Help in cutting monthly outgoings

[PensionPotPreparation]

Hoping for some help. I preface all this by saying that I know we have been in a very lucky position owing to DH's high paid job, to the extent that I haven't really had to budget. I know that sounds so entitled. Sorry.

But now we are about to start drawing down from our pension funds, and I have been preparing a schedule of regular outgoings and when they are paid so we can set up a standing arrangement of payments into our bank account from our pension pot and investments.

And I confess that seeing monthly payments written down and annualising them is an eye opener. And to my embarrassment I don't really know if the amounts are reasonable for our lifestyle or whether there are clear flags that we could shop around to reduce payments and fees/ or change what we pay for /do

Again, I am aware that this may come across as stealth boasting, it is not intended that way...I am hoping that some of you may be able to point out that certain standard bills etc are much higher than they should be/ you would expect.

So for example we pay
£300 per month for gas/ electricity - £3600 pa
£174 Council tax per month - £2088 pa
£90 Virgin Media per month - £1080 pa
£47 BT broadband per month - £564 pa
£80 Water rates per month - £960 pa
£470 House insurance per month - £5640pa
£600 Cleaner per month - £7200 pa
£250 gardener per month - £4000 pa

Annual fees
AA membership £272
Car insurance ( 2 cars) 537.76
Car service (1 car) 450.00
Travel insurance 523.70

Do any of those scream out as being unusually high. Together they come to just under £27000 pa.
Food costs/ eating out/ theatre/ gym membership/ magazine and club subscriptions / holidays etc I can see more readily where cuts can (have to) be made.

Thanks

Also car service is very high. Google suggests average cost is about 160 for a full service. Also if its a second car (as you have one that doesn't need servicing presumably because its new) then it only needs a full service every 12000 miles - does the second car do this every year?

£600 per month on a cleaner? We do half each of the housework, once a week.

With utility bills about to double it doesn’t make sense for you to be in such a big home that costs a fortune to insure. It also doesn’t make sense for you to have so much expensive domestic help. In your shoes I’d be seriously weighing up downsizing which could presumably release equity from which you could generate some income to run alongside your pension.

And we do the gardening. We've made sure we have a low maintenance garden.

I would say the virgin media is v high depending on what you get for that of course...
And the home insurance!! I pay 500 for the year!!

Just for comparison here's my monthly bills

Electricity 100
Life insurance 70
Tv/broadband and 1 phone 69
1 phone 35
Waste charges 27

Although I'm in Ireland where we have no council tax and no water bill

My annuals

Car insurance x2 500 and 800
House insurance 500
Travel insurance is a part of my health insurance which is paid by my workplace

I can't really think of anything else...

@RainbowZebraWarrior

If your cleaner is actually doing 12 hours a week and you're paying her £600 a month, then actually that's only £12 an hour (roughly)

It’s actually even less than that if the £600 is for a calendar month and not four weekly. Way below the London living wage.

Forgot I have a cleaner who is 72 per week

Also we have no mortgage so that's why I haven't put that in...

The house insurance is eye-watering. I'm sure you could get that down a lot. Depending on whether you have specific items included in it, for instance. We found that to insure DH's bike kept in the shed would cost more per annum than the thing was worth. We've never bothered with insuring freezer contents or anything like that either.

Is it combined buildings and contents? Do you live in an area known for flooding or subsidence, or anything like that?

Your house insurance is that PER MONTH?!

Christ. I pay £15 a month. That can't be right, surely?

Some things are hard to say without knowing more about your circumstances, e.g do you travel quite often? Is the travel insurance necessary each year?

So for example we pay

£90 Virgin Media per month - £1080 pa - THIS IS HIGH - can you shop around? What does Virgin media give you that the cheaper subscriptions cant, e.g NOW TV is Sky?

£47 BT broadband per month - £564 pa

£80 Water rates per month - £960 pa

£470 House insurance per month - £5640pa ..A MONTH?!

£600 Cleaner per month - £7200 pa
How big and how dirty does the house get? Can you not do one big clean fortnightly and have a top up shorter clean inbetween?

£250 gardener per month - £4000 pa
I would absolutely bin this and book as and when, or make the gardening much less high maintenance.

Annual fees
AA membership £272
Car insurance ( 2 cars) 537.76
Car service (1 car) 450.00
Travel insurance 523.70

Do any of those scream out as being unusually high. Together they come to just under £27000 pa.
Food costs/ eating out/ theatre/ gym membership/ magazine and club subscriptions / holidays etc I can see more readily where cuts can (have to) be made.

I'm not sure i would agree that the cleaning is expensive when looking at a per hour rate. You could argue that the hours are excessive per a month though there is history and loyalty in the backstory.

"3 times a week for around 12 hours a week" = 48 hrs a month approx.

At £600 per month the hourly rate is £12 per hour which is reasonable.

I think savings are can be made elsewhere on TV/Broadband and house insurance sounds like the low hanging fruit. However i dont live in a six bedroom house in London which sounds like it will be well over £1m in value so perhaps £5k maybe a reasonable annual premium.

@Examsrus i agree, my cleaner is 12 per hour for 6 hours a week which I think is reasonable.

Ah thanks all....

1. Got our cleaner's pay wrong, we currently pay £250 per week for 12 hours (£20 per hour) so £1000 per "month" but sometimes a 5 week month so more. We have agreed with her to go down to £150 a week ( ie my £600 a month figure) for 7/8hours (£18 per hour) for one more year and will then review. I spoke to an agency who charge £16.75 per hour, with ironing / oven cleaning/ window cleaning on top. They advised they would send two people for 3 hours once a week or one person for 3 hours twice a week. Anna does these as and when required. I don't mind paying a small premium over this commercial rate.

House insurance - have rung round and got a significantly lower quote. Our current insurer says he was confident that he was competitive with "higher end" properties/ contents, gave a higher rebuild allowance than many insurers and in the case of fire totalling the building would put us up first in a hotel. and then find a similar sized house, rent to be paid by them, for up to 3 years while our house was rebuilt. I'm in discussions with one insurance firm to go through exactly what they will offer and I am sure we will switch ( the subsidence questions now seem to relate to "have you ever claimed for subsidence" which we haven't so the lawyer in me is happy)

No water meter - but one coming in next few months.

Gas and electricity - will look again at our usage. Currently hot water and heating on 6am to 10 am and then 4pm to 10 pm.

Gardener - £25 per hour seems to be the going rate here. The additional amount in the total is to reflect cost of plants/ tree surgery and some landscaping changes when ivy removed etc. DH and I are not gardeners, but I will at least learn to do the pots!

On to Virgin tomorrow.

Thanks - reading all your comments gives me the confidence to question and challenge. And I will show DH all the recommendations about downsizing .... - several rooms need some long overdue TLC and it seems counter intuitive to spend money on new carpets/ curtains/ decoration if we are then going to sell soon after, rather than save that kind of capital expense for a new smaller house.

thank you all...

PS the new insurance quote I have is around £1000 a year for their premium offering, so substantially less....

Your council tax is approx £170 per month, yet you have a cleaner (at £600!) and gardener? Doesn’t add up. My council tax is nearly £200 a month and we live in a band D property

Personally @PensionPotPreparation I would downsize in preparation for retirement. But the sounds of it that house and garden is WAY too much work!!

Get Vodafone broadband. No line rental charge. Ours is 23 quid per month. 4 people on line all the time.

You sound very loyal to your providers, and unquestioning of their recommendations or renewals.
Never renew insurance, utilities, car breakdown etc without doing a comparison. You rarely get a better deal as an existing, loyal customer than as a new one and by a significant amount, not just a few quid.

Worth checking your bank account to see if it offers insurance etc. Might be worth switching bank if not.

For comparison: with Virgin Media here £98 for broadband, TV and terrestrial phone line.
AA; we pay for this with Tesco points depending on how many points we have.

@lipsandlashes I've been and rechecked.
We're Wandsworth, Band H and total council tax is £1740.21, which is actually collected in 10 instalments of £174, not 12, so in fact around £145 a month.

@qualitygirl well yes - which is why I have employed others! - I realised the amount of work involved during lockdown!

We can still afford all this, but I am aware that very fortunate to be able to do so, and it is clear that there are savings to be had.

@Lipsandlashes

Your council tax is approx £170 per month, yet you have a cleaner (at £600!) and gardener? Doesn’t add up. My council tax is nearly £200 a month and we live in a band D property

Based on 1990s house prices. new builds are more due to the way it is calculated (they dint exist in 1990s) if you renovate and extend then it doesn't usually go up until the house is sold.

@SmithfamilyRobinson

For comparison: with Virgin Media here £98 for broadband, TV and terrestrial phone line. AA; we pay for this with Tesco points depending on how many points we have.

So do we- 2 boxes They put it up to about £120 when contract ends and we call and get it put back down.

Wandsworth pride themselves on having the lowest council tax- although Westminster is pretty low as well.

Is this a joke?