Is £1k a month enough to live on?

[EL8888]

I was debating with my mother whether it was possible for a person to live on £1,000 per month. Bearing in mind there is no rent / mortgage to pay (house is paid for), no debts and they own a newish car plus they have a Freedom card to use. They live alone with no dependents or pets. I said it was enough and she said it really wasn’t

I batch cook. I shop at Lidl and Aldi and buy 'yellow sticker' whenever I can, so food shop is £40 max a week. I buy my clothes second hand. I sell anything I can to boost my income. If I meet up with friends, it's usually at someone's house to keep the cost down. I have cheap hobbies!
It's a bit frustrating and sometimes I'd absolutely love to grab a takeaway, but there's no way I can afford to. I've had debt in the past which took years to pay off so it's a frugal, live on the budget life for me!

And I should say I have a small mortgage, which I only currently pay interest on. I don't have the heating on much to reduce fuel bills. Sounds dreadful but it's actually ok!!

Thanks for replying. I also shop at lidl and aldi...My food bill is slightly higher than yours as there's four of us and I do dhs lunches for work out of it. I am very frugal too and don't get takeaways or buy myself New clothes often. My ds has school lunches which cost me nearly £20 a week...this week I need to buy him new school shoes, bag and trousers...these are expenses I can't escape and theres no cheaper alternative as need the regulation school stuff.

Yes I only have heating on in the evenings for the dc...never put it on if it's just me at home.

You live within you’re budget I guess. I think doable but tight. When I had my first son, my husband and I were we had a combined salary of £1250 a month but we felt fairly comfortable most of the time. Our bills equaled £1000 a month including all travel and food. We just walked everywhere, date nights were at home, clothes we didn’t buy four ourselves and our first son, we bought him second hand clothes off Ebay in bundles. We still managed a weekly meal out at the local cafe and a few coffees when out on day trips but we also had days when, if we ran out of washing tablets early we couldn’t replace them. One day I remember my husbands Bus pass expired the day before he got paid and he had to walk 6 miles to work and 6 miles back - which god love him he did without complaint.

Absolutely doable, single person here, detached 2 bed property, I earn more than £1000 net per month but I am fanatic about paying no more than I need to.

200 Mortgage
87 Council Tax
35 water
54 gas/electric
10 mobile
34 broadband
Building/Contents £9
car insurance paid yearly but equates to £18 per month
Car tax/petrol/mot/service £30 (low insurance and not much use)
5.00 charity standing order
£100 food (although probably less as I shop frugally, freeze, batch cook etc)

£582 total for basic bills.

With a bit of shopping around I could probably nail down broadband costs and my water is on a capped tariff that probably needs to be looked at, I think I could definitely save on that too.

I get 950 a month.Pay 300 mortgage out of it and between 2 to 300 in travel costs to work as it's a long commute. So yes, way more than enough.

Some people just don't want to change their lifestyle if their income changes. At risk of being lynched I work in universal credit. I remember sitting next to a colleague who has 2 kids and another soon to arrive.

At full time the very most he'd be earning is £1350 per month after tax. So it was serreal to hear him trying to calm an irrate claimant who had his UC cut to zero as he earned over 2k. Apparently it was unreasonable for him to not be entitled to more money as he had two children.

Another claimant had no mortgage and no dependents. He was even more irrate though he also earned over 2k a month.

We often have conversations with people earning over 3k who cannot understand that they are earning too much to get benefits on top of it.

It all depends where you live.
Without mortgage

Council tax and water for me alone is £300 per month.

Home broadband and telephone £36
House insurance £34
Car with MOT, repair costs, tax, petrol and insurance just for one car I probably spend another £350 at least. Petrol is huge

Gas and electric is £300 per month

That leaves -£20 for everything else, food, clothes, holidays, hobbies.

Definitely not enough

Whilst your car maybe ok atm it will need repairing in the future so you would be further stuffed

The person in the OP lives in a 2 bedroom house in one of the warmest parts of the UK so are unlikely to be paying £300 pm in gas and electricity.

Their council tax and water are unlikely to be that high, London council taxes are often amongst the lowest in the country, so these are likely to be under half that amount, also live alone, so single occupier discount.

They don't drive much and have a Freedom pass so no public transport costs, so probably spend under £100 pm on their car including petrol.

Just because someone else in a big house with the heating turned up to the max even though they appear to be out all the time driving here, there and everywhere can burn through £1k pm and more, doesn't make it that the person described in the OP shouldn't be able to manage quite well on £1k pm.

@ToCaden

How on earth can you survive on that?

So after mortgage and commuting costs you could be left with £350?

How does that pay for water, council tax, gas, electric, phone and food?

@formerbabe

It is a squeeze. I even rented out a room for 300 for a few months to be able to build some savings. Since I'm used to less and tried not to change my outgoings it worked. It was lovely to be able to send some more into my savings at the end of month and not to be so scared to go over budget.

The amount I spend on commute varies which helps. I try to put something aside on low months. If I didn't have commute costs it would be a lot easier.

I get 954 after tax. 300 for mortgage. I time this to go out on payday. That leaves 654. 103 for council tax. That leaves 551. Gas and electric is 29. That leaves 522.

27 for Internet. That leaves 495. Pet insurance is 19. That leaves 476. Transport usually hovers closer to 200, but I'll do worst case of 300. That leaves 176. Then 120 for food and misc. That leaves 56.

I don't always need to buy wet cat food as I buy 6 weeks worth. That's 36 which leaves 20.

I save what I can so I can buy bigger things like dry cat food and litter (buy around a years worth at a time). And house insurance which I pay once for the whole year.

The last six months I've also needed to take some trips to London. That makes things more tight than they would've been.

My Mum does it; owns her own house, uses her bus pass (we are hoping she'll give up the car...can get a lot of taxis for the costs of the tax and insurance), and her income is about £1k per month.

No rent, debt or dependents? Id live like a king on 1k/mo!

Thanks for replying @tocaden

No rent, debt or dependents? Id live like a king on 1k/mo!

You wouldn't. Bills has to come out of that so you'd be lucky to have £150 a week for food and non essentials. Perfectly doable for a single person but you wouldn't be living in luxury.

Council tax isn't going to be over £100 for a single person assuming they're not living in a huge 4 bed house to themselves - which would seem a bit mad if they're on a budget.

MIL is in an enormous 4 bed house on a low income. She's in her 80s and can't face clearing out her family home she has lived in for 50 years even though it would make financial sense to sell up and buy a modern 3 bed property which would free up masses and reduce her living costs. PILs should have downsized 10 or 20 years ago but unfortunately they didn't (and didn't need to while FIL was alive) so now she's stuck. She does at least have savings for one off expenses but her monthly income (more than £1k and mortgage paid off) is only just above her outgoings because things like council tax and water are so high in a big house. She has enough to live on but I find it quite frustrating that her life could be much more comfortable if they had downsized years ago.

The person in the OP lives in a 2 bedroom house in one of the warmest parts of the UK so are unlikely to be paying £300 pm in gas and electricity

My house was a 2 bed before I redesigned so not huge
I have a tumble dryer and I can’t bare the cold.
Is there a warm part of the uk

Their council tax and water are unlikely to be that high, London council taxes are often amongst the lowest in the country, so these are likely to be under half that amount, also live alone, so single occupier discount

If I lived alone council tax if I had 50% discount would still be £125 per month and water is the same no matter how many people lived here. No water meter so a set amount.
I am also in London

As others have said it depends on her outgoings. Could there be something she's not telling you that's worrying ?

I think £1000 a month for 1 person and no rent or mortgage sounds very possible unless the bills were ridiculous but that sounds unlikely.

EL8888
At the moment £1000 might be enough to live on but things happen and is there enough for you to be able to put away for those emergencies. Like £4-500 for getting a car through its MOT when the time comes.
Private health insurance for when you fall ill.
If you rely on the NHS to cure you, you might be waiting a long long time in a great deal of pain.
We have had to find Dps cancer treatment. Because he got a diagnosis of less than a year they ceased treatment. 4 years on he is alive and at his last scan they couldn’t see any cancer

There is nothing in there for going out, hobbies, clothes or holidays.

Whilst it might be good now what happens when prices go up

Fund Dps cancer treatment

Yes.

I’d really like to see those who think it’s perfectly possible try to do it. And as for living like a king - words fail me. That’s a life of no saving for emergencies or replacing large items, no holidays, nothing that isn’t a necessity. It’s existing, not living.

The only point on which I disagree with @Oliversmumsarmy is health insurance which is unaffordable for most pensioners, the premiums are horrendous. My income in retirement is substantially more than £1k and I have no health issues at all, I can’t afford health insurance.

"I’d really like to see those who think it’s perfectly possible try to do it."

No rent or mortgage, then yes.

But the house or flat would have to be small & insulated.

@Alsohuman I DID do it, when I was on income support with a young DS and rent to pay. It is 100% possible.