How much do you need to survive each year?

throwaway4372 said:
I'm after data points to compare with:

How much do you need to survive each year?
(estimate to the nearest 1k)

Including: council tax, home insurance, house maintenance, water, energy, broadband, phone, pc (essential!), groceries, clothes, other essentials.

Excluding: mortgage/rent (assume home is owned), car, holidays, non-essentials.
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I'm not sure why you would exclude rent, that's by far our largest outgoing.

Council Tax - £1900
Water/Gas/Electric - £2700
Internet/Phone - £860
Maintenance - £0 as we rent
PC - Maybe £400 a year on average?
Groceries - £5200
Clothes - £1200

£12,260

Rent is £24,420 :p
 
Rai200 said:
I'm not sure why you would exclude rent, that's by far our largest outgoing.
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Because I'm not paying it, so don't need to compare it to other people.
And I will be using the numbers for my own retirement planning, when most people aren't paying rent/mortgage anymore, and it helps to take age and regional variation out of the numbers so they're more comparable.

Goksly said:
Title says survive. Post says broadband / pc etc. So are you after "living comfortably" or are you on about surviving?
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I would die without a pc. :p
I include it because I know I will always have a PC, so need people to include it, and that's probably true for everyone here.
 
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throwaway4372 said:
The minimum, this is about surviving, basic needs.

In the original post I tried to summarise include/exclude lists to make sure we're all including the same stuff:
Including: council tax, home insurance, house maintenance, water, energy, broadband, phone, pc (essential!), groceries, clothes, other essentials.
Excluding: mortgage/rent (assume home is owned), car, holidays, non-essentials.

btw what brought this on was for me I calculated about 11k, then I asked mum and she said 6k.
I am mainly interested in numbers for single people because that's my situation, but other numbers are welcome as long as people state their situation.
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I know but I consider recreation to be essential I.E. holiday, socialising. We both work hard and our kid is a somewhat gifted, constantly in clubs/sport/extra curricular learning. Our daughters stuff is easily £10k but I would call that essential. So to answer your question, no mortgage/extra costs, £20k would scrape it, family of 3.
 
throwaway4372 said:
Because I'm not paying it, so don't need to compare it to other people.
And I will be using the numbers for my own retirement planning, when most people aren't paying rent/mortgage anymore, and it helps to take age and regional variation out of the numbers so they're more comparable.
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Survive is usually a fairly low amount but "enjoy" retirement needs to be much higher.

I would hate to consider working 40/45 years then "survive" on the absolute minimum in retirement. Why would you want to do that.

To survive - probably around £20-25k joint income in retirement.... However between my wife and I - we are aiming, and on track for around, £50k annual income in retirement including state pensions. That doesn't include savings / investments / ISA. That's purely pension / tax free cash income in retirement.

Savings/ISA will be used for travel, holidays, food/wine trips etc.
 
You dont need it to survive. If you really wanted to cut costs that is, but the OPs list isnt about survival really. Nobody needs a PC to survive. Also you dont need to double up, an unlimited data sim would negate the need for broadband in the 'survival' scenario.
 
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throwaway4372 said:
I get that it's confusing if you've not been following my other threads, that's ok though, you can pretend I didn't say "survive" and estimate the spend on the included items.
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Yes it was pretty obvious it was related to the retirement thread.

For this PC, what's it for exactly, gaming? You'd also have to factor in a monthly upgrade budget so you're not hit with a huge bill every few years.
 
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My outgoings are low, as my wife owns the house (no mortgage and no children). So I bung her some cash, for my half of council tax, utilities and 'shopping' etc. So ~£9k a year.
 
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200sols said:
For this PC, what's it for exactly, gaming? You'd also have to factor in a monthly upgrade budget so you're not hit with a huge bill every few years.
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Hard to predict how much gaming I'd do in the future. It seems like I game less as I get older, but if I didn't have to work maybe I'd use gaming to fill some of the time. There's no way of knowing what level of hardware would be required or how frequently. I currently have £25/month in my budget spreadsheet to represent that, just so there's something vaguely realistic accounted for.

Edit: doesn't need to be a secret, here's what the sheet looks like:
isgg3g2.png
 
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Excluding mortgage I need £498 to keep the lights on (utilities, council tax). I guess another grand a year for insurances - call it £600/mo. Then factoring in a 5 yearly car refresh - say £10k - brings it to £766/mo. Put aside £200 for big house bills - £966/mo. Then I would need a minimum of £700 (lived experience) to survive and do minimal experiences - call it £1700/mo.

That's £20.4k after tax so presumably something like £25k/year before tax.
 
throwaway4372 said:
Hard to predict how much gaming I'd do in the future. It seems like I game less as I get older, but if I didn't have to work maybe I'd use gaming to fill some of the time. There's no way of knowing what level of hardware would be required or how frequently. I currently have £25/month in my budget spreadsheet to represent that, just so there's something vaguely realistic accounted for.

Edit: doesn't need to be a secret, here's what the sheet looks like:
isgg3g2.png
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This looks pretty sensible for "keep the lights on" spend. Looks like £20k would see you "mega comfy".
 
throwaway4372 said:
Hard to predict how much gaming I'd do in the future. It seems like I game less as I get older, but if I didn't have to work maybe I'd use gaming to fill some of the time. There's no way of knowing what level of hardware would be required or how frequently. I currently have £25/month in my budget spreadsheet to represent that, just so there's something vaguely realistic accounted for.

Edit: doesn't need to be a secret, here's what the sheet looks like:
isgg3g2.png
Click to expand...
Some of those sums are low. Dental looks low as does clothes. Spotify at £12 a month? Likewise Amazon prime is hardly a necessity, you are retired you can wait 3 days for the free delivery option. Fuel looks low unless you dont plan on going anywhere, window cleaner is a waste of money when you have time on your hands, clean them yourself. Brown bin? Find space for a compost heap. Grocery cost low but everyone has different views on that.
 
Single parent working full time with a 3 year old, living in a mortgaged small 3 bed house in Newcastle.

I track every penny that comes in, and every penny that goes out on an excel sheet. I wouldn't say I live uncomfortably from a finances perspective, but I do live paycheck to paycheck so I do need to make sure that income >= outgoings, so I do have a fine line to make sure I keep finances balanced.

Mortgage - £5000
Council tax - £1200
Home insurance - £480
House maintenance - Varies, new boiler fitted Dec 2023 which cost £2400.
Water - £400
Energy - £1600
broadband, phone - £1000 (Virgin media 1Gb internet, basic TV package and telephone)
PC (essential!) - However much you intend to spend on upgrades, so cannot really judge.
Groceries - £4200, but I could easily make this cheaper if required. Best tip I can give here is meal plan and stick to it.
Clothes - £500. I don't spend much on clothes other than for the bairn
Other essentials - Depends on what you class as essential. I pay for Amazon Prime, Disney+ and Spotify but I also have a dog so need to cover pet insurance, pet food and any vets bills. Also need to consider car tax, car insurances and car maintenance.
 
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200sols said:
Some of those sums are low. Dental looks low as does clothes. Spotify at £12 a month? Likewise Amazon prime is hardly a necessity, you are retired you can wait 3 days for the free delivery option. Fuel looks low unless you dont plan on going anywhere, window cleaner is a waste of money when you have time on your hands, clean them yourself. Brown bin? Find space for a compost heap. Grocery cost low but everyone has different views on that.
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ty, some stuff to think about there.
Spotify is my gym membership, headphones + walk.
Amazon prime is for tv more than delivery. (my only source of content, hence no tvl)
I do virtually no mileage ('16 plate car has just hit 20k miles, arguably not worth having it, but I do use it most days)
 
excluding mortgage.. these are all approximations per month:

£230 council tax
£250 gas, electric, water
£400 food
£20 mobile
£60 internet
£1000pa car service pack

me and the missus save around half our monthly salary into an isa, rest is disposable income
 
Don't have a mortgage now. I reckon I could "survive" on approx. £10K. But there would be minimal luxuries, if any. Inflation over the last 2 years has really dented that minimum amount.
 
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