Working out the cost of living

Soldato
Joined
16 Nov 2003
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On the pale blue dot
I'm looking at moving in the the girlfriend in a few months time and need to work out how much we can budget for rent. Anyone know any useful sites for working this out? How much I'm likely to spend on utilities, council tax and all those things you forget about etc?
 
Problem is that is varies from region to region and house to house..

Consider..

Council Tax
Water Rates
Sewage rates
Electric
Gas
House Insurance
Contents Insurance
Phone
Food
Clothing


then there is you car costs..

..
 
All prices are approximate, and are based on my own usage.

Rent - £300/4 weeks
Council Tax - £12/week
Water Rates - £16/month
Electric - £40/month
Gas - £10/month
Phone - £10 + 8.50/month for my Talk Unlimited plan with NTL
Internet - £25/month
Food - £15/week
Clothing - £30/month
 
Monthly Outgoings

Mortgage / rent - £600/month
Council Tax (£1000/yr) - £100/month
TV Licence £11/month
Gas / Electricity £40/month
Water £27/month
Phoneline £15/month
Broadband £30/month
Food & Supplies £200/month (for 2 people)
Mobile Phone £30/month
Petrol £X
Car £X

Must Save to Meet Annual Outgoings-
building and contents insurance £200/yr
Basketball / Gym £300/yr
Road Tax £130/yr
Car Insurance £600/yr
Car Service & MOT £150/yr
Car Maintenance and Repair £300/yr
Contact Lenses £150/yr
web hosting £40/yr

hope that helps.

i use microsoft money to track financies on a daily basis and find it really useful, using the cash flow forecast i can see from the start of the month my expected spending money and using and updating that i can see if i have enough cash to buy whatever or go on whatever outing.
 
Last edited:
Rent obviously depends on location and size of house.

Don't have a clue about the south east (was SHOCKED by some of the prices being quoted in the apprentice the other week) but oop north £500pcm would get you a decent 2 bedroom flat.

Council tax band D ~£100 pcm

Electricity and Gas ~£35 pcm if you are out all day and efficient

Internet and phone £20ish with carphone warehouse (plus phonecalls IIRC)

If you can COOK (not heat stuff up) you can feed 2 people GOOD food for about £150pm.

Can't really think of anything else....
 
when i moved in with bf (surrey)

rent was £580 (1 bed flat)
council tax £59.00 ish a month
contents insurance with direct line £9.21 a month
ntl - tv, phone and internet £50.00 a month
electricity - £50/60 a month (no gas)
water - £14 a month
tv license - £25.30 a month (if you have never had a tv license before)
food - £50 a week but depends what you buy cos my then bf was buying loads of fizzy drinks and fatty snacks.

i really wish i could afford my own place but cos of my loan its too much right now :(

edit: what we did when viewing flats is, if the tenants were still there we asked for a rough idea of how much they paid for water etc. thats how we then could work out if we could afford to move out for not.
 
SiD the Turtle said:
I'm looking at moving in the the girlfriend in a few months time and need to work out how much we can budget for rent. Anyone know any useful sites for working this out? How much I'm likely to spend on utilities, council tax and all those things you forget about etc?
Ask someone how much they will charge to kill you, then the cost of living is just the negative value of that.
 
Monthly Costs :-
Phone - £20 Approx
Internet - £24.99
Contents Insurance - £15
Council Tax - £100

Quarterly :-
Leccy - £200 Approx
Factors Bill (Flat only) - £200 approx

On top of that you have food and any repair costs etc. That's for me living on my own, bar my girlfriend staying at the weekend. But i'm hopefully going to rent out my spare room to save me some cash :)
 
Whereabouts in Darlo do you live Basmic? Im considering getting my own place sometime in the future, and it would make sense moving to darlo, as I work at the college there. Ive seen a flat on Stanhope road for £260 a month, which would be ideal as its only a stones throw from work, but I have no idea how much council tax would be. Ive found that most houses on that street are band D, but what does this mean in money?
 
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