Is our monthly budget unrealistic?

[Ginghamricecakes]

Bit of a boring post, sorry!

About to buy our first home, two adults, we live in the north, combined income of 3k per month.
We have budgeted:

£700 mortgage
£600 bills (council tax, house insurance, gas, elec, internet)
£300 direct debits (gym, pet insurance, phones, Netflix...)
£400 travel (petrol, car insurance, tax)
£250 food

Left over cash to spend/save: £750 p/m

Is this reasonable? Are we over/under estimating or forgetting anything?

Better be too high than too low on bills.

Obviously if you underestimate you could have a problem if you run out of money, but the worst that could happen if the bills are lower than you expect is that you end up building up some savings, which is always a good thing and doesn't need to be for anything specific.

@tentative3 That's a great idea, we will definitely have to try that. Do you do it by designating one person's bank account to bills ect?

Our gym is £25 each, so reasonable. But our phones are £40 each, and then other bits on top of that like netflix, printing, Amazon prime, union fees, contact lenses, medication costs, pet insurance... It's insane how it all adds up.

Sounds good Gingham. Well done you two!
for house warming.

£250 on food is fine for two adults.
Bills:
Mortgage
Council Tax
Gas/Electric/Water
Wifi
Subscriptions: tv, music etc
Mobiles
Landline
insurance- home, contents, life, mobile or gadet cover, car
car costs
account charges
credit card
travel

Our income and bills are pretty much identical to yours in a 3 bed terraced house in the south. So the bills don't sound high to me but maybe the south is more expensive. We can save about £500 (grown up children, frantically trying to pay off mortgage) as long as nothing goes wrong, (cars!! Household breakdowns and repairs) or we don't have Christmas or go on holiday. Those things wipe us out.
Having said that, we are sending £200pm to daughter at uni so you might have a bit more leeway than us.

The £600 for bills is a total stab in the dark, I've just budgeted for that because we have no idea how much our household bills will cost each month, and I figured it surely couldn't be more than £600 pm.

Fair enough, I reckon you’ll be pleasantly surprised. The money left over can be used for savings/fun.

I'm up north op in a 2 bed semi and we pay around £320 in Bill's after our rent. This includes insurance and pet plans for our cats so I think you have massively over estimated your household Bill's. However, you're right in saying it's always good to over estimate.
There are 2 adults and 1 child in our house and we spend around roughly £200pm on food, but pp are right in saying some weeks it can be alot more when you need to buy toiletries, cleaning products etc. This is where it all adds up so if I was you I would add an extra £50 to your food budget just incase.

For us just outside London in a 4-bed detached, your "bills (council tax, house insurance, gas, elec, internet)" - with the addition of water - sum to £450, and that's with a fairly expensive cable package and heavy use of energy.

I think you're missing huge chunks of everyday life/spending - eg going out, eating out, coffees out, gifts, clothing, holidays etc....and a big "buffer fund" pot for emergencies, repairs etc.
I also think your food amount is low, but if you can eat for that amount, all power to you.
Try tracking your current spending on a daily basis for a month or so, to see where your money goes (if you've not done this already).
Also, try to make sure you put money into savings each month - otherwise it's too easy to fritter it away. Maybe do that before any discretionary spending.

@QueSera I'm just assuming that our left over £750 will be the pot for savings and additional spends like going out and buying a gifts ect.

Hey better to over estimate than under.
My advice would be to have all bills come out of a joint account. Leave 2250 in there for the first three months - if after that time you have money left in there you can divide it by three and m deduct that from the 2250 which will tell you how much you actually need. 600 seems a lot for bills IMO- mine are around 280 (two bed bungalow with 2 adults one child)

Use a different account.m for the the left over money for spending money, that way you won’t accidentally spend too much and leave yourself short.

Good luck and congratulations on buying the house

Ah that makes sense. I guess I just meant, try to quantify the amount you want to save, and the amount you're comfortable spending on going out, gifts etc - because in my experience, if I don't prioritise and put aside my savings first, it's easy to spend the whole amount on bits and bobs and then realise I have nothing left over to put in savings! Good luck OP, and congratulations on your plans!

We are on about the same and have a teen daughter too. We manage fine - but it’s always good to tuck some away for the unexpected (root canal last month, car repairs this month).

I think the food is too little, good on you if you can stick to it though.

Don't forget, once you're a home owner you'll need to pay for boring maintenance (boiler service, DIY costs and/or handyman for jobs like gutter clearing/external painting etc) as well as put money away for unexpected house costs (new boiler, leaky roof).

And you'll probably find you spend quite a bit on 'things for the house' - decorating, furniture etc.

If I were you, go to MSE and look at their v. comprehensive budget planner. That will help to break it all down over a year, not just a month.

I think you seem to add another 10% for incidentals . Otherwise as a budgeting exercise you seem to have thought it through.
I would review every 6 months to see if you your numbers are correct and if not what caused any changes.
Having a healthy balance between your incomings and outgoings is the ideal choice and try to save as much as you can each month.

seem to= should

@RubbingHimSourly

Your bills are astonishingly low!! I’m a single parent of two primary children. I’ve put my costs below yours

That's £30 council tax
Where do you live?? Mine in £110 and that’s with 25% discount

£25 gas and electricity (( usually a lot less tbh))
£116

£5 TV license
TV license is more than £60 a year?

£5 water (( or there abouts))
51

£5 House / building insurance.
£17

As others have said, food sounds a bit low but as you have probably overestimated the bills it should balance up. £750 sounds fine to have leftover, I'm guessing holidays will come out of that

divide yearly bills into 12 so you arrive at a monthly cost for things like road tax, MOT house, travel and car insurance

I advise two savings accounts one short term for things like next years holiday Christmas birthdays bits and pieces for the house like bed linen, cushions, emergency repairs to cars or house,

the second for long term expenditure your house deposit new cars new kitchen bathrooms etc

get some basic tools for Christmas! so you can do minor repairs / decoration and maintenance yourselves being able to clean out gutters, refix handles change fuses, build flat pack furniture better and more securely.

I think the food budget is doable if you have somewhere to store jars, cans, toiletries etc when they are on offer.

For example, in our cellar (you can use cupboard under stairs, pantry cupboard etc) we store:
Toothpaste, loo rolls, tissues, shampoo, tins of baked beans, tuna tins, drinks etc (from Costco and when on offer elsewhere) and have a spare freezer to store frozen veg and meat etc up to 3 to 6 months.

So really all we are buying weekly is fresh fruit, veg, bakery goods, dairy and eggs which makes it easy to manage when you're both working.

Food, I'd say is way too low but other than that...

My bills (council tax, gas, electric, broadband, water, TV license and insurance etc) are roughly £500.

Oh and as others have said, I would put some aside for unforeseen emergencies. For example, I bought my house a year ago and just had to shell out £3000 for a new boiler...

I would say that's low for food if that's including other general groceries, even though just two of you. I would say £400 a month.

We are 3 bed semi in north west.

Water £60
Elec £40-£60
Gas £40
Council tax £170
Tv license £10
Cleaner £100
Virgin £75

Roughly £500 per month

£500 mortgage
£200 food (family of 3)

Here are some of our categories. Motoring includes replacements and repairs and is low because we spent all £11k of it on a new car 6 weeks ago!

Phone seems high but includes mobile replacements too, we let it grow until it has enough to replace both phones and then reduce contributions to our monthly phone, internet and giffgaff payments. I’m pregnant which is why the baby one is there.