Minimal amount to live off each month

[littleblackcat27]

I know we all have different bills etc, but as a hypothetical question - if you had paid off your mortgage, and had no rent to pay - what would your bills/cost of living add up to each month?

I'm working out how cheaply we could live at the moment.

Basic bills and food : £1000
( Utilities, water rates, my car tax, Council tax, car and life insurances, tv and mobiles are £500, food + petrol £500).

2 pensions as I’m not employed ( well I am by DH but under the LeL so it doesn’t ‘count’) and DH is self employed, so £500 a month.

Then a car payment of £200 a month.

So an absolute minimum would be £1200,

although we could shave £150 off the food bill if needed.

People relying on 2 State pensions in the future need to think about what would happen if one partner died- two can live as cheaply as one.
I’d be worse off than DH should the other die to the tune of £5k a year as i would only get half of his military pension so we got life insurance of £60k to take us to age 70, to give me a boost for a few years should he die first, it’s worth paying £20 a month for peace of mind.

Pension Credits would kick in.

Our bills come to £340 a month. Fuel costs £80 a month and food costs £80 a month. We have no mortgage as we paid it off last year. We have good solar panels too on a decent rate as we've had them years.

Food £80 a month so £20. Week. Impossible

Mis type ?

Our current monthly budget is £3,139 not including mortgage.

£1,439 for bills/shopping/petrol, £200 savings, £1500 to spend on whatever we want (£750 each)

Council tax £222 (house value £385k new build 2021)

Gas + Elec £184 (this was the monthly amount based on a quarterly bill from British Gas for May-July 2023 we are on a standard variable tariff) 4 bed house but only 2 adults, both at home all day every day

Water £36

TV Licence £13

Home and contents insurance £26

Life and critical illness insurance £80 (for both of us decreasing with mortgage)

Sky TV basic package £5

Netflix/Amazon/Disney/Now TV £40

Broadband (BT top speed for our area) £35

Specsavers subscription £18

National Trust subscription £10

Dental savings £20 (pays for an annual check up for both of us but not dental work)

Food, Toiletries and Cleaning products £370 (Weekly click and collect on a Monday from Tesco for £50 and then top up shop on Friday for £35 from M&S)

Petrol £150 - Husband has a hybrid company car and has to pay benefit in kind tax for it so I don’t class this as a bill as it comes out PAYE. He travels 70 miles 3 times a week plus local running around. Charges car both at home daily (included in our elec bill) and at work for free. His car does 30 miles on electric.

Hair + Nails £130 (I’m very grey and have my roots done every 3 weeks along with my nails)

Family/Friends birthday and Xmas gifts £100 (we have a large family)

Oops I forgot mobile phones
Mine is £8
Husbands is £35

What others spend isn't really helpful. If you're trying to reduce your working hours you have a very different set of priorities from someone like @BLT24 who has lots of money available, so has the budget for £130 pm hair, £35 mobile phone contract and multiple TV packages.

If you want to reduce your spending to fit in with lower earnings, these are the sorts of things you'd significantly reduce or cut out completely, because to you it's not worth working to pay for these things, whereas to others it will be.

Some pension providers have given examples of the income needed for different standards of retirement, which might be useful:

https://www.standardlife.co.uk/articles/article-page/how-much-do-i-need-to-retire

But those figures won't including dependent DC, but you talk about your DC being adults, so if they're working, if they want to continue living with you, they'll need to pay a reasonable amount of board money, otherwise you'll be in the ridiculous situation where you're working when you don't want to/are unable to, to support working adults who probably have more money than you.

@BarbaraofSeville i find it useful to see what others spend as it can help you to see if you could get any bills cheaper etc based on what others are paying. You can also see where your priorities are different and/or where money can easily be increased/decreased by living a different lifestyle. I wasn’t suggesting where I choose to spend my money is the minimum someone else should spend.

@BarbaraofSeville the op may still want to watch tv and get their hair done and factor these into their monthly budget. I have stopped working due to ill health, these are a priority for me due to being restricted in what else I can do.

Bare minimum £1000 per month for a family of 4. No car, bicycle to school and back.

We don't have a mortgage. Our bills are probably around £1000 a month. We save about £1500- £2000 a month (incl kids savings). We spend about £800-£1000 a month on food/ eating out/ treats. Holidays prob add up to about £200 a month on average.

1)Council tax
2)electric, gas & water
3)broardband & mobile phone (land line is free)
4)car tax, insurance & MOT, Breakdown cover
5)contents and building insurance for house

Those are my only regular bills & tax to pay, I’ve reduced these to be as minimal as possible. Those are the only outgoings I don’t want to be without. Everything else I don’t need

the first 3 on the list I pay monthly so approximately £400

the later 2 I pay yearly as cheaper that way £400 & £240, so another £55 per month

It all depends on the size of the house, type of car, etc.

Our utilities and council tax are easily £10k
Plus mobile phones, broadband, TV, house insurance and running two cars.

Food is another variable. Then add on, say, £200 pcm for maintenance (decorating, new boiler, washing machine, dishwasher, etc).

If excluding the mortgage then bills come to €600 a month (including the annual ones), fuel is another €100 and groceries €500 I'd say....I don't think we'd get groceries any lower than that without a lot of sacrifice.

So €1100 a month for the necessities I guess. Realistically though we need more than just the necessities. We still need treats, family days out and to socialise with friends. We spend €2000 a month on top of the necessities, some months we can manage to spend a lot less and roll it over into the next month but there will always be expensive months when that rolled over money will be spent.