Haha dude too right - I whinged to my boss about my net-free cashflow and how pathetic it was. I then realised how much was childcare/0% cards for refurbishment bills. Once those are cleared I am on a highway to FIRE.
How much do you need to survive each year?
- Thread starter throwaway4372
- Start date
Soldato
- Joined
- 23 May 2006
- Posts
- 7,645
lol i consider that very fast tbh, indeed i only upgraded to full fibre myself 6 months ago, before then i was on around 25mb - 30mb down.
Man of Honour
£3500 minimum per month with 2 children. So £42k.
That allows for nothing going wrong/breaking and not having much of a life nor allowing the kids to have decent life experience and activities/clubs. No holidays.
There's no buffer.
That includes mortgage, utilities (including broadband and mobiles), council tax, insurances, car.
Pretty bleak thinking about it considering how much that is.
Last edited:
Because I'm hot on stuff like that we can't cut down so easily.
I'm paying 20 for 150/150.
I only went fttp as 150/150 fttp was cheaper than 65/20 fttc
150/150 was the cheapest fttp
Last edited:
Soldato
Couldn’t you make use of Amazon Prime Music if you’re paying for that already?
Or get rid of Amazon for TV and just watch 4oD, ITVx, etc for free?
In the save as much of possible theme I mean. How do you do virtually no mileage if you use the car almost every day? Replace it with a bike?
Soldato
Surely this has been worked out by the government already? It’s called Jobseeker’s Allowance/universal credits/state pension… you just have to add stuff like council tax on to it and other stuff that gets paid for if you was on one of those benefits…
I said this before, if you want a real budgeting challenge, just try living off the state pension amount set at what it is now, just don’t include in the budget all the stuff the that you can claim for.. tired it as a paper exercise and it seems like my meals are usually twice as expensive as the budget allows lol…
If you can live within that budget for a year, then you will know the amount and your good to retire.
I said this before, if you want a real budgeting challenge, just try living off the state pension amount set at what it is now, just don’t include in the budget all the stuff the that you can claim for.. tired it as a paper exercise and it seems like my meals are usually twice as expensive as the budget allows lol…
If you can live within that budget for a year, then you will know the amount and your good to retire.
Soldato
My total monthly household outgoings is about £2600 (depending on how much is spent on food in any given month, can vary by £100 or more) This is for a family of 5.
Take away mortgage, loan repayments and car costs and any non-essentials and that becomes about £1200. So essentially if i anyone has a spare £200k they could give me so that i can clear those big costs, it'd really make life much easier
Take away mortgage, loan repayments and car costs and any non-essentials and that becomes about £1200. So essentially if i anyone has a spare £200k they could give me so that i can clear those big costs, it'd really make life much easier
Last edited:
Caporegime
In my current circumstances about £8k
I've been ok on about £12k per year for years now. I don't drink, smoke, gamble etc. Don't buy much really but do have some nice things. I tend to sell on my more expensive purchases when I no longer use them to recoup money for their replacement. In years gone by I was on very good money for the time and was unbelieveably wasteful, I think I learnt my lesson. I have enough to live a decent life I don't crave any more.
Unfortunately I haven't been able to cut down on broadband because BT were given a guaranteed monopoly for 5 years in return for putting the FTTP infrastructure in. Been here over 10 years now and competition is only just starting to happen. So I've been paying about 50pcm for 10+ years due to lack of choice, at least it's really fast and reliable, but the arrangement really shafted residents so should never have been agreed to. I've got a year left on my contract then I can shop around.
Last edited:
Yeah these are all choices. I used amazon music before and it shafted me by removing music I'd bought so I switched, it's a tenner a month for the proper service anyway, which they constantly hassle you to purchase.
Last edited:
Soldato
I feel I should have pointed out that we’re retired having closed our business for good a few months ago and am burning a small pension pot until we downsize the house. No mortgage, loans or credit cards.
Looked into my mum's estimate based on hers being the outlier rather than mine:
- She missed out a lot of stuff.
- She does a good job of keeping bills down, but not unusually so.
- She gets clothes from charity shops (10/month budgeted).
- She budgets 120/month for groceries. e.g. cheap food (heron frozen foods) and toiletries (pound shop). So if we're going to learn anything from her, it's probably that, but whether we want to is another question.
And taking on board some of your feedback I've adjusted my number from 11k to 12.5k (15k including car).
Very helpful thanks all.
Last edited:
Based on the criteria in the OP (i.e. excluding mortgage, cars, holidays etc.) then around £22k for us ( just 2 adults now the kids have left home, but living in London so prices tend to be on the high side).
Cutting down to a 'basic subsistence' lifestyle could probably cut that to £17k but would be a pretty grim existance.
Cutting down to a 'basic subsistence' lifestyle could probably cut that to £17k but would be a pretty grim existance.
What a question, so my monthly outgoings are;
Rent: £1100
Council Tax: £120
Gas/Electric: £240
BT: £50
Cat: £50
Food: £250
Car: £400
Total: £2210 per month
Year: £26520
This does not cover any additional changes, charges, fun, clothing, family stuff and anything else needed to sustain and live.
No kids, just live in an expensive area, hopefully not forever!
Rent: £1100
Council Tax: £120
Gas/Electric: £240
BT: £50
Cat: £50
Food: £250
Car: £400
Total: £2210 per month
Year: £26520
This does not cover any additional changes, charges, fun, clothing, family stuff and anything else needed to sustain and live.
No kids, just live in an expensive area, hopefully not forever!
My numbers are pretty much on-par with a lot of other people here which is comforting. For me and my wife and a cat (no children) living in a 3 bedroom detached house, we currently spend around £14-15k per year on the things outlined in the first post. We could shave that down by £4-5k if we needed to by buying less alcohol at the supermarket, buying cheaper food (especially meat), less takeaways, using less electricity, etc etc.
I own a car, my wife doesn't drive, I did not include the costs of running the car, they come to around £1-2k/year including petrol and maintenance.
On top of that our mortgage is around £10k per year but that's on a crazy high interest rate as we bought the house last year at the height of mortgage rates, when we are able to renegotiate the rate next summer we will be paying much less hopefully.
I own a car, my wife doesn't drive, I did not include the costs of running the car, they come to around £1-2k/year including petrol and maintenance.
On top of that our mortgage is around £10k per year but that's on a crazy high interest rate as we bought the house last year at the height of mortgage rates, when we are able to renegotiate the rate next summer we will be paying much less hopefully.
Last edited:
Man of Honour
As a family of 4 that reassures me that my figures aren't hugely over egged.
Frankly half of the replies in here shock me in terms of low costs, but I imagine a lot of people on here own and live in cheaper areas.
Be interested where you are based, I am East London.
It does worry me what the future holds for my costs, as I know they will go up with relationships and kids.