Hi @mikado1 - I just did a speedy name change before talking too much about financial stuff as your figures are identical to what ours will be and we're expecting our first child soon, living in Dublin. So I really hope it's possible as we're not likely to get a pay rise in the next five years!
At the moment our mortgage is 1k a month, but we have significant renovations planned which will take the repayments up to 1500 around the time we're looking at childcare. You can currently get a seven year fix with Ulster bank for something like 2.9% and we're considering that- basically, I think it's important for us we aren't shocked by rate rises when we're paying two lots of childcare.
We've just worked out our monthly fixed non-mortgage bills as:
car 100 euro/month (insurance/tax/petrol, doesn't include depreciation or cost of replacement-we mostly use it to visit family at weekends we don't need it during the week and shouldn't in the future as schools crèches etc are v close)
Phones- 70
broadband - 56/month
Mortgage insurance - 28
House and contents - 46 (wondering if this should go up a bit given increases building costs in Dublin)
Gas and electric - 141 (big leap after snow, was 80, hoping to get it back down)
TV license - 14/month
Property tax - 30 (likely to go up)
Netflix/Now tv - 26/month
Spotify - 10/month
We live quite central and have one car, but mostly walk everywhere, so monthly costs for that are low, but also have other travel costs of circa 180/month so our fixed non-mortgage costs are around 700.
At the moment we eat out/go to the cinema quite a lot, but as we're the last of our friends to have children it's mostly things like brunches, lunches. Our actual food bills are way lower than our friends- we've friends with two kids (6 and 4) who reckon they pay 180/week, we're vegetarian and shop in Lidl but it's generally closer to 60/week. Obviously I know that will go up once there are children but I'm constantly shocked the odd time I do a big shop in Tesco (always comes out around 100) or SuperValu (less said there the better...)
We also don't currently have health insurance, which I'm debating. We combed over about six months of statements and the obvious areas where you have flexibility are car/transport, mindless takeaways/eating out and groceries. I'm hopeful that we may have some grandparent childcare, which could take our childcare costs down to three days a week/circa 700. But will only apply for first child as both sets are getting on a bit, though we're lucky they're close.
At the moment, we're having a few months of putting 2,500 straight into savings to build up a buffer, that's basically a grand a month compared to real costs given no 1k childcare or 500 renovation mortgage increase. I keep meaning to meal plan - at the minute we both buy fairly pricey lunches out in work everyday and we're still getting a takeaway a week. My husband is a fairly exclusive m and s sale, wear things till they fall apart kind of dresser whereas I've been really trying to cut back on clothes spends/use marie kondo to streamline my wardrobe so we don't spend a lot on clothes. But we're getting on fine not spending that grand, and are hoping to do all our big baby purchases out of it too.
Can I ask where you live now? We moved from London and found comparing prices v hard. If you're in another part of ireland, I think most prices e.g. Groceries will be the same but it's the housing and some of the stopping for a coffee things that mount up. Quite a bit depends on where in the city you are too.