What is the minimum you need to live in in the SE excluding housing costs?? Single parent with two teens.

[longcoffeebreak]

If you need to be thrifty but are not really hard up?

depends if you're eligible for benefits etc.

Depends on what you need
Do you need meat every day , a foreign holiday every year, new clothes each season ....

Excluding housing costs it's pretty similar everywhere - slightly less perhaps in London with its public transport

So many different factors to consider?Maybe
£250/month for utilities
£300 for food
£100 council tax
Travel - depends on if you can walk/cycle where you need to go

So don’t know if this helps but I’m a single mum with two teens and this is what I spend (excluding mortgage), not sure it helps! We are in a 4 bed house:

• energy, direct debit was £253 pm but now going to £428
• house insurance £200 per year
• car lease £220 pm
• petrol around one tank per month but that’s only cos I’m now wfh / used to be a full tank per week pre covid
• food shopping about £120 a week
• dog walker £240 a month
• water £40 pm
• council tax £107 pm
• wifi £37 pm
• Life insurance etc £120 pm
• son train fare to college £60pm
• son lunch money at college £50pm

i also have the usual Netflix ( but never bothered with sky tv) pet insurance, mobile phones, tv licence, car insurance, holidays etc. i also help my other son with costs for his uni

Are you renting or buying?
If renting will it be council or private?
Do you need to be commutable to London?

Bills wise minimum I'd say:
£1300 a month rent
£200 a month council tax
Other bills probably don't vary much

Everything else will also be 5-10% more expensive; petrol, eating out, pub, general activities

£100 council tax!!!!

I wanna know where you're living in the SE. Mine is over £300 a month on a 4 bed.

£100 Council tax?! That's over half ours (small 2 bed terrace on band D)

Single parent discount on council tax?

I'm on what I think is a pretty decent salary for 4 days a week- earn more than the national average by a chunk and in all honesty if it weren't for my rent being very reasonable I'd be in serious trouble. To be comfortable in my area but by no means extravagant - you'd need £1500-2000 just to rent a basic 3 bed plus a car as it's rural and no public transport. House plus bills plus car 3-3.5k per month (that's 65k gross ish) then add on food and the rest - I think gross salary 90k+ miniumum.

Mine is £107 in the SE (which includes single occupancy discount)

I'm a single parent of 2 teens living in the SE. My income is £1550 pcm. My rent is £800. Council tax is about £30 after discounts.

It's not enough so you need more than that!

£1000

I'm in Jersey st the moment so no idea of the 'usual costs' in England .
I don't eat much meat but my kids eat a lot of fish and chicken and I do eat nice food and lots of fresh produce. Supermarkets are much less expensive compared to Jersey. Council tax seems more though. I do run a small car and don't expect foreign holidays often or at all. I do have two dogs though.
I will buy a 2-3 bed house outright hopefully so no housing costs.

Dogs £100 a month?
You need to budget for house maintenance and insurance, maybe £300 a month?

Car £200 a month?
Maybe take home of at least £1,500?

Depends where you live massively - the south east covers a huge area. I spend £400 a month on diesel now getting to work as we are semi- rural & hopeless public transport.

Looking at the averages I am getting here £1500 a month looks about right I think. I'm a counsellor so work tends to be online or relatively local so hopefully no major commuting.

I am looking at the Chichester/Worthing area or possibly around Winchester. I want to be near good theatre/culture and not too far from the coast.

2 person household (me / DC)

my rent £830
Food £270 (2 of us)
bills including council tax, phone and internet, water, energy: £330
travel: £40 (we walk / don't have a car, use bikes)
I don't have a TV etc. Live frugally!

I don't think that after rent it's particularly more expensive than other areas for general stuff, maybe a bit. The expensive thing is housing!

@melly555, £240 pm dog walker. Wow, that is so expensive, why can't 2 teens walk dog?

wow @bloomflower that is so little on food!! Food is so much cheap in England than Jersey. A litre of milk here is £1.28, a loaf of bread £1.66

@longcoffeebreak we tend to shop in Aldi (our closest supermarket) and we are vegan / veggie so don't have the costs associated with meat, dairy etc. I think it works out a fair bit cheaper.

Why would anyone exclude housing costs? What point would there be?

Because OP is hoping to buy outright so won't have housing costs.

If you are a counsellor you should be fine!
Counsellors round my way charge £50 upwards for an hour so even if you only worked 2 days a week that equates to about £38k a year you'd have a decent standard of living if no rent/mortgage to pay.