Do these direct debits seem too much?

[Starfish125]

Picture to save time but these are me and my DH direct debits every month. Do these seem reasonable to you? Do you think some of them are too much/or actually ok? Trying to find ways to save money every month (our incomes combined are around 48k) so would be interesting to get outsiders opinion!

Basic channels I pay £25 for sky

Insurances are much cheaper if you pay annually rather than monthly. The only one I would pay monthly is life assurance.

Why so many phones? The sky is a lot as is the water. Why are you paying monthly for car service. Is that a service plan? All those things are better saved for in a savings pot rather than paying out insurances or special plans.

Get rid of sky! Absolute bat shit amount that is!

Water and g&e are low compared to mine at £80 water and £200 g&e. Was £270

How much longer is the sofa tho thets nothing - car and bathroom loans for

All the phone costs are high, for two phones I pay £18 a month.

£75 a month on sky is insane, I'd cancel that and get Netflix for £6.99 a month!!

Water sounds about right tbh, I think it depends which area you live in as to how much you pay. I live in the south west and water's expensive.

Hi everyone thanks so much for all the input/opinions it does seem that sky is a pig of a joke!

I'll try and answer all the general questions, so my building and contents insurance is a brand new debit I managed to get that down from £45 so that's actually reasonable for us. The life insurance I now think seeing these comments is also quite expensive but that's due for renewal soon and I'll shop around.
The phones are steep but I'm not sure I can do much about them ATM. The phones are for 2 people as is the life insurance it's just the way they've done it, which is annoying that it's in 3 parts!
My water I thought was standard although it did used to be £35 2 years ago.
The bathroom loan (brand new ensuite) is only a year old,.still have 4 years left on it 😭 my sofa is financed that my mum went halves with as a moving in present, got 3 years left on that.

I live in Bedfordshire in regards to water rates and council tax

Oh and my car finance finishes in February

You’re paying a lot for TV, Broadband and phones. £75 for just Sky TV is insane! You could get Netflix AND Disney+ and still save over £50 a month.

I think your water is high - we pay less than £30 a month for a family of five, but then we pay double what you are paying for Gas and Electric

We don't have sky but apart from that our total expenditure is about the same.

I don't have a branded phone. I bought a cheap one for £100 and my monthly data etc is £7.50. I'll keep the handset until it conks out!

I don’t think your home insurance is high - I have just renewed mine and it’s £65 a month! (It’s a listed building)

You can definitely get better deals for the phones, tv and insurance. Water is much higher than mine.
And you've a got quite a few loans/finance.

Is there any scope that you could save an amount each month so that next year's insurances can be paid outright rather than monthly?

Can you do some comparisons on your entertainment packages?

And can you plan to go sim only when your phone contracts come up for renewal?

What about your other expenses - travel, food, holidays, gifts, hairdressers, petty cash etc? Are you budgeting for these?

That's great. Why don't you squirrel that £137 away each month after Feb, so that you can clear some insurances outright?

Do you have any savings?

I live in a 4 bed house, 2 adults, 2 teenagers on a water meter £41 a month so its worth looking at that. We switched from pet plan to john lewis, our rescue dog is £12 a month. I dont have any insurance for phones, ive just never thought it was worth it. Apart from that ther eonly seems to be sky but I pay more than thst so im noone to talk!

Another thing you can do for car insurance is put it on an interest free card and pay it off in equal instalments, this is much cheaper than paying monthly.

Tesco mobile do really good mobile phone family plans. You get club cards points and a discount . We’re paying £20 a month (£10 each) for 2 sim-only plans, each with 15GB

For a nurse that seems like a stretch - you've got bathroom loans and Sky and multiple contracts. Going to have to slim down there.

Agree with other comments. Your water isn't that high, but it seems out if kilter with your gas and electricity. Do you use solar panels? How do you heat the water?

What pet is on petplan?

For your bathroom and sofa loans, look at %Apr in case these are high and not 0%. Are you able to pay off quicker to reduce amount paid? Could consider putting some day to day spending on 0% credit card and then use that money to overpay the sofa/ bathroom and then pay off the 0% card before intro period runs out. Just an idea. I never take out finance unless 0%.

We pay £82 a month for Sky, includes broadband, landline with free evening/wkend calls, Netflix, sky sports & cinema.

You're paying a lot for phones - I pay for five contracts but the total cost is only about £55. Could you trade in (I assume) more expensive models for cheaper ones? Mine is a Pixel 6A, it replaced an iPhone. But to get a better model would have been £700+ whereas a Pixel cost me £300 outright. We're all on 3 contracts.

Definitely look at your high mobile, tv and insurance costs. Do you need the TV licence? If you don't watch live TV or use BBC iplayer you don't.

Is your car service plan value for money?

What exactly does it pay for? Mine only needs a big £200+ service every other year then an oil change in between which is much cheaper. But does it include the less regular bigger items like brake fluid and timing belt?

Might it be better to put the money in a savings account and earn a bit of interest on it.

The only ones that stand out as high to me are sky and mortgage, but that's because we pay £50 a year for a firestick and my mortgage is £400 a month, the other costs are similar to what we pay. Having said that my car finance is 30% more than yours and i pay £140 a month on PT/gym membership so... also we have a £80K a year combined income, no childcare yet as eldest just started school but about to have a second so a big chunk will go to nursery in another year.

Definitely get rid of Sky! Water rates sound ok to me. Try Tesco mobile for sim contracts when you can.

I pay £17 for basic sky after moving back from their £5 a month freeview deal for a few months

be careful with switching life insurance as this generally goes up the older you get and you’ll have to go through underwriting again

Do you have 2 cars? Is that why there’s 2 car insurance amounts? If not, change that to one policy with a main driver and a named driver. Pay annually if you can as it’s cheaper than monthly.

Mobiles, can you change them all to one provider on the same contract? We have 4 phones on sim only with unlimited everything costing around £55.

Life insurance, look at a joint policy for two people.

Sky, we have Netflix Disney Plus and Now TV coming in under £45 and can cancel/add back any we like as often as we like.