What are your running costs..and what is your income?

[incognito12]

Once again I am going through our running costs, and it adds up so quickly its unbelievable. I cant understand how we can be spending so much on just running a house. In total, b4 food and any money on clothes, savings or fun, we spend £1800 on just running the house and paying for a 2 finance aggreements (sofa and dining table) plus CC. Our morgage costs us £750 per month and is for £170k. My hubby brings in 2000 per month, plus commission which is never the same, so am trying to run us on just his basic.
Its crazy, how much does everyone else spend?? I want to see if everyone is in the same boat, or are we just living in an expensive area and should cut down. How much do you all have left over after all the basics are paid?

Our mortgage is £900 (interest only), our monthly bills (not including food) are £400, nursery fees £120, credit card bills £50, dh spends £700 on petrol and he brings home £2100. Our outgoings are more than our incoming money and it is getting bloody stupid! We are therefore increasing our credit card each month and getting ourselves into more and more debt.

It's scary how it vanishes isn't it. We have a similar income level and there's never anything left. We don't have housing costs but do spend between £500-600 a month on nursery fees for two - essential as my dh works from home. Over the past couple of years I've got a lot better at budgeting and rarely go into the red now - the things that have made the biggest diff for us are : getting as much as poss on monthly direct debit so the payments are fixed every month; getting a cashback credit card and using that for nearly all purchases - I always pay it off in full as late in the month as poss to get maximum bank interest - you do need to be quite disciplined to monitor how much you're racking up on it though; using confused.com for house and car insurance renewals (saved £400 over both this time); all our clothes, shoes & kids toys off Ebay. Have you checked you're getting all your tax credits and that you have the best mortgage deal? What about your finance agreements - could you consolidate into one payment with a personal loan?

Our income is similar to yours, and we probably spend about £1300-1400 per month on bills, including our mortgage (£860). The rest goes on food, clothes, stuff for the house, going out, playgroups, etc, etc. There are only three of us though, and we only run one car (I don't drive).

Have you tried switching utility suppliers to try and get better deals? get a water meter fitted? use energy-saving lightbulbs? Also maybe you could cut down on unnecessary things like satellite/cable TV?

£700 on petrol?

£1800 seems a lot on your bills. Ours are £1300 but that includes some savings which will finance things like the next holiday, car etc. It does not include car insurance/tax etc which we pay for when it comes up. Out of that £1300 our mortgage is about £680 and coucil tax is about £150 (although none this month!) Then there is gas, electricity, water, house insurance, small savings for DS and DD, savings for car, savings for holiday, TV license etc.

Hmm - similar amount left over once our mortgage is paid but the rest of our household expenses aren;t so extortionate. We manage not to spend too much on food shopping. We meal plan and shop at the supermarket every 2-3 weeks and buy fruit and veg from grocers, meat and fish from butchers/fishmongers.

Where is all the money going? Can you get cheaper car insurance? We run one old car and have gone down to 3rd party since it's worth so little.

Yes, I know Bozza if Dh would get a job nearer home it would solve a lot of problems. I have agreed that we can move nearer if he doesn't want to change jobs.

how much is the credit card and what do you use it for? sometimes it is misleading to include it with bills because it is often used for 'variable' costs eg food, going out etc

our income is 1531. a month and our bills apart from food shopping are 671.96 i don't drive though id on't have a mortgage either. So rent is cheap i suppose.

Our income iss £3400 and we spend £1337 on playgroups/DC activities, council tax, pension, food, water, gas, elec, phone, internet. We spend £405 on cars & their upkeep (2 cars) and then £350 saving for future expenses (presents, dentists, etc). We don't have a mortgage as we've just paid it off. But this puts us at £449 in the black each month. Which is going into a high earning savings account.

Hmmm
Well we spend £750 on morgage, £150 on council tax, £100 on gas and electric, £60 on Water, £30 on Tv license, £90 for our sofas , £33 for our dining furniture, £48 for sky plus, approx £100 in total for our insurances (life, ASU, House), £250 for the CC, £100 for saving, £80 for BT, £50 for mobile. Thats £1750!!
Then after that is food, then we need clothes, going out etc.
I do budget, try to stick to £60 per week, it very hard with a family of 4. We dont have to pay for the car as its all done through DH job, and we just got rid of our second car (mine) to save money so I walk everywhere or use DH. I also have just changed utility suppliers through one of the websites. I really dont know how we are to save any more ££!! We need to get rid of our CC but its really hard to pay more than the minimum balance as we are so tight....eeeeeek!! I always thought that DH was on a good wage (annually its £33 basic), but really it doesnt pay for awful lot. Think I am gonna have to find a PT job to boost us for a while

try www.moneysavingexpert.com chat boards for great tips on saving money around the home. And even for reducing your debts.

How do people manage to spend so little on electric and other power? Our quarterly electric bill is around £375, and we use 3 or 4 tanks of oil a year (there's no gas to our area) which cost £700-£900 EACH. That's about £4k per year already!

I was the same as lots on here until I changed bank accounts to N/wide - you can have loads of e-accounts once you have a main account with them and I have about 30 of these - each month after getting paid I put an amount of money per month into each account - my account titles go as follows:

Car insurance (£30pm), car service(£60pm), kids clothes(£15pm), nursery fees(£44), holidays(£150), tax returns(£40), xmas/birthday pressies(£50), xmas food(£20), etc ,etc. It has saved my sanity - everything is just as tight as before but I know where I am - I know when I have some money to spend and most importantly - when I don't and I need to be really tight. P.S I don't work for them!

£4k on electric and oil is unusually high - I think approx £1.5k per annum is more usual...how come yours is so high, do you have a huge house and a heated pool?!

bump

do you have h eating on all the time??? Mines low because i have heating on when kids get up, then switches off as we leave for school and switches on when they come home and off at 10pm. it's a very warm house though. I have key meters so you know where you are.

You don't need lots of e-accounts to save money in different 'pots'.

I put money into one savings account, but have a notebook where I write down how much is for each category. I save a regular amount for each category, including holiday, Christmas, kids' activities, car expenses etc. Then when I need to spend something from a category, I just transfer from the savings account to our current account, which with Smile is instantaneous. Then I just deduct that amount from the relevant 'pot'.

CanSleepWeirdShifts - I can't believe how high your energy costs are, what sort of house do you have?

We pay £131 for combined gas and electricity for a 4-bed semi, and it's only that much since the prices went up last year. 4k is just horrendous, I can't comprehend that!

That's £131 a month, not a year!

You say you can't afford to pay much more than the minimum repayment on your CC but you also say you are paying £100 for saving. This doesn't make sense, you should always pay off debts first before saving else you are just paying a load of interest every month. Why do you need Sky+ at £48 per month and why is your TV license £30 per month, (mine is £11). Have you checked if you can get a cheaper mobile tariff as £50 a month is quite a lot, (my dh has his own business and uses his phone a lot but it averages £40 per month)? Also £50 a month to BT, we are with Tiscali and it averages £40 per month including line rental, calls and broadband, although we don't make that many calls.

Really think you should look at paying off the CC as soon as possible, you are probably paying tonnes of interest if you can only pay off the minimum each month - or shift to a 0% balance transfer card.

lol at the heated pool mousie! We're in a (largish) 4 bed semi on the top of a hill surrounded by farmland, so we are a bit exposed to the elements. I'm a SAHM so we do have the heating/water on a fair bit, and I don't think a range is the cheapest way of doing it, but that's what we have, so no choice! The oil used to only cost about £300-£400 a tank, but with the huge rises in oil prices over the last few years it's doubled or more.
I have to admit that I was surprised at how much the electric is - I don't normally look at the bills, but saw one last week and questioned dh, who said that was normal! We do permanently have laptops on, several at the same time when dh is working from home, and he's not great at switching anything off, but I don't think we run anything unusual, except that the range does also use electric to power the pump. Seems maybe the range has a lot to answer for!

heres the debt free thread for anyone who wants tips/support}

We're paying £86 for gas and electric on a four bed detached. Have only used the dryer once since Christmas. Only have heating set for morning and evening although we do sometimes put it on in the day if we are in and cold.

of all people who have mains gas!

I recently calculated our running costs, and it's about £1600 before food, clothes, pressies etc. I was shocked that it was this much, but it seems we're not doing too bad. (of the £1600 around £1000 is mortgage). We live in a 4-bed semi, am a SAHM, so have the heating on quite a bit (though never whole days), and we do a lot of DIY (electrical tools) but gas and elec. is only about £40 each.