Due to move out with children to new home. General ideas on costs for small 3 bed please.

[thescarftwins]

Hi all.
As the title says I am moving out of a V large single glazed and poorly insulated detached family home as separating. Will shortly be moving into a small, well insulated and double glazed 3 bed semi.

Am trying to work out the general gist of costs. We've kept the costs of current house low, but we've been there for so long that I think that I have an inflated sense of running costs. Or at least hope I have, as money will be tight.

So far I'm thinking
Rent - 700
Council tax - 200
Gas/electric - 100
Internet - 20
Water - 40
Car tax - 20
Car insurance - 40

Trying to keep to a minimum. Rent is compatible for area and means I won't need to move the children to a different school.

Thank you

If you are a single adult in property you should be entitled to a 25% reduction in council tax.

There's quite a lot of variation. Lots of people will tell you that it's not possible to rent a 3 bed for 700 pm, but that's obviously very area dependent, in many areas of the country you can. Council tax estimate looks high, but you can check on your council's website.

There's lots of ways to keep costs to a minimum, have a look at:

www.moneysavingexpert.com/family/money-help/ for a systematic way of looking at every aspect of income and expenditure. Lots of small savings can add to a significant boost to your disposable income, which is where you really notice it because you can save for a rainy day and be able to afford days out/nice things more easily.

You can check the council tax band of the houses you're looking at moving to on the government website here www.gov.uk/council-tax-bands, and then check your local council website for the cost over the year for each band (don't forget you'll get a 25% discount as single adult). Just google the name of your council and "council tax bands" and something like this should come up www.southtyneside.gov.uk/article/56091/List-of-Council-Tax-bands . They have to let you choose to pay over 12 months now for CT so just divide by 12 to get a figure per month.

200 seems quite high though - that's higher than ours for a 4 bed detached without any discounts and you're clearly not in a crazily expensive area at 700pcm for a 3 bed. With the above South Tyneside example, a 3 bed semi round here might be band C, £1600ish a year with a 25% discount is £100 a month. But you really need to check your local website for the exact figures.

Your gas/electric figure is probably towards upper end of what I'd think is normal, if you're well insulated might get away with less. Water probably about right.

Rent and council tax will vary a lot depending on location.

I have 3 people (2 adults and 1 child) in my double glazed 3 bed semi, we pay £40 for water and £120 for gas and electric every month. This is slightly too much (my last bill was £91) but I like to over pay and accumulate credit for the colder months as I hate being chilly and prefer not to be in a position where I need to limit my heating.
I went into last winter with around £170 credit and ended it with £55 credit. If I want a refund on the credit I can request it online and it is in my account in a few days

Forget to add that one adult works from home Ordinarily so energy use may be slightly higher than average