How much are your bills

[Nicole3291]

Hiya,
I was wondering if people could let me know how much their bills are per month. Me, boyfriend and bump are looking to move out and I am just trying to make sure we stay living within our means.

If anyone in a similar situation ( 2 adult and a baby) could let me know how much they send on average on water, gas, electric and ANY other bills it would be really helpful.
B/F earns £22000pa and we would be entitled to help of £1560 pa.

Rent or a mortgage on a help to buy scheme would be £760 per month in our town in a bit of a rubbish area and council tax is £1,296.40 pa for the same area.

Thank you :)

It rather depends on the size of your house and your lifestyle. My 3-bed semi containing one adult and one adult-sized teen costs...

• Water £19/month (metered)
• Gas and Electricity combined £115
• Council tax Band F with single person discount £157/month (10 months)
• Telephone/broadband/TV package - about £50/month
• Insurance (house, contents, plumbing, drains, appliances etc) £50/month

You'd have to add any car/transport costs, mobile phone contracts and other regular outgoings.

4 bed house in Surrey
Water £50
Council Tax £224
Gas/Elec £150
Sky - £47
BT - £40

Plus so many other outgoings....

C.tax £120 ish pm
Electricity £27 pm
oil (not in mains gas) £300 for 500L this lasts about 4-6 months
water £12 pm (cess pit couple of hundred pounds every couple of years)
phone /broadband £27 pm
but also think about mobiles, tv packages like net flix, car insurance, home insurance, any existing debt, savings, subscriptions for things....

essentials:

council tax
water
electricity/gas/oil (whichever you have - costs depend on lifestyle and insulation of property)
insurance - buildings and contents, also life once baby arrives (boyfriend goes under a bus and you have no income, you go under a bus and he has no childcare)
property maintenance - boiler, drains, roof, everything else
furniture and house kit (ebay, charity shops etc)
food
travel - fares or car purchase (never have finance on a car, pissing money away), insurance, tax, fuel, fixes, breakdown cover
internet (pretty much essential now)
clothing - most adults don't need much. Baby gear can all be second hand (as can EVERYTHING except car seat and cot mattress, and TBH if you find an honest seller the car seat can be second-hand if in good nick)
PAYG mobile

non-essentials
TV licence - if you watch live stuff on any device
Sky etc big luxury
smartphones
landline phone (handy though)

...everything else!

2 bed flat midlands.

rent 550
c tax 110
gas and elec 200
water 10
contents insurance 20 (your insurance will be more if you own)
pet insurance 10
phone and internet and tv 30
tv licence cant remember but about 8-10
my mobile 27

sorry water is more like 18 not 10 pcm

3 bed semi detached. 2 adults 2 small kids.

Council tax 120
Gas & electric 125 (covers what we use annually)
Water 40 (metered)
Building & contents insurance 30
Food 350 inc nappies
Tv licence 12

Also pay mortgage, car tax, car insurance, sky tv, broadband & line rental, mobile phones, white goods insurance etc on top too but above costs are just the essentials.

Mortgage 800
Gas and electric 100
Council tax 120
Phone/broadband 30
Tv licence 12
Water 30
Insurance (life/illness/building/contents) 100

So essential bills total about £1200 but then we have car and travel costs and mobile phone bills on top of that

We have a 2 bed flat and there's me and DP with a baby.
Rent - 525
Council tax - 120
Car finance - 204
Car insurance - 62
Sky (phone, Internet, tv) - 67
TV licence - I pay 37 every quarter, so about 12 a month
Gas and electric - 55
Water - 17
Credit card - 120

Then we have petrol, food, nappies, savings etc.

If you have a mortgage, then you need life insurance to cover the mortgage payments.

Mortgage : too much
Life insurance : 120month
Council tax : 160mth
Gas & Electricity combined : 100mth
Water : 43month
Landline & broadband (need for work) : 25month
Car insurance (2 cars) : 110mth
Home & buildings insurance : 18month
TV licence :12month (but taken quarterly)

If you're signing up for a house purchase, consider what you can afford now, and what you can afford in say 3 years time. What is the mortgage repayment based on? What if interest rates change? You also need to budget for childcare unless you're planning on one of you being at home. Also, whilst I don't necessarily recommend accident / sickness / mortgage protection, you need to think about how you would cover the mortgage payments if your boyfriend was sick / involved in an accident and couldn't work for a period of time.

Mine are:
Rent 525
Electric 53
Council Tax 112
Car insurance 26
Broadband/BT line 25
Water (included in rent)

Are you up North at all? There are some very nice little houses in towns round here at VERY cheap prices...

2 bed flat

Rent 850
Council tax 100
Water 33
Leccy and gas 64
TV license 12
Insurance 20
Broadband/phone/tv 45

Life ain't cheap round these parts...

3 bed semi west london 2 adults 3 kids under 5

rent £129pw water rates included
gas meter and elec meter approx £70 for both
tv licence bought outright for year
sky/broadband/landline £50 a month

car insurence £80 a month
no contract phone pre pay rarely top up

Similar to others.

Scotland:
400 mortgage (v low)
100 Gas/elec
50 insurance
100 factors (bastards!)
175 council tax
50 life insurance
70 sky and broadband/phone
15 British gas maintenance service

Cupcake - a 3 bed semi for approx 500/Month in West London? What the heck??!

3 bed end terraced in Northamptonshire. 2 adults 1 Child

Mortgage 440 (rent previously 575 if that helps)

Council tax 97

Water 42 though I recently received a letter saying it will go down to 27 tho it hasn't yet. Thanks for reminding me to call them

Life insurance 19 ish

House insurance 15.35

Sky tv and internet 15.40. I have their best deal ever.
I only just got a tv license as before then I only watched catch up/Netflix. When sky contract ends I will be going back to this. Perfectly legal.

Gas 10 on meter since Xmas and still going. Not sure how.

Elec about 20/30 a week.

I finished my phone contract and am now on pay as you go. 10 a month. They have some amazing deals out there. I use my phone a lot.

Childcare I my main gripe at 720

By my reckoning your rent+council tax will be almost £900 and your income after tax will be approx £1400. I don't think £500p/m is enough to pay all other bills, transport (commuting?), food etc. Sorry. Our food bill is cheap as chips compared to lots of people's at £55 a week, but even that would take up almost half of that £500 before you've even thought about gas, electricity, water, buildings insurance, contents insurance, car insurance, MOT, petrol, life insurance, phones, and all that's before non essentials (and/or less frequent purchases) like TV, broadband, clothes, toiletries, haircuts, presents etc etc. I don't mean to be the voice of doom and gloom-I just think £900 p/m on accommodation is too much of your income.

Oh and childcare if that's relevant. Our DD goes for one day a week and we pay £200 a month.

Per month

Mortgage 700
Water 31
Council tax 120
Gas 30
Electric 60
Tv Licence 12
Car insurance 40
MOT 5
Car tax 15 ish
Fuel 200
Phone credit 25
Buildings and contents insurance 30
Landline and Internet 30

Food, toiletries and essential clothing 400
Our baby's not here yet (due in November) so will be more to spend on nappies etc.

Our mortgage, water, sky, 2 smart phone contracts, internet, council tax, life insurance, house insurance, tv licence, gas and electric is 850 the lot

jasmine how much of that is your mortgage and council tax?

gosh, so many possible variants.

For a 625sq ft reasonably but not superbly well insulated flat in London, gas and electricity combined must be about £100/month. Sadly, I don't think we could trim this figure much.
Council tax is £75/month. It's a cheaper borough.
Water is £25/month. We are unmetered because the local water authority said they couldn't fit a meter where it would have to go.
In this block, service charges are high at about £250 a month.
Sky tv and broadband is £60, I think.
My car insurance is £70/month - despite a huge NCD. On-street parking away from our residence doesn't help (you park where you can round here, usually a few streets away).
We spend up to £100/week on groceries, but I know there are quite a lot of MNers who spend much less.

Clargo, do you mind if I ask how many square feet you're heating with that £30/month gas bill? Is gas your heating and hw? Ours is twice that, with the heating on for three hours in the morning and six hours at night. Sorry to be nosy.

Council tax 80 over 12 months and 338 mortgage

Yep it's heating and hot water, but its a brand new system. We only installed it around 6 months ago. It's a Worchester Bosch boiler, so I am guessing it quite efficient.

Before we had it installed it was all electric and £115 a month.
3 bed detached house. We maybe use the heating for half a hour in the mornings in cooler weather and 2 hours in the evening. This may well change when the baby's here and I'm home more.

We do not use much hot water either.

Thanks clargo55. You're clearly hardier on the heating front than we are. And I like baths rather than showers as well. Still, if we had to cut back, we could, which is a lot better than feeling that you use the minimum possible of everything and still can't keep up. We are very lucky.