To ask a bunch of strangers about personnel financial details.

[NoseyBuggerMummy]

I only have a few friends who I could ask in real life and they all have bizarre financial lives (either super rich barristers or starving artists) and no kids so I'm asking mumsnet.

I'm about to move back to the UK and want to plan my budget etc. but I have no idea how expensive it is to live. I've only ever lived in the UK as a child (bank of mum and dad) or a student (when I was happy to live in a damp slug infested shit hole) and even then lived abroad for half of my PhD program. I pretty much finished my PhD, got pregnant and moved abroad simultaneously, now I'm moving back and want to attempt to live like a "proper grown-up" but we're finding hard to plan where to live and how much spare cash we'll need so I'm throwing it open to mumsnet:

How much money do you get into your bank account each month and what do you spend it on?

So far we only have one toddler (hopefully soon out of nappies) so I'm hoping groceries won't be too much more than £100 a month!

Wow just saw £1200 a month for nursery in London! Here people pay 700 euros a month!

Do you mean groceries as in all food and toiletries for two adults and a toddler for £100 a month? Even the magic mumsnet chicken will struggle with that one. You may need to rethink. I consider us to be on a fairly tight budget at the moment as I'm on maternity leave. I spend roughly £10 per day on food for two adults and one toddler (baby not eating solids yet) covering three meals and a few bits of fruit/yog/snacks.

We spend around £60-70 a week on groceries/cleaning/toiletries (Asda) for just 2 adults! Think £100 would be stretching it a bit!

Oops I meant a week - even as a student a spent more than £100 a month and that was 5 years ago (although I don't think I'm particularly good at being frugal).

Here are my basic monthly bills, besides mortgage:

Gas & electric - 106
Council Tax - 104
Water rates - 35
Groceries - 216
TV Licence - 12.50
Petrol - 170 (Two cars)
Phone/broadband/sky - 60

We pay for car insurance annually £400 for each car. Home insurance is £200.

Our monthly bills;

Petrol: £200
Groceries: £100-£120
Rent: £820
Bills (water, electric etc) :£125
Council tax: £132
My phone: £10
Netflix: £6

I earn £1200 a month and my OH earns £1400-1600 depending on call out work, I'm about to lose my job and fortunately we'll still be alright until I find something else, we're in the South East (About half hour away from London) but we live quite cheaply, no kids, we do have dogs (2) but we tend to bulk buy food so not done every month, our hobbies and interests are fairly home based/cheap.

We're fairly boring too, which helps, at 21 a lot of our friends are out spending money at weekend so I think that definitely helps with budgeting!

£100 pm for groceries? 2 adults and a toddler? Not a chance.

Commuting to central London from zone 3 (ie where many people with young families live) would be £1200 a year (more if you can't splash out on the annual pass or get a loan from your employer). So £100 each a month
Water bill say £500/year (more in the SouthWest, less in the north)
Gas and electric together say £120 a month if you have small kids/work at home sometimes.
Council tax about £150 a month
Land line and broadband up to £25 a month
Mobile phone - £10 to £50 a month depending on usage
Running a car - £200 tax, £100 MOT, £400 insurance, then petrol

Groceries £100 a week should be fine for 2 adults and a toddler - I probably pay that for with kids without being very frugal

Adds up to about £1000/month plus a bit left. When I was on mat leave I saved loads on transport and got to buy food bargains and use less prepared food, as well as saving on the £60/day/child at nursery. Dd's 15 free hours at nursery kicks in next month (term after turning 3) so that saves £450 a month!

Ok so I live in a 4 bed terrace house with dh and 1 dc. Our expenses on top of housing are (per month)
150 - gas and electric
40 - 2 mobile phones
13 - tv licence
25 - bt phone
30 - hair cuts
30 -water, sewage
10 - window cleaner
50 - cleaner
200 - petrol for 1 car (c1000 miles)
500 - food, takeaways, toiletries
30 - life ins
60 - house ins
20 - contents ins
5 - water pipe ins
100 - cost of running car (tax/ins)

Most kids classes tend to be £5
Swimming classes tend to be c10
Cup of coffee 2.50
Softplay visit 3.50

Hope that helps.

Wow thank you solo much for all these replies! It's been so useful!

I'm a lone parent with 1 child, income including maintenance is 3300.
Outgoings:
Mortgage 750
Council tax 100
Seson ticket loan repayment to work 250
Gas and electric 200
Phone 50
Car insurance 50
Petrol 30
Groceries 200-300
Plus various other direct debits for TVs licence, breakfast club ect.

Try to keep a grand in case of emergencies in my account at all times. Need to save more! I live in the South East.

In the north west it is around £500 to rent a 2 bed house, £300 Ish for essential bills and I would say £300 per month for food for a family of 3 and that includes nappies etc.

Even minimum wage jobs each working full time would give you around £2000 per month in total.

Theoretician and Beth, do you really pay that much to sky?!?!

Just gave notice because my 75% discount was ending and I refuse to pay £49 instead of 12!

My utilities are also pretty low compared to some of these, although we live in a draughty old house!

Monthly

Gas/elec 80.
Water 50
Sky 12 (seriously people, haggle)
Phone/bb 12
2 mobile contracts 15
Council tax 180
Groceries inc nappies 3-400
Petrol 50
Mortgage 1200
Childcare 1800
Commute (to London) 400

=4200 a month.

Plus annual estimates
2car tax 500
2car ins 600
2*car mot/service/repairs 2000
Life insurance 200
House insurance 200
Tv licence 150
House repairs/ maintenance 2000

= 5650, say another 500 pcm.

Plus random furniture/holiday/ entertainment spend, could probably round up to £5k a month. But we live in the commuter belt, have two in ft childcare, no free hours yet, live in a old money pit of a house and the cars keep developing expensive problems. Net pay is probably around £8k once I finish paying off student loan.