To be paying £250 per month for broadband and phones

[Kmetsch3]

A family of five, with two teens
We have sky super fast broadband, sky sports, Netflix, Amazon Prime, and 4 smartphones.

Are we, more or less, normal?

It seems a lot on first glance but including mobile I don’t think it is. We pay £60 for sky - no sports movies just tier two which is the extra kids etc, unlimited fibre and phone. We have Netflix and amazon so I guess about £14 on top and then we both have contracts which cost total of £100 so once our kids are older it will be more like what you spend. We barley watch sky it’s stupid really, just the boys watch it but even the kids stuff is on amazon and Netflix now.

It’s hard to find cheap iPhone contracts for those saying shop around especially when the pressure is on for kids to have the latest iPhone etc, and they always need tons of data

The other issue if you have a family using lots of music or TV streaming is that you need a good home broadband connection, which can be expensive.

We have fibre from Plusnet and I'm not sure what it costs, and as we're out of contract soon, we need to look for another deal, but it's not great and even with just one person watching streamed TV, it buffers on occasion.

I can't imagine the demands when you have 3, 4 or more people all gaming, downloading and streaming at the same time as could be the case with a family with teens.

Those of you with sim-only contracts who own their phones, don't forget to take into account the costs of buying and replacing the phones!

Yes, but taking out a loan to buy a phone is a terrible idea, if you can afford to buy the phone you want directly, just buy the phone you want. If you can't, buy a cheaper phone. If you really, really want the more expensive phone then a loan not from the phone company will likely be cheaper, but buying a cheaper phone is much more sensible.

Good grief.

We have three smartphones for about £45 a month total, Amazon Prime and pay about £50 a month for broadband and landline. And that seems expensive to me!

I'm amazed at how high some of these costs are.

My TV package, high speed broadband (60gb), and landline is £42 a month, I pay for netflix for the months that there's something worth watching, and my mobile is £10 per month sim only (paid off phone over 2 years, that's done and will keep it for as long as it still works).

Phones in contract are hideously expensive. It's far better to buy them outright and get a SIM only deal.

I don't think the poster was saying to take out a loan to buy a phone, just that it's a bit disingenuous to ignore the cost of buying and replacing the phone when comparing to people on contracts. Some people will buy a phone at £500 and might still only keep for 2 years so that is an extra £20 a month. Conversely someone might buy a phone at £100 and keep it running for say 3 years and that's a cost of only £3 ish a month. Obviously it's all personal choice but to say that the cost of running your mobile is only £8 for a monthly sim is not going to be the reality for most.

I consider money I've spent, spent? I paid the £100 for a new phone, out of my emergency funds (back when I had savings). It's paid. However, I still have to pay for use of the sim, which is £10 a month.

"
Yes, but taking out a loan to buy a phone is a terrible idea, if you can afford to buy the phone you want directly, just buy the phone you want. If you can't, buy a cheaper phone. If you really, really want the more expensive phone then a loan not from the phone company will likely be cheaper, but buying a cheaper phone is much more sensible."

Actually, buying a SIM free handset with a loan or low interest credit card can work out significantly cheaper. The price of the handset itself is lower, but it's not just they. When you buy a handset via a network you're then tied into their tarrifs which can be much more expensive than a SIM free option.

There are deals around, but it's an option worth looking at before you look at a fixed 2 year contract

Superfast Sky broadband, Phoneline with Sky, SkyQ, Netflicks, Spotify, NowTV, Amazon Prime, plus 2 smartphones costs us £110ishpm

How hard do you negotiate your contracts? We are brutal with Sky and often cancel the contract - they then offer us things for silly prices to get us to change our minds. We are paying less for SkyQ than we were before on the standard kit.

Play hardball!

Phones in contract are hideously expensive. It's far better to buy them outright and get a SIM only deal.

I'm not sure there is always a lot in it tbh. DS1 got a new phone at Christmas on contract. To buy the phone would have been £550. A sim for what he has would be around £12 a month. We can't necessarily just go for the cheapest supplier as we live in the sticks and not all providers can give a decent signal. On contract I am paying £740 in total over two years. It would have cost £830 if bought and then own sim. Of course, if you keep the phone longer then the cost is reduced but that also goes the same for a contract phone as you only pay for the use and not the phone when the contract is up. Our costs will go down when my phone is up for renewal as I'll probably keep it and go sim only for a year. However, he is also getting £120 for selling on his old phone.

We have the entire Sky Q package, a mini box in bedroom and fibre max - £104 a month.

Then we have BT Sport, 4K Netflix and Spotify family - £45.

I pay for my phone £60 a month and my wife pays for hers £35 a month.

Yes to negotiating with Sky - we have only paid 50% for the past 7+ years by canceling/ringing to haggle. It costs us £25/month for our package which includes multiroom. They appear to have got the message as this year we didn't even have to ring - they sent us a letter automatically extending our 50% offer

Wow so all those threads saying people can't save/get a deposit because they spend on gadgets were right!

Just the two of us at the mo, we don't watch TV or iPlayer or anything like that.

Mobiles: £20 total (giffgaff sim only)
Wifi, no landline: £29 (plusnet)
Netflix: £4 (we split costs with another couple)
= £53

I think my partner also has spotify but she gets the student discount if so and that's about a fiver but that's not out of joint money so I'm not sure.

Yeah I looked at OP and thought 'wtf that's a huge amount'. Then I added ours up

£60 fast broadband and phone (actually the package is £30, but when you add line rental, a few quid on phone calls and vat...)
£20 Amazon/Netflix/occasional sky day pass
£100 phones (3 x iphone, 1 x brick)
£12 tv licence

And that's £200 a month, with no TV package.

epic I guess that applies if you don't already have your own home. We didn't have mobiles and all singing and dancing broadband and tv packages pre children or when they were small. As ours are teens, unlimited broadband is a necessity and we have more time for watching things ourselves and want to keep in touch when out and about. Fancier phones are usually part of Christmas or Birthdays.

I can well see how a young couple spending out on phones etc would be spending cash that they could be saving but then maybe having netfix etc means they are staying in more so not spending as much on socialising/going to cinema etc.

£110 for 4 iphone contracts
£8 Netflix
£8 Amazon Prime
£13 TV License
£25 Sky TV, landline, Fibre internet

Agree Waxon, just couldn't resist as it is always denied as a factor! W e have paid off our mortgage so worry much much less about spending on phones etc (two teens) but I still wouldn't pay for Sky TV!

We have tv licence, Netflix and smart TV and four smartphones, home broadband, total cost about £140

Sounds high to me but I don't know - never added ours up.
Here goes (2 people).

£30 landline/unlimited broadband.

Phones are
£15pm contract (inc. phone)
£5pm SIM only (was £26 for 2 years with phone but dropped when contract ended).

Amazon OR Netflix for TV ~£6-8 pm.

So about £57 alltogether. But will obviously go up for a year or two if/when one of us wants a new phone.

Oh, forgot to add TV licence. We use BBC so that's £12/month. So £69.

Second hand phone and £7.50 a month Giff gaff.

About £130 for super fast fibre, three iPhones, Netflix, and amazon.

I’m happy enough and hate sky. Sorted.

£23 mobiles
£55 Virgin Media
£8 Netflix
£12 tv licence
£15 Apple Music subscription
Amazon prime but I got an annual subscription this year.

That’s more than I thought! Also between £50-60 on electricity as there’s a limit to how many items I can charge at work

Anyway spend what you like, it sounds quite high but then I don’t have my phone on a contract.

No mortgage now either epic though we still have a borrowing facility. Might remortgage again if we need to help our DC get a start. DH and I are both from poor backgrounds and didn't get any help but we'd like to do more for ours if we can and while we are still alive to see them benefit.