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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To ask if you have a 40k household income how much your outgoings are?

183 replies

PantyGiraffe · 20/12/2019 18:44

To help me see where we are going wrong!

I’m not working at the moment due to health problems. We have one child. No mortgage (paid for house in full on purchase). We live in a 2 bed house and our bills come to £800 including our car and mobile bills. Car was paid for cash and we don’t spend more than £60 a month in petrol.

Could people of a similar income tell me if their bills are less than this and if so how?

OP posts:
SympatheticSwan · 21/12/2019 12:01

Housing £1400, childcare £900, council tax £180 and that's £40K gone.

BoxedWine · 21/12/2019 12:05

Check everything that might be a bit leaky for leaks OP. If it's a slow drip it might not show as abnormal. Can you do fewer baths and more showers?

How much are you spending on food, where, what are you buying and what would you like to spend?

HuntIdeas · 21/12/2019 12:48

Surely if DH needs sports for work then his employer should be reimbursing him? Or he can claim against tax if self employed

BarbaraofSeville · 21/12/2019 18:47

How come your DH is spending a few hundred pounds a month on train fares if he works from home? Why doesn't his employer pay for his work travel and various TV subscriptions?

Are you in the south West to be spending so much on water?

Are you entitled to any benefits due to being ill?

He sounds like a candidate for eat well for less spending so much on food. You should be very comfortable on £40k with no housing costs.

W

dontcallmeduck · 21/12/2019 18:51

Woah!! £139 for Virgin media. We pay £34 for ultrafast broadband, landline and basic tv package. I also pay £8 for Netflix.
Mobiles seem very expensive too.
As does your water, we pay £36 for 4 of us in a 4 bed on a meter.
Council tax also seems high for a 2 bed but that’s unchangable.

AdriannaP · 21/12/2019 18:53

Water is super high - we are 3 people in a 4 bed and pay £120 every 6 months!
Also do you need Virgin Media. We have Netflix for £8 and Now Tv for £7. You can pay for sports programs on demand at Now TV.

AdriannaP · 21/12/2019 18:56

And yes if he needs sports for his work he needs to expense it. Work pays for my mobile phone contract as I need it for work. Any work related subscriptions and readings i can expense.

Original poster
PantyGiraffe · 21/12/2019 20:35

We don’t do baths anyway. Just a quick shower for each of us. We are in the south east and with south east water. My friend who lives round the corner is with the same water company, has a bigger family and a bigger house than us and only pays £45. Wtf! I don’t know what to do!

Dh works from home half the time and at the office half the time. He gets given a small amount within his salary towards travel already and he claims expenses for off site work. But not for the tv because he has not heard of anyone doing that at work so it’s be hard for him to suddenly claim it.

I just got turned down for Pip for my illnesses despite being given it last time and nothing changing.

OP posts:
jimmyhill · 21/12/2019 20:55

But not for the tv because he has not heard of anyone doing that at work so it’s be hard for him to suddenly claim it.

If his job is to watch sports on telly then work really ought to pay for the extra cost involved.

At the very least he should be filling in a self assessment tax return in order to get relief on that business expense

BarbaraofSeville · 21/12/2019 21:13

Are you on a meter or paying rates?

In any case, your water still looks high. According to this the average yearly bill for a 3 person household is £231 to £466, yet you're paying about £1k so definitely worth looking into.

BoxedWine · 21/12/2019 21:20

Appeal the PIP decision.

AdriannaP · 21/12/2019 21:27

But if he needs to watch sports for work he should try and claim it. Does he genuinely need it for work?

I need to read certain magazines for work (which might be hobbies for others) but they are essential in my role and therefore I can expense it.

Original poster
PantyGiraffe · 21/12/2019 21:35

No no he actually has the tv on to follow the news feed for work! And he works in sports media so needs that on as well.

I’m afraid to challenge the pip decision. What if they decide I should never have had it and make me pay it all back from years ago?
What do I do about the water company?

OP posts:
LakieLady · 21/12/2019 21:36

Spoke to virgin- best they can do is £105. Sky don’t include bt sports in their £74 package and costs an extra £30 a month. So virtually identical cost. And yes he does need bt sport for work...

We've got BT as our ISP and, including BT Sport, is around £60 a month!

Original poster
PantyGiraffe · 21/12/2019 21:38

We are on a meter.

OP posts:
Original poster
PantyGiraffe · 21/12/2019 21:38

@LakieLady is sky sports included as well?

OP posts:
BoxedWine · 21/12/2019 21:46

They won't make you repay, and a surprisingly high percentage of appeals get won because the quality of initial decision making is awful.

The UK uses a stupid system for determining water costs called rateability. I don't understand it and it's stupid, but basically it's totally possible to be paying twice as much as the identical home in the next street because of the different rateability values. That said, if you're not south west it's still really high. Have you checked absolutely everything for leaks?

BarbaraofSeville · 21/12/2019 21:48

Some advice here about water bills.

You're either paying off past arrears or have a leak as your water bill is about 3x what it should be.

But your money worries are likely to be far more than that and you need to work out what you are really spending on food if you think that's where you are overspending as you should be able to save quite a bit on your income with no housing costs and little in terms of other discretionary spending.

Lockshunkugel · 21/12/2019 21:53

It might be worth getting your water company to check if the water meter is faulty.

Original poster
PantyGiraffe · 21/12/2019 22:23

Thank you for your advice. I’ll appeal the pip decision.

There’s definitely no detectable leaks in the house so I’ll call the water co back and ask for them to investigate. The woman on the phone said our usage is in line with what’s expected but that’s rubbish according to their own website as linked by the person above!

Basically we went a few hundred overdrawn a few months back caused by a car problem and we havent got a handle on things since then to level it all out. So that’s what I’m trying to do. We have 30k in savings but that’s not to be touched unless there’s an emergency or crisis. So my aim with this thread was to work out if our bills are too high- and the answer is yes in places. I’m aware our food expenditure is too much and I’m addressing that also.

OP posts:
LakieLady · 22/12/2019 08:42

@PantyGiraffe: no Sky sports included for that price, but you can have it as an add-on. No idea how much it is. We've only got BT Sport for the motogp, we're not into sport generally. It was free to BT broadband customers, which was why went to BT. Then it went up to £5 a month, then £10, then £12.

That's why we're switching to Plusnet, it's not worth staying with BT.

If all the sports channels are necessary because of DH's job, shouldn't his employer be paying for them?

LakieLady · 22/12/2019 08:43

Sorry, @PantyGiraffe, I see my question has already been answered.

LakieLady · 22/12/2019 08:55

I know our area is about the most expensive in the country and we have to pay to take sewage away which I don’t think n most areas charge for?? Seems a Rip off that different counties have different rules.

That's the joy of privatising something you can't shop around for. The privatised companies can charge what they like, within reason, make shedloads for their shareholders, and the consumer can do eff all about it. It's one of the reasons I find the idea of a rural property with a borehole and private drainage quite attractive.

One UK water company (possibly Sutton & East Surrey) is largely owned by a US equity fund and an Australian pension fund. We've gone backwards over 100 years in that respect.

ArabellaDoreenFig · 22/12/2019 08:56

It sounds like you need a reality check OP.

You have no mortgage and 30k in savings, you have a household income of approx 2500 per month, that puts you in a very very good financial position, you should be easily be able to be comfortable on that so if you are living beyond your means then you need a serious overhaul of your finances-
Go and have a look at the MoneySavingExpert website, it has brilliant advice and can walk you through a financial mot.

Good luck!

HereForTheHelp · 22/12/2019 08:59

Roughly £45k here after tax, think we spend too much Blush

Rent - £600
Gas/Water/Electric - £180
Phones - £250 (I know it's a lot, we have iPads on contract)
Internet - £30
Food - £350
Car - £400
Council tax - £120
CC repayments - £130
Days out/National Trust etc - £80
Extras like clothes etc have a budget of £100 a month and we take it in turns to get what we need
We don't have a tv, so don't spend money with sky or the likes and don't need a tv licence.

The phone bill seems horrendous, but we pay premium insurance for ALL products. Both DC are severely disabled and things break all the time.
Car is technically paid for using DLA money for son as it's specific to his needs. But insurance is a hell of a lot extra (7 seater and I've only been driving 18 months 😩)

After bills are paid, we try to do £10 a day because in reality, we don't need to spend more than that. We do a cupboard shop once a month of non-perishable items. Means we're only ever about £3 away from a good meal because we only need the meat (or cheese if we're doing veggie Grin)

But that £10 a day always has leftovers, we put it in a pot and use it at the end of the month. We don't drink, smoke or eat out. Don't go on holidays or go to 'normal days out'.

My 2020 plan is to cut spending massively