Cost of living

[Plopplopboogey]

This is a bit of a weird one but... we are moving to Surrey next year and trying to work out what we can afford. I grew up in the UK but haven't lived there much as an adult so I have no idea how much things cost.

Can anybody give me a rough idea of how much things cost? Specifically:

• council tax (2-3 bedroom home)


• water


• gas and electricity


• home insurance


• broadband


• food (family of 4)


• car insurance

Thank you so much for your help in advance!

Hopeful bump?

council tax - depends on banding, very easy to Google what band your post code is in

water - we pay £24 a month

gas and electricity - how longs a piece of string?

home insurance - again totally dependent on loads of things. We pay £30ish a month

broadband - We pay £38 a month for fibre broadband and some channels, with Virgin.

food - Depends what kind of food you eat and when you choose to shop. We pay about £400 a month for family of 3 and 2 cats.

car insurance - entirely subjective. Depends what kind of car you have, how many no claims, how long you've been driving, what the local stats are for accidents in your type of car, what kind of cover you want, what kind of area you live in etc etc. I pay about £75 a month fully comp with business insurance.

We seem to live much more frugally than most on here, our council tax is based on the North of England so you will have to look up if there is any difference down south.

council tax (2-3 bedroom home). £135 a month
water £17 ( on a meter) a month
gas and electricity £ 85 a month , well in credit
home insurance. £130 a year
broadband £23 a month but should be less, I was lazy at the last renewal
food (family of 4) £140 a week
car insurance £190 a year.

Thank you, this is helpful.

I'm mostly wondering about electricity and gas. I've heard about things like people struggling to afford to keep the heating on in winter and I don't want to be in that situation so I'd like to know roughly how much it would cost to maintain a comfortable temperature.

How long have you lived abroad, and what job do you do?

Gas and electricity prices will be going up in Autumn, probably by 70%. We are in a 4 bed house, at the start of the year we were paying £150, now it’s £300 and by Christmas it will probably be £510 a month. With another price increase due in January.