Spending £40k a year on basic COL

[Hedgingmybetching]

£1500 mortgage
£200 gas lec
£330 council tax
£36 broadband
£65 water
£16 mobile phone
£37 pet ins
£ 200 transport (petrol/trains)
£50 car insurance
£50 house insurance
£17 road tax
£17 tv license
£80 after school
£600 food/household
£50 car maintenance (at least)

Family of 3 and a cat, did stretch to get a bigger house but will never need to move again. However it needs 10s of thousands in renovations which we are slowly chipping away at ourselves (hoping the roof gives us another couple of years as not a DIY job)

I need to sort life insurance, anything left is presents, bit of holiday fund, savings, home improvements, clothes, make up.... haven't had a haircut in months, never get nails done.

Take home between us is £46k plus up to £8k bonus. Feel very fortunate we do have some cushion for non essentials, better than alot of people I'm sure but I am just shocked at how much our basics are once I wrote it down as we are spending every month. What are other people's basics COL? Is this high?

We're in the North West.

Its not high, but your wages are low in porportion to outgoings

You will find this round of tax increases will be felt I think and any change in the base rate could see you struggle

It’s a high mortgage for your income. Is £46k before or after tax because min wage full time was about £23k and is now over £25k.

£1500 a month mortgage when combined income is equivalent of 2 adults on min wage is unusual

After tax, sorry I thought I putting take home pay clarified that (clear as mud apparently lol)

Yeah it's shit. You don't seem to be living extravagant lives, yet all the money is gone. Sympathies, the creep is getting to us all.

Mortgage 1000
Council Tax 140

Decent sized 3 bed terraced house, your mortgage and council tax seem very high. Our mortgage is high due to the high interest rates when we took it out.

Mortgage, ctax and utilities all look expensive to me for a 3 person household.

For comparison, 3 adults in our household, one at home full time.

£350 mortgage
£25 water
£140 ctax
£75 gas and electric

yes, it's rubbish and depressingly things are only going to get more expensive each year.

£350 mortgage

Could your low mortgage be down to that fact you initially got on the ladder some time ago?

CT is varied depending where you live.

Not as long ago as you might think, I live somewhere where you can still buy houses for 100k.

You’ve got a high mortgage for your incomes and high council tax. What size house do you have?

For comparison, we’re in the South East, income of £115k, mortgage is £1400 and council tax £250.

Two adults and 2 DCs.

That’s a high mortgage considering your house also needs work. Your council tax is high too, is that spread over 12 months?

Our household income was around 50k in 2014-2018, and it’s now around 80k after a jump in salary. Yet we seem to have around the same or even less disposable income than we did then - and we definitely don’t live an extravagant lifestyle. I estimate that over that period the general inflation in ordinary living costs has been 40 percent or more just on the same basic costs. Why? Brexit, Covid, etc. All those who voted for Brexit caused a big uptick in inflation in just ordinary food prices and bills.

Never mind luxuries like a holiday - I’ve just been looking and holidays have about doubled in price since 2019, and despite holiday homes in the U.K. seeming to have tons of availability they are also still massively overpriced! It’s really shit and no end in sight either.

A £1500 mortgage along with CT of £300 (what band?) is huge for a couple on around £27k each.

Mortgage £630
CT £100
Gas & elec £65
Water £25
Mobile £8
Critical illness cover £14
Groceries £150
= £992

No partner, no kids, no pets, no car, no TV license, no broadband, WFH so no commute. Home is v low maintenance. Bike everywhere.

I take home £2,600 pcm so have around £1,600 leftover for spending or saving each month. I consider myself to be a sort of rich pauper.

It's tough and the only thing that you might get for less is insurance. Could you shop around / increase the excess?

Ours differ mainly as follows:

• mortgage only £500 a month (although we come off of a 5 year fix in June)
• water only £33
• gas and electric only £120

Our other outgoings are similar to yours. Council tax is also £330. We probably also spend £600 a month on food between us realistically, but that's not a fixed outgoing and could be massively reduced if needed.

We are a couple in a 4 bed detached house.

Gas/Electric looks high for three people. We are 4 people but only two bed, teen and preteen dd's share. We are paying about £125 for gas elec. We did cut down massively on use a couple of years ago but have gone back to almost normal use. We are also north west so should have similar rates.

Goodness people say those mortgages are high. I pay £1600 per month in the south east to rent a small three bedroom house!

@Hedgingmybetching our outgoings are very, very similar to you.

our takehome is a bit higher at around £60k per annum, £5k per month, but outgoings are almost identical. We have two kids, and two cats

We are also needing to fund massive renovations so any excess we have goes into savings for that each month, plus holidays, but they are always cheap self catering holidays.

It sounds like you are doing ok. And the fact you won’t need to move house again is a big bonus.

hopefully your wages will rise and if you keep a close eye on your outgoings your surplus cash will increase.

Similar to our expenses except our mortgage is higher at 2200 and it's more like 300 for transport and more on food. Things are really expensive. I take home just under double your income and while we are fine (obviously) it's not a huge amount left over after pension, life insurance and general expenses. I'm not sure how much longer things can go on like this. Wages are so low compared to the price of everything.

I haven’t read the replies but if you haven’t already I bet you’re about to get raked.

You are spending a huge amount of money just surviving…in comparison I spend 50% on ALL bills, essentials, and some frivolous stuff. And I’m not old enough to have a teeny tiny mortgage.

I would rather have a smaller house and money for holidays (unfortunately that’s where my remaining 50% goes, not into savings 😂 ). But I’m guessing you stretched before interest rates went up and so have probably just been caught out by that.

The problem is that you have bought a house you can't afford. We have around the same income with an extra child and a 3 bed semi in the south east - the mortgage and CT is half yours.

I'd love a bigger house with a driveway and a bigger garden but we bought within our means.

Council tax is a much higher proportion of income in the NW and NE than in the south. I'm in the NE, where the council tax is among the highest, despite the much cheaper houses.

It's a bit ridiculous really, but you have to budget differently.

Your CoL is 22k pa plus 18k pa mortgage
The mortgage is not just paying for you to stay somewhere but also slowly adding to your equity and eventually will be all equity and nothing owed to the bank.

Your salaries are likely to increase with inflation & promotions while your mortgage debt will be eroded by inflation. In other words, your salaries are likely to be 50% higher in 10 years’ time while your mortgage is likely to be similar as now. Of course, the other bills will inevitably be higher, too. But overall you should have more disposable income over time.

You should be better off over time even though it’s tough atm.

Thankfully mortgage is paid off

council tax £280 (10 months of year)
water £55
gas & electric £140
House insurance £25
Sky (includes fibre & Netflix) £65
Phones £20
TV licence £17
My car insurance, tax, servicing £50
His car costs £120 (yes more than double!)
His “toys” aka motorcycles £50
Petrol ???? I spend about £60 a month but his gas guzzler at least double in winter but in summer users the bike , cheaper!

it’s mortgages that are the bane of our lives, once paid off life is more flexible though currently stuffing pensions.