A Paupers Pension Tale (Not many nuts to dig up)

Dazza1902

 How does your £16 k spend pan out with income ? Are you having to drawdown pensions or redundancy ?
 Tbh, 2 people getting in a holiday, gigs and a few beers from £16 k income is good going 

gambleruk

SMcGill said:

How you budget for gifts - birthdays, Xmas, charity?

We have a small family and the only person we really buy for is our son, we don't bother with Xmas pressies and usually just buy something small for our birthdays which comes out of the shopping budget, I put aside £400 a month for shopping but as you can see well under budget for that, covers us for our expensive takeaways lol.

gambleruk

Dazza1902 said:

 How does your £16 k spend pan out with income ? Are you having to drawdown pensions or redundancy ?
 Tbh, 2 people getting in a holiday, gigs and a few beers from £16 k income is good going 

My wife still works so 13k is her wages, she keeps anything over that for herself, which if she didn't would just cover the 16.5k. This was the first year since I decided to take early retirement, only 51 so cannot access any pensions yet, the difference has been made up largely from a tax refund from the year before and the lads board. It is work in progress and must admit surprised with the amount on takeaways and gigs, the nights out as well soon mount up but we have had a really good year and not scrimped on anything. Still not touched my redundancy which I am really happy about.

merlin321

Your water bill seems a bit high, we have switched to a meter and cost for year is now £380 for the 2 of us. Your food bill though is amazing, less than £68 a week for the 3 of you!  We aren't big eaters but spend more than twice that!

pensionpawn

gambleruk said:

Right just finished my year end figures and they make interesting reading, especially the non essentials, one thing I have never mentioned is that we still have our 20 year old son at home who is working and pays £200 board a month but I know we will be better off once he moves out as he is 6ft 6 and eats like an horse. Also I have paid for 3 of his gig tickets plus he always wants takeaway hence why I think both of them are much higher than I had thought they would be. I have posted them below and will digest them further over the New Year. Have a great New Year everyone.

Electricity	£2,254.00
Council tax	£1,808.00
Dentist	£360.00
Broadband	£260.00
Lottery	£408.00
Water	£522.00
Food & Groceries	£3,529.00
Mobile Mrs	£120.00
Dogs Vets Food etc	£600.00
Tv Licence	£157.00
House Insurance	£55.00
Mobile	£50.00
Record player service	£145.00
Petrol	£700.00
Takeaways	£860.00
Health/Beauty/Clothes	£95.00
Holidays	£1,428.00
Nights out	£1,081.00
Gigs Tickets	£824.00
Household Equipment	£471.00
Car Serv, Mot, Tax, Ins	£675.00
Total	£16,402.00

With your electricity cost being so high, and which is only going to get higher in the current climate, as an Economy 7 customer have you costed the potential benefit of a Tesla Powerwall which could give you 13.5 kWhrs of E7 rate electric during the day? Also, how did you manage to obtain a house buildings and contents insurance policy for £55!?

Silvertabby

There will never be anything near a 'standard' list as people are so different.

In our case, our lottery spends are a couple of lucky dips when/if the mood takes us.  Even before Covid we weren't ones for long haul holidays, or regular meals out, and we hardly ever have takeaways.

On the other hand, we spend way more on food/grocery shopping, mostly M&S and our local farm shop.  As for £95 on health/beauty/clothes - well, let's just say that I can match that on just one Clinique top-up shop!

And the one that always raises MSE eyebrows - our brand new car every 5 years.  Yes, you don't have to tell me how much that 'loses' as soon as we drive off the forecourt, but buying new is the only way to get the exact model/colour/factory fittings that we want.

Horses for courses.

Albermarle

Your food bill though is amazing, less than £68 a week for the 3 of you!  We aren't big eaters but spend more than twice that!

On the other hand, we spend way more on food/grocery shopping,

Good to see some backup that our supermarket bills are maybe not so abnormal   

And the one that always raises MSE eyebrows - our brand new car every 5 years.  Yes, you don't have to tell me how much that 'loses' as soon as we drive off the forecourt, but buying new is the only way to get the exact model/colour/factory fittings that we want.

There are a few ( not sure how many but they do exist) brands/models, that come 'ready made' with almost no extra options . In this case it is possible with a bit of luck to get a nearly new/ex demo that exactly fits , if you are prepared to travel to pick it up.
This has worked out really well for me , as due to the shortage of new cars , there would have been a long wait and since I bought it 8 months ago , it has actually gone up in value due to the crazy market in second hand cars.

gambleruk

I do one big shop a month and I really am a hoarder so when things are on offer I buy them in bulk, I also always have to have more than one of everything so I suppose except for bread, milk, eggs etc I reckon we could probably go around 3 months without another shop, both freezers are full as well as the cupboards. We get staff discount of 15% at Tesco's once a month so that helps and hence why I do one big shop a month.
The house insurance was through money supermarket last May, should have been £75 but they were doing £20 off, could have got it for £51 but went with Churchill as offered better cover. I paid £110 the year before so must have timed it better this time.

Silvertabby

Albermarle said:

Your food bill though is amazing, less than £68 a week for the 3 of you!  We aren't big eaters but spend more than twice that!

On the other hand, we spend way more on food/grocery shopping,

Good to see some backup that our supermarket bills are maybe not so abnormal   

And the one that always raises MSE eyebrows - our brand new car every 5 years.  Yes, you don't have to tell me how much that 'loses' as soon as we drive off the forecourt, but buying new is the only way to get the exact model/colour/factory fittings that we want.

There are a few ( not sure how many but they do exist) brands/models, that come 'ready made' with almost no extra options . In this case it is possible with a bit of luck to get a nearly new/ex demo that exactly fits , if you are prepared to travel to pick it up.
This has worked out really well for me , as due to the shortage of new cars , there would have been a long wait and since I bought it 8 months ago , it has actually gone up in value due to the crazy market in second hand cars.

Our car is 18 months old, so a bit to go before we think of changing it.  We may even keep this one for more than 5 years, as our preferred manual gearbox option is getting rarer and rarer. 

molerat

Albermarle said:

And the one that always raises MSE eyebrows - our brand new car every 5 years.  Yes, you don't have to tell me how much that 'loses' as soon as we drive off the forecourt, but buying new is the only way to get the exact model/colour/factory fittings that we want.

There are a few ( not sure how many but they do exist) brands/models, that come 'ready made' with almost no extra options . In this case it is possible with a bit of luck to get a nearly new/ex demo that exactly fits , if you are prepared to travel to pick it up.
This has worked out really well for me , as due to the shortage of new cars , there would have been a long wait and since I bought it 8 months ago , it has actually gone up in value due to the crazy market in second hand cars.

Our past 2 have been pre reg.  In 2015 £22K list for £15K and in 2019 £31.7K list for £20.1K, 2 weeks old, 8 miles on the clock.  Still had the factory plastic on the seats and the white pen writing and stickers on the windows when I viewed it.  This last one didn't have all the bells and whistles, there were very few available with the top spec and I wasn't willing to pay the asking price for new, but was in one of the 3 the colours I was thinking of. Was keeping an eye out and one morning there it was in my local branch, no pictures so I had to go down and check for the correct blue.  So what you want is about if you are willing to wait.