If you are mortgage free how much does it cost to live?

[Notimelikeyesterday]

We could be mortgage free if we relocate...
But DH would have to give up his job, I could just find another/go supply/bank as I'm a key worker....preferably we'd both give up stressful jobs and get some minimum wage ones... we have 1dc...would like another...
Could we survive/ have a decent quality of life/ afford basics if we did this?

Thanks everyone. So we basically have a lot of fat we could trim, so there's no point adding up expenses as they are. I have no real idea what annual minimum wage is so that's why I was asking. I understand MW is about £8/hr depending on location, age etc.
So basically asking if anyone gas done this and it's been the right decision.
I'm happy with living frugally. No holidays abroad, maybe camping once per year etc.

Water rates are not the same everywhere, they vary depending on who supplies it.

i think minimum wages is about £10.80 now ?

You need to consider pensions op and plan long term.

Do you have significant savings?

Plus kids get expensive as they get older.

Minimum wage jobs don't necessarily mean minimum stress......

A bit of a weird title as being mortgage free means the COL is exactly the same but there are no mortgage payments to be made - end of.
If you are relocating then that is a different question entirely.

Erm.... the simple answer is £725 less per month than it did with a mortgage payment of £725, we paid off in April. All other things have not really remained equal though, so we feel far from loaded, but we are going on holiday for the first time in years. We're not hugely feeling the CoL pinch though.

so there's no point adding up expenses as they are

If I was a thinking off selling my house, my husband giving up his job, moving to a different part of the country and working minimum wage jobs for the rest of my life, I would be adding up my expenses very carefully! You seem to want to do this, but with no details at all!

How old are you?
If you want more children, will you need maternity pay? Kids are expensive-what if they want stuff, holidays, university?
Do you have savings-what
What’s your work pension situation like?
Is your mortgage nearly paid off? Will you have enough left over to buy a house straight out? What if it needs work doing to it-or just carpets/curtains/kitchen?
Where are you looking to move to-is it really that much cheaper?
Will you need to spend money on travelling back to see friends/family?
What are your outgoings minus mortgage currently?

Don't be too sure that a minimum wage job will be less stressful! A lot of min wage jobs can be very stressful.... retail, carers etc...........

Fuel bill aren't the same everywhere. Some parts of the country are a lot colder than others and that can make quite a difference.

I think the house can make quite a difference too. A modern, well insulated place is much cheaper to heat than old draughty buildings.

Also be aware that due to covid and the exodus from london/ south east, combined with wfh and hybrid working most "desirable" areas don't have really cheap house prices anymore.

Our outgoings ( four adults) are about £1500 a month, for everything. Excluding clothes and holidays.

With a mortgage we would be really struggling.

OK so basically we've got enough equity to buy a no frills 3 bed place somewhere rural but not too North.
If MW is 10.42/hr then if we both got shelf stacking jobs full time we'd bring home £18k each per year, £32k combined.... so £3000/ month.... but no mortgage out of that as we'd have bought a place with cash.

I think we're currently bringing in circa £4800/month £1100 monthly mortgage payments.

Depends on your lifestyle. We've been mortgage free for 2 years (I'm 40) as we relocated to somewhere cheaper (not nicer). Have one dc. Dh and I both work and take home 100k between us. The money we spent on mortgage now goes into LISA and pensions, ISA for dc so we don't notice on a daily basis not having a mortgage but obviously we will reap the benefits in the future and financial security is fantastic.

I'm a spender though and individually (dh and I have separate accounts) I spend about 1.5-2k per month on socialising, eating out, holidays, city breaks, self care etc. I could cut back but I want to enjoy my life and am very lucky that we're in this position.

We are mortgage free, but still have a decent amount of personal spending money, foreign holidays, theatre and gig tickets, and follow our favourite sporting Team, and like to eat out once a week.
we spend 2500 to 3000 k a month

you need to ‘know your numbers’ as the FIRE community advise, and this includes all monthly costs and annual bills which include the cost of a birthday and Christmas card and stamps to great auntie Sal
and then have a contingency fund for when the boiler dies and the roof leaks and the car blows up all in the same week

i don’t think you can afford any kind of child care and you will need it til your kids are at secondary school, on two minimum wages, and any less than two wages will be very hard

plan plan plan, and read the FIRE stuff on line

Rather than going full-time in a minimum wage job, surely it be better to use the skills you have to reduce your hours?

Kids do get more expensive as they get older. You may be happy with a week camping now, but trips with secondary school (which my DD just HAS to go on) are typically over £1000!

*meant (and nicer).

what are your existing jobs?

As kitkatkathy said, much better to reduce your hours than do full time minimum wage.

i wouldn’t assume shelf stacking is stress free. you’ll still be working FT hours, shelf stacking can be very unfulfilling. you won’t necessarily be working fixed hours, imagine if you and DH are both working at a supermarket, you mightn’t get days off together.

Other benefits- paid sick pay? Pensions? If you take a pay cut to match your reduced mortgage outgoings, are you losing employer pension contributions?

I save the amount I would have spent on my mortgage, so haven't seen much of a change since we paid it off a few years ago. We had quite a small mortgage though only £400 a month.
It has meant that we have been able to save to get work done around the house that was sorely needed.
It's not been the life changing experience people made it out to be 😂

Why do you want to get a full-time minimum wage job (or 2) instead of getting a job that matches your skillset and is better paid? They’re available pretty much everywhere, even if your specific job right now is not. You have transferable skills, and if you’re not in a MW job now, why make that your aim?

It feels this is more a question of what is your pension looking like? As others have said, your mortgage is just a monthly payment which won't be there if you pay it off. We're hoping to be mortgage free at 57 but at that point we will potentially have 2 kids at Uni so will have costs associated with that and any spare cash will be getting hammered into the pension so realistically will still be working into our 60s. If our pension was going to be huge at 57 it would be different story.

We are mortgage free, living in a 3 bed semi in the north east, 2 adults, 1 primary aged child.

Monthly fixed outgoings are £750 (energy, car tax, car insurance and breakdown, £100 car loan, £50 towards MOT, TV license, house insurance, mobiles, memberships, dcs activities and savings, sky, netflix, broadband)
Then we have £1100 left for food, fuel, clothes, holidays, birthdays, Christmas, house maintenance and DIY. It's OK but we do try to be frugal - use vinted to buy and sell, get some food from the community food scheme, home haircuts.

Kids don't have to go on these. Many families make different choices.

If you want to send yours that is great but they are definitely not a requirement of a good enough childhood.

It doesn't matter how much it costs someone else to live, it only matters how much it would cost you to live.

You really need to do a detailed budget that includes everything you spend your money on over the course of a year. It's a bit of a pain to do at first, but then you can update it over time. This will really help you to see where your money is being spent, and to consider whether you want to try to reduce that. Good luck.