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Original poster

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

63 replies

incognito12 · 06/03/2007 15:06

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?

OP posts:
nikkie · 06/03/2007 21:29

Just looked at my spead sheet and I have £1170 coming in and £660 going out not including food/clothes,swimming lessons etc.

nikkie · 06/03/2007 21:30

Just looked at my spead sheet and I have £1170 coming in and £660 going out not including food/clothes,swimming lessons etc.

nikkie · 06/03/2007 21:31

oops (I only pay once though !)

ChocolateGirl · 06/03/2007 21:34

Incognito12, our incoming amount is similar to yours and our outgoings are roughly as follows: our mortgage is a bit more than yours, our council tax is the same, we've just changed energy suppliers and it's going to be £80 pm for gas and elec (4 bed semi, but we might have underestimated as we've not yet had a full year living in the extension). We pay less than £50 life ins, the house ins is about £250 annually and my car ins is about that too. DH's car is paid for by his company (except the fuel which we put in). Water is bit less than yours, I think. No sky, no gym membership, no CCs, phone is about £80 per quarter, my mobile is pay-as-you-go and I try not to use it so I only probably put about £5-10 a month on that. Luckily Broadband and DH's mobile are free with his work.

We use about £100 a month on fuel for DH's car and I spend about £400 a month on food and petrol for my car. Plus a bit more on topping up the food, fresh stuff and bread and milk.

We've had to cut back and budget carefully since our mortgage went up and DH's salary went down but we're getting more used to it...

Interesting thread... thanks for starting it.

paddingtonbear1 · 06/03/2007 22:59

incognito our outgoings add up quickly as well, to around the same as yours. Our income is 3300 and our 2 main outgoing are mortgage - nearly £800 now since the rate rises - and nursery fees, which are £565 a month (that's not for full time either!) Our council tax is £160 a month and going up again soon, our gas/elec is £50 (but should be more as we're in arrears). We also pay £160 for our ISA as our mortgage is interest only, and around £200 for CCs. We don't save anything as we still have a balance on our CC - agree with Helenn, not worth saving really if you still have debts. It is a low interest rate though. That adds up to a large amount and I havent mentioned insurance!! We don't spend much on petrol as neither myself nor dh drives to work. I cycle and he gets the train or cycles too.DD starts school soon which will save us a few hundred a month!

USAUKMum · 07/03/2007 07:46

Yes, you should definately pay off the CC before you do any saving ! Also you should see if you can get a better deal on your phone / mobile . Maybe look at when/whom you are calling and find a company that caters to that. We only spend about £36 on phone (including our broadband rental costs) and probably £10 on mobile a month. As I use the Internet a lot, so is cheaper for us to have broadband and then I email or video chat with my family in the States & DH in the Lakes. And we don't have sky, we just have Freeview, but has everything we watch (DH would like sports, but not enough to get sky or cable).

3sEnough · 07/03/2007 07:50

Portonovo - I tried doing it the old fashioned paper way, but once I'd lost the contents of the book (even though hidden) twice courtesy of dd1 making a dinosaur out of it, I gave up!!lol Perhaps I'm just a sad new fashioned girl,

Twiglett · 07/03/2007 07:54

how on earth is your mortgage only £700 a month for that 170K .. have you only counted the interest bit? how are you going to pay it off in the end?

batters · 07/03/2007 08:37

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Eddas · 07/03/2007 08:39

A love the ides of all the bank accounts 3sEnough!! Will be doing that myself. DH has an aversion to having too many for some reason, but if they are e-savings he'll never know! I will joint name them though if i can. I too love N/Wide (and don't work for them!!) just that they are always helpful in the small branch i use which makes such a change.

This is an interesting thread for me a we are always overdrawn and i'm in the process of paying off cc's (through re-mortgage, but most of the cc are made up of spiralling diy costs, fitting central heating etc, so don't feel bad). Have just received the money so will be paying off the interest accruing cc first then the 0% bal one.

I'm also going to close both cc's we already have and open an M&S one as they are 0% on purchases for 12 months and will hopefully allow us to catch up money wise by paying off the overdraft aswell as the cc bal by the end of the 12 months. But we'll see!! I'm on ML now so my income is reduced to just over £400/month.

Can't reduce my bills really, apart from sky as we're already on the cheapest. Sky can't go until July as that's when our years up but i'm pretty sure it will go then as i'm really beginning to think it's a waste of money when most of the channels i want to watch are on freeview. DH will just have to live without his sport

Eddas · 07/03/2007 08:41

I'd like to know too as mine is £750/month on a repayment basis for a £107k mortgage!!!

staceym11 · 07/03/2007 09:31

well my dh brings home about £1500 a month, the bills and food etc come to £1300 and he has £200 for petrol, thats it, none spare!

lunavix · 07/03/2007 09:35

I earn around 700 a month after tax atm, dh around 1400.

Our mortgage is 900 a month, so we're left with 1200. WeThe rest is taken up with bills, food, preschool, petrol etc etc.

Eddas · 07/03/2007 09:37

I know this is my 3rd post today on this thread but just realised i didn't actually put figures on my mammoth first post, oops!!

Our joint income is about £1800(incl child benefit and tax credits) and we spend £1,235 before food, petrol, clothes etc etc. Ie all on household bills, pensions, insurances etc. So we have £575 for everything whch is why we're always overdrawn!

The main outgoing seems to be food shopping which i need to cut down on, any ideas please?! I am planning to make more food from scratch and bigger portions so that it can be frozen so fingers crossed that will help.

bubblerock · 07/03/2007 09:58

We bring in a pittance at the moment, dh earns £300 per month and we're in limbo between the hotel and shop so not drawing a wage yet, tax credits/child benefit are keeping us afloat.
Luckily our outgoings aren't too bad, no mortgage/rent and bills are split between us and my mum, unfortunately the council have us jumping through hoops trying to get planning permission to deregister the hotel so we're still paying commercial rates and bills

Mercy · 07/03/2007 10:16

Incognito, sorry I haven't looked all the thread but just wanted to ask why your tv licence is £30 per month? Mine is £10.99.

You could aslo get rid of Sky and certainly reduce your telecom bills. We use Call 18866 for all landline calls, it now costs £5 per month plus the quarterly line rental.

staceym11 · 07/03/2007 10:22

Eddas, i recently wanted to cut down on food, i ran my cupboards right down for the end of the month and did one big £100 shop, getting all the cupboard stuff, breakfast cereals, tins, pasta and rice (in big bags) i get all my fruit and veg from our local market once a week, get bread and milk from a nearby shop (with both dc's so its a quick in out job, no time for looking!)no longer use disposable nappies or wipes so iv cut down from £60 a week shopping money to around £30-40.

i dont meal plan as it would drive my dh mad but we have similar meals week in week out, so we know what we do/dont need (oh and by reducing our supermarket visits we buy less that we dont need (BOGOF's etc))

HaHaBizarre · 07/03/2007 10:49

Yes - I too was wondering about the 170K mortgage with monthly payments of £700. Ours is over £800 a month on a £150k mortgage.

Incognito - I think paying off your cc ought to be a necessity. Your BT bill, mobile bill and Sky plus aren't necessities. Can't you cut back on those?

buktus · 07/03/2007 11:15

we have left £502 a month which i am suprised at our running costs are quite high too and thats with £100 a week on food

RanToTheHills · 07/03/2007 11:21

well, it must be interest only. Speaking from experience, gulp,we've got a £390k mortgage interest only! Yes, I know it's a risk but like others inc OP i'm sure, we're gambling on it continuing to rise in value in order to be able to pay off the lump sum (a long way in the future)and/or switch to repayment in future. We've got a good amount of equity in the house too.
As for running costs, well, quite a lot though variable

Eddas · 07/03/2007 13:15

Thanks Stacey, i really should give the once a month shop a go. Would save me time too an like you say get the essentials weekly. I just need to be more organised. I think i'll try running the food down but maybe not this month or next as my baby is due in 4 weeks so probably not the best time to do it.

Actually, if it is a monthly thing would anyone say that doing it online might be beneficial. I know you have to pay for delivery but i wouldn't impulse buy would i? Hmm now there's a serious thought.

Original poster
incognito12 · 07/03/2007 13:44

Sorry, it is interest only . So couldnt afford it if it wasnt.
Good point about putting the savings into the credit card. Will change that.
My DH works from home and can claim broadband bills back so that is why the phone is so expensive. I have looked at moving it to someone else but to be honest we have had such a nightmare getting in switched on with BT that DH is reluctant to change it as he cant be without it for even a day with work.
We justified the Sky + as we have no money to go out so we said that we have got that to watch, but after 5 mths of it, its really not worth it, however we have to finish our contract .
Will call TV licence to see why its that much.. think it might be cos we didnt pay for the first 2 mths.

OP posts:
staceym11 · 07/03/2007 14:51

eddas, you probably could do an online shop once a month which again cuts the impulse buys down, we would have done last month but have money off vouchers and points vochers for tesco which can only be used in store, so off we went!!

Eddas · 07/03/2007 15:45

Good point re the vouchers, i usually use tesco so would have the same thing. But i do the xmas saver club so only get a few.

Cappuccino · 07/03/2007 15:49

dunno if this has been said but if you are trying to run the house without his commission can you not use it to pay off chunks of your mortgage?

on a lot of mortgages you can pay a certain amount off annually without penalty

have to admit I have not read thread so discard this advice if it's not any use