzipanCrumble

ummm
I have been looking in my region and most are EPC D, a very few C.   I suppose very new build will be C+.  Some have been modernised quite recently and are still 'D'.  Wary of flats though if I leave it much longer sespect that will be my option - this is because of lease and service charges.

otb666

@Tastiger We have 1800pm plus £3k pa for annual bills including dentist/car mot insurances xmas birthdays.  We spend about 750pm on bills per month and 600 on food which leaves us 450pm on anything else We currently support an extra adult on this as well (29year old wont move out heavy sigh)  This has been us since 2021/22 and even manage about 2 hotel breaks a year as well. 

Organgrinder

Well talking of energy bills.......I can switch to EDF via topcashback and get £75 cashback. This makes it considerably cheaper than what I pay now for 3 months and to get the cashback I need only stay that long.

It's a competitive rate anyway and if fixes go up I'll be paying the equivalent of my cheapest possible fix over 12 months (same as now). If rates go down I can switch away. 

Sounds like a plan