Can you afford to live!

I still cant believe how much rent you guys pay, we rent 3 bed fully renovated semi's with drives for £120 a week, 2 beds for 105, and 1 bed flats for £83.
When I was a young 'un we shared, then bought a house and had to get lodgers in to pay for it, so still sharing. Are my memories too rose tinted, or do todays Yoof expect too much in terms of starter homes? are there lesser areas you could rent in?
 
I make 1700 after tax myself and i pay £650 rent for a one bedroom flat, all my expenses excluding food, just all the bills and transport and taxes and rent, comes to just over £1000 a month. I usually have about £300-400 if that, for food and money that i can buy things with every month, like new work clothes after paying off debts etc.

My shoes are falling apart i have not bought new clothes for years and i never have any spare money to buy anything with. After looking around london for the best places to live, i found that the best way to do it, is to take the rent and add the transport to work costs in with that as a total figure. In that case the cheapest places to live based on rent + transport is croydon and out east, also north east, like enfield. That way you can pay £180 or £160 per month for train and get zone 1-6 travel card and then find a nice one bedroom for £650. If you go outside the m25 you will find better quality properties for the same price. For example in guildford or woking you can get two bedrooms with a garden for £650, but the problem comes then that trains into london can cost £300. So that cancells out the saving.

but as there are two of you, your train is double. Good luck. :/
 
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Greebo said:
Sounds about right. Welcome to the real world.

Even at the age of 41, I still don;t have as much disposal income as I did when I was 21.

Cicumstances meant that for almost a year I was living with my parents paying £25 per week which got me food, washing and a room. At the time I was taking home £200 per week. £175 per week disposal income was a lot 21 years ago.

It helped that fuel was cheap and I was only running a £300 car.

Nowadays with mortgages, bills, car loans, pension contributions, insurance, medical cover etc I have around £60 per week disposal income.

Although to be fair, my other half who earns more than double I do, has about £500 per week disposal income :(

EDIT: Which does raise issues sometimes as I have to think about what I can do and save for things and she can pretty much just get what she wants when she wants. Although she does quite often pay for meals out, buys clothes for me and paid for our holiday last year but I always feel I don't want to do this too often as it feels wrong.
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Are you married or living together as if you were?

My wife and I consider our respective incomes as jointly ours. One Current Account, one Savings Account, and our finances are a single entity.

I have always wondered at the lack of trust and committment shown by couples who keep everything separate. Maybe thats why the divorce rate is so high.
 
BENJAMIN HERBLE said:
why not go homeless, and get council or HA flat?

Foxxy, your either extremely tight with power, or you got your numbers wrong...gas £5 a week?? elec £5 a week?
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We don't have gas in our place, and currently use 10kw a day.

So 3650kwh a year + 1350kwh extra for winter months, see estimated annual usage at 5000kwh, or 96kwh a week.

At a 24.19p daily charge (£1,70 a week) and 9.27p/kwh (£8.90 a week), our weekly spend is just over a tenner, so it is doable.
 
so agree with Castiel, took Mr Herble ages to realise it was our money, not mine, so although we both have single accounts for light stuff, pressys, golf membership etc, we now have a joint account, and pool it, for all the day to day and big stuff.
Mrs herble
 
when I was a young 'un we shared, then bought a house and had to get lodgers in to pay for it, so still sharing. Are my memories too rose tinted, or do todays Yoof expect too much in terms of starter homes? are there lesser areas you could rent in?
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He lives in Kingston. Unless he decided to live on the Cambridge estate (where he will be shot whilst be mugged and gang-raped) or moved an hour away, prices will always be around the level he's quoting.
 
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The wife and I each get £60 a month to spend on ourselves. That is after conservative living and a reasonable amount of savings though, and 10% of our income going to the church.

Lower your expectations.
 
krooton said:
We don't have gas in our place, and currently use 10kw a day.

So 3650kwh a year + 1350kwh extra for winter months, see estimated annual usage at 5000kwh, or 96kwh a week.

At a 24.19p daily charge (£1,70 a week) and 9.27p/kwh (£8.90 a week), our weekly spend is just over a tenner, so it is doable.
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dont know what we are doing wrong then, must be the hotub and the sauna?
i am tight, we burn logs, hardly use gas, yet bills always 2-300 a month.
 
britboy4321 said:
I'm unemployed and not claiming any benefits .. don't ask!
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Why aren't you claiming? You'll be paying for them as soon as you find a job, so you may as well take advantage of them when you need them.

Don't come out with some idealistic idea that you don't believe in taking handouts... it's not like you'll be allowed to opt out of paying your NI as some sort of conscientious objector so just take the money.
 
fini said:
He lives in Kingston. Unless he decided to live on the Cambridge estate (where he will be shot whilst be mugged and gang-raped) or moved an hour away prices will be relatively similar.
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yup, tbh thinking of dorking but the girl works on a sunday and there are 1 hour waits for busses lol :P


but I have a car so ill be fine! :p
 
BENJAMIN HERBLE said:
so agree with Castiel, took Mr Herble ages to realise it was our money, not mine, so although we both have single accounts for light stuff, pressys, golf membership etc, we now have a joint account, and pool it, for all the day to day and big stuff.
Mrs herble
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It's why its called a partnership as well as a relationship. :)

My wife and I share everything, 15 years married and yet to argue over finances (or anything really).
 
Castiel said:
Are you married or living together as if you were?

My wife and I consider our respective incomes as jointly ours. One Current Account, one Savings Account, and our finances are a single entity.

I have always wondered at the lack of trust and committment shown by couples who keep everything separate. Maybe thats why the divorce rate is so high.
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Living together for the last 17 years. We have a joint account and still both seperate accounts each. Wages gets paid into our accounts and then we both transfer the same amount of money to the joint account every month which covers all the bills, mortgage, food etc and has a suplus left over for extra things.

What we have left in our own accounts is then our personal disposable income.

Never been quite sure why we never went the whole joint income/one account thing though. It just never happened. Our salaries used to be quite close but I had my computer spend and she had her horse spend so it just always made sense rather than having to ask each other if it's okay.

There were always other disparities like she used to pay £200 per month more into her pension etc.

I suppose it works for us and we have never changed it. Now I have less disposable income than I used to a few years ago (long story but currently paying off a large debt, 3 years to go) and her having gone from my salary level to more than double in 3 years, I wish it was treated as all one pot.;)
 
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BENJAMIN HERBLE said:
dont know what we are doing wrong then, must be the hotub and the sauna?
i am tight, we burn logs, hardly use gas, yet bills always 2-300 a month.
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We have a 1-bed new build, well insulated, fridge and immersion are the only things left on, everything else is off at the plug unless in use.

The only things to draw any other power are:

Lights
Oven
Microwave
Kettle
Toaster
2x phone chargers
Her laptop
My pc
32" LCD telly
Her hairdryer

2kwh for 12 hours of idle while at work, 7kwh for 5 hours evening use (computers and telly) and 1kwh for 7 hours sleeping.
 
BENJAMIN HERBLE said:
dont know what we are doing wrong then, must be the hotub and the sauna?
i am tight, we burn logs, hardly use gas, yet bills always 2-300 a month.
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Crikey, We are a family of three Adults (father-in-law, before the poligamy jokes start!) and one child living in a largish 5 bed 1930's Semi. We have various plasma tv's, PC's etc, Gas CH and our combined monthly bill for gas/elec is around £70-£90 depending on season.

£2-300 seems extortionate.
 
I found that it is cheaper to pay for electricity in a house share than it is living by yourself. When i was sharing with four people in a four bedroom house the electricity was around £40 per month, so £10 per person. Now i live by myself it costs me £20.
 
Greebo said:
Living together for the last 17 years. We have a joint account and still both seperate accounts each. Wages gets paid into our accounts and then we both transfer the same amount of money to the joint account every month which covers all the bills, mortgage, food etc and has a suplus left over for extra things.

What we have left in our own accounts is then our personal disposable income.

Never been quite sure why we never went the whole joint income/one account thing though. It just never happened. Our salaries used to be quite close but I had my computer spend and she had her horse spend so it just always made sense rather than having to ask each other if it's okay.
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Freaky!

This our current situation (only we aren't married yet and haven't been together as long) right down to earning similar amount, and keeping disposable income separate for my computers stuff and her horse!
 
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