House running costs, what would they be like?

pstones578

I am trying to put a budget/estimate together for what I think my outgoings would be in a year when I finally move out. Do people think this is realistic what I present below? the property would be worth approx £150,00 and the mortgage would be £110,000 approx.

Ground Rent £75.00 yearly
Electric bill £90.00 quarterly
Gas bill £90.00 quarterly
Council Tax £1,000.00 yearly
Water bill £400.00 yearly
Petrol £60.00 monthly
ADSL £10.00 monthly
Mobile £10.00 monthly
Spends £150.00 monthly
Cinema £10.99 monthly
Magazine Sub £9.99 monthly
Car Insurance £330.00 yearly
Food/household £40.00 weekly
Mortgage £687.00 monthly
TV License £121.00 yearly
House Insurance £33.00 monthly

Am I missing anything?

skylight

Life Insurance (Not got any? get some!) Esp if not single or got kids
Pension (Not got one? get one!)
If single then you need to account for pizza and alcohol.

Is your house insurance for buidings and contents???

And you do need a little for savings - car tax (get £5 savings stamps at post office)-car repairs, household repairs etc.

Your not having a fixed line phone????

Sujamjen

Sadly to say, it's ALWAYS more than you think :eek:

pstones578

Not thought about life insurance, got no kids and am not married. Might be moving in with the GF though. Pension isn't high on my to-do, perhaps it should be but it isn't. The £150/pcm covers pizza beer and all that jazz. With those figures above I would have £202/pcm spare to save/use as needed for 'other' expenses.

Xbigman

With no kids look at a water meter, it could have your estimate of 400.
Regards




X

pstones578

Can I go back to not having a water meter if I find I need/want to?

ReportInvestor

Severn Trent Water allows you to revert. I don't know about other areas.

Woby_Tide

you say ground rent so you may well be looking at a flat? Consider service charges in that case, also the flat may well be metered already depending when built or converted.

Also worth considering putting a 'sinking fund/maintenance/rainy day' fund aside in case of an emergency repair, decoration, new TV, holiday etc. etc.

Mrs_Thrift

pstones578 wrote:

With those figures above I would have £202/pcm spare to save/use as needed for 'other' expenses.

Mr Thrift and I break down all yearly "other expenses" and put a 12th of the amount aside every month. So that £202 could / should go towards savings for holidays, dentists, opticians, Christmas, birthdays, car tax, MOT, breakdown cover & insurance, which all comes to £177.50 a month for us. Would £202 be enough to cover these extras for you? And of course you'll want to put aside an extra amount for purely "rainy day" savings too.

If you need to increase that £202 I'd say you could probably reduce your Food / household budget for starters. £40 per week is an average of £173.33 a month. Hubby and I used to spend up to, sometimes over £220 a month on food, household items (cleaning stuff, tin foil, kitchen roll, etc) and toiletries, but since becoming a regular visitor to the MSE Old Style board we're down to £85 a month.....and we are eating bigger and better than ever!

HTH

bargains83

pstones578 wrote:

Can I go back to not having a water meter if I find I need/want to?

A lot of water companies will put in a meter and let you try it out for a while. If it works out cheaper than paying rates and you choose to keep it then im pretty certain you are stuck with it for good and can't go back.

Simlarly if you move into a house which has had a meter installed I don't think you can pay fixed rate.

This is what I was told by somebody working for Yorkshire Water anyway.

I think typically a household of 3 or less aren't going to use all that much water, paticularly if the house has a shower which is much more economical than a bath and it is likely to work out much cheaper for you than paying the full rates.

karenj

Crikey, I'm glad I moved to Spain. It frightens me when I see how much money we used to lay out each month - especially for greedy council tax, water rates and tv licence!!! I could live on £100 a week here and that's including money for eating out and socialising!! Glad I'm out of the rat race now....