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.

Your salaries are likely to increase with inflation & promotions while your mortgage debt will be eroded by inflation.

But wages have stagnated for years

Your water and food costs are the ones that stood out to me as high. Are you on a water meter? If not I'd get one.

Does that food cost including any eating out or takeaways, or is that purely supermarket shops?

Exactly - it used to work to wait for wage inflation to erode your housing costs. It's really difficult now.

Seems very high to me, but I've paid off my mortgage and live alone. Council tax £130, Gas & electric £62, car ins £20, home ins £11, food £100...

We pay approx £2000 per month on all bills (including life insurance and critical illness cover) food, mortgage and a bit of support for ds who lives in London. We bring in between £5k to 5.5k per month. 3-bed detached in a cheapish part of the SE.

We intentionally bought a smaller house in a cheaper part of the country (moved out of London) in order to give us that wiggle room. Your mortgage and c tax would be too high for my comfort levels. But I agree, each month it does seem to be getting tighter!

Yes the mortgage and council tax is high (thats over 10 months sorry), it's a 3 bed detatched in a sought after area South of Manchester next to an outstanding primary, I also work part time atm and my child only started reception this year. So my earnings do have the potential to grow and my husband will probably earn more in the future. We chose to get the big house, and run 1 second hand car we own outright (no other debt and student loans paid off before I got pregnant). We don't worry about not being able to afford the house, I'm just a bit shocked how much everything has gone up in the past few years and we should have comfortable lives on our take home (maybe not by mumsnet standards) but we're having to budget harder than we expected.

I realise we're still pretty privileged so don't want it to sound like my diamond shoes are too tight, but it really struck me how much the basics have shot up, really feeling for those who will be feeling the pinch who rely on disability benefits. Xx

Good idea on the water meter, I'll check that out. We probably could save on food shop though, that includes toiliteries and the odd meal deal when in the office. Don't buy coffees or anything though, we do buy a bit of meat but we buy free range / higher welfare which is £££ but I'm one of those that will butcher a single chicken and make it last a week, I cook alot of vegetarian for most meals.

I consider take aways and pub dinners part of the discretionary spend so not included it here but my FIL usually treats us to a pub dinner every other week when we drive up to visit with his DGC.

Tbf we bought within our means, it just means we have to budget the discretionary spends a bit more. We're not in any threat of losing the house. Lots of people prioritise different things, for us it was the big house. Xx

Insurance is definitely the lowest, we're very good at shopping around, the cat is 9 though so she's starting to get expensive (even though she's fine!)

Oh and to add cat food is included in the monthly shop budget, and she's on bloody Royal Canin veterinary sensitive and that is a non negotiable expense. 🫣

£800 mortgage
£195 council tax
£117 energy
3 bed in south east

Our take home is a little bit more than yours. We pay:
£335 mortgage
£138 council tax
£117 gas & electricity
Plus all other bills/essential outgoings it amounts to £1650.

3 bed semi-detached
2 adults, 2 DC

your food spending of 100 per month is low, would you mind sharing what you eat.

Can’t share…not enough of it

How do you WFH with no internet?

Buy it from Amazon on subscription you may save a few pounds there.

I make almost everything from scratch, including bread and biscuits. I buy very little meat or fish and get most of my protein from yogurt, eggs, cheese, nuts and pulses. I eat loads of vegetables and fruit. If I make a cake, I'll slice it up and freeze portions. I love cooking and am retired so have plenty of time.

Our mortgage and council tax is half of that so I think that's what is making the big difference for you. We also pay 120 a month for gas and electric, 45 for water and 25 for broadband as a family of 4 so think there's likely savings you could make there?

That’s a very high mortgage for your income. Our household income is £90k and our mortgage is £1.6k and I feel that is pretty high, and we don’t have kids.

I have just answered this. I eat plenty and am a healthy weight.

You house and car insurances are both two to three times ours - have you shipped around loads ?

As is your gas/ electric - what’s driving that ? Would insulation help? Less time in shower? Don’t is washing machine so often ?

What I'd say is you're really in the weeds now but that's common for your stage in life: you're working p/t and presumably you've had four years of some sort of childcare (which just eats money) if your DD is just in reception. Plus you've maxed out on the house/mortgage while you're still relatively young (we did that too).

I remember going back to work after mat leave and a slightly older colleague telling me you'll never be as skint again as you will be over the next four years, and he was right! And that was well before the COL when my fuel bills were around £100 and CT was 132!!!

It will get better but it's a scary biscuits time of life.

Mortgage
Gas & Elec
Water
Council tax

comes to £900 a month (can't remember breakdown off top of head as DH pays bills from his account

B/Band 29.99
Car 150
Ins 30
tax 18
EE Bill £350 (😬3 handsets coming to end v shortly)
Sky £147 (ipad, laptop, watch & phone, coming to end of contract v soon)
I pay about £300 a month out on a few other debts
Food is around £400 a month

This biggest is the EE and Sky bill, I will have that spare cash when they come to an end and I will be going to SIMO for all handset and nothing else.

OPs take home is 54k which is not far off an income of 90k. Considering your mortgage is a little higher you're actually pretty similar in terms of income to mortgage ratio. You not having kids will help most other expenses of course so you'll still be better off.