Part of the reason we never considered trading-in Crewe Towers is that we can get by on a single wage rather than needing both of us to be working. Just seemed like a wise contingency.
We probably could manage on the sort of money the OP is talking about.
Our CT is about £1,800 per year and our leccy bill is about £1,500 a year (we just got a £400 rebate after paying £150 pcm last year. Yay!).
I actually sat down and worked out our monthly accounts in fairly accurate detail last year and (looking at my rather nerdy spreadsheet) it seems we need to spend about £800 pcm to cover all our bills, including stuff like insurances, interweb, mobile phone, car expenses etc.
We can then "manage" on another £400-odd PCM although we'd immediately run into problems if, say, we needed cash to replace a dead TV set or washing machine etc and we wouldn't be able to accrue any savings.
Necessities like food, council tax, gas, clothes would come to £3000 per year. Leaving £4000 per year.
Its probably around the equivalent of someone earning £16k full time, as they have to pay tax - £2k, commuting £2k, and housing £5k per year, leaving the £7k figure.
I am confused. If all your bills come to £3K ( Just not realistic) Why would you need the other £4K???
I think the OP Andersonsonson is still living at home and can spend his JSA on what he likes. 7k would not even cover my bills and expenses.
I have done better off calcuaitons etc, 16k shows that after paying for everything including household expenses and food I will have just £10 a week left over. SO this is a fantasy world original post.
Here are just a few of the main things I pay out on.
£1100 council tax
£850 Gas + Electric
£600 Water
£350 insurance
TV Telephone Broadband £860
Food for 2 people based on average £60 per week £3000
I don't think I'm a big spender, but it costs me £2000 to visit my daughter and granddaughter. It takes me all year to save up. I really dread the thought of retiring and not being able to afford the journey. And every so often I have a moment of madness, and spend something like £80 at the garden centre. I would hate to have to watch every penny forever.
Biggest problem, IMO, is that once you are "subsisting", you're pretty much stuck on an ever-steeper downward spiral.
Get rid of "luxuries" like cars, mobile phones and internet access and you're limiting your chances of getting a job, get rid of "unnecessary" expenses such as insurance policies and you end up in an even worse situation as a result of, say, getting sick, somebody dying or if a home appliance carks it or there's some problem with your property.
Sure, you can survive like that but you'd better get used to it, and even learn to enjoy it, cos it's probably only ever going to get worse.
When I read about other people's council tax it makes me so glad to live in the borough that I'm in.
Band E here is £833.27, even a Band G place is still £1136.28.
If Band D is average then that's £681.77 in my borough.
My food shop is £30-£40 a week and that's for me & 2 kids.
BIB: Would be interested in what sort of things you buy for that amount? I can't think how I'd get my food shop anywhere near (I do have a husband as well though)
I think the OP Andersonsonson is still living at home and can spend his JSA on what he likes. 7k would not even cover my bills and expenses.
I have done better off calcuaitons etc, 16k shows that after paying for everything including household expenses and food I will have just £10 a week left over. SO this is a fantasy world original post.
Here are just a few of the main things I pay out on.
£1100 council tax
£850 Gas + Electric
£600 Water
£350 insurance
TV Telephone Broadband £860
Food for 2 people based on average £60 per week £3000
He claims he has his own home and £180k in savings:o
BIB: Would be interested in what sort of things you buy for that amount? I can't think how I'd get my food shop anywhere near (I do have a husband as well though)
Boxes of OatSoSimple porridge sachets are always on a 2 for £... offer plus buying a 2 pint carton of milk twice a week. That's a week of breakfasts for £5.
Fresh meat in the 3 for £10 deals. Waitrose is normally the best one as the offer includes a whole chicken (which covers 2 nights dinner) and a packet of mince (I can use to make 2 night's dinners) plus 1 more pack of anything which I put in the freezer.
If any of the many butchers near the kids' school has good deals on then I get meat from there instead.
Fresh fish (usually from the market) is around £5 for enough for the three of us for 1 or 2 meals depending on how I cook it, and sometimes some left over for the freezer.
Fresh fruit and veg is £1 a bowl and I usually spend around £10 on that.
Topping up on store cupboard bits when needed is around the £3-£6 mark.
Putting meat/fish straight in the freezer and making batches of meals then freezing some means that once a month my shopping bill is less than £20 as I only need to buy fruit, veg & breakfast stuff.
not here and my council tax is over £1200 for a one bedroom council flat, water has never been included, that`s a private company.
i live a very simple and quite frugal life and find your numbers highly unrealistic.
The system is different in Scotland which is, presumably, what the OP was alluding to with the word "North".
Personally, I'm in Band D and am paying around £1,800 a year for CT and water-rates, combined, on a house that was, quite possibly, one of the cheapest in Scotland that isn't on wheels.
Add in £1,500 for leccy (lord knows how anybody could make do with only £500 of leccy per year) and I'm already over the magical £3k mark without considering other essentials such as building insurance, telephone and, erm, food.
I probably could scrape by on £7k a year (around £4k for bills and £3k for everything else) but it'd mean getting rid of almost everything that wasn't related to food or shelter and I'm not sure that's a standard of living we should be advocating in the 21st century.
Necessities like food, council tax, gas, clothes would come to £3000 per year. Leaving £4000 per year.
Its probably around the equivalent of someone earning £16k full time, as they have to pay tax - £2k, commuting £2k, and housing £5k per year, leaving the £7k figure.
Another idiotic thread from the same poster claiming everyone can live on peanuts ignoring a lot of the expenses that people have.
Fact is in most parts of the country it takes a salary of at least £20000 to be able to live alone. Throw in children and that increases greatly.
We can then "manage" on another £400-odd PCM although we'd immediately run into problems if, say, we needed cash to replace a dead TV set or washing machine etc and we wouldn't be able to accrue any savings.
Well exactly. People drawing up specimen budgets always tend to ignore expensive emergencies. Your boiler packs up - you have to find £1500 immediately, unless you think you can manage with no hot water from now on. Your car dies - and those of us with cheap old cars obviously face that danger - and what are you going to buy with less than £1000? Your daughter is getting married in Florida, and is hoping you will at least come to the wedding, if not pay some of it. Even your decent work clothes giving up the ghost can be a catastrophe if you have no spare money. When did anyone last see a decent business suit, in their size and in very nice condition, in a charity shop? One of my grimmest financial moments came when my husband said that he desperately needed a new suit, and was going to do the rounds of the charity shops looking for one, and I had to tell him that we couldn't afford it, since even in a charity shop a good men's suit will be about thirty quid.
Oh yay, another totally unrealistic thread from the OP who seems to have no grasp on how much living actually costs!
As ever the answer to this and most of your threads is, yes, you'd probably scrape by (in some areas) and be satisfied but wouldn't be particularly happy about it, unless you enjoy living a meagre, frugal life, which is what it would have to be in a lot of areas.
While I agree with everyone who thinks it's daft that bills etc would only amount to £3k I am surprised by how much money people spend on food.
The food/grocery bill for us (two men) amounts to about £55 a week. That's a weekly Lidl & high street shoping at £40 and about £15 of treats from M&S.
If it's more than that I would say that many of you are throwing a lot of food out uneaten.
Our weekly shop usually comes in at about 80 per week for two adults at Lidl/Aldi. However we dont eat carbs apart from fruit and veg carbs and so spend a lot of money on nuts, fruit and veg, plus meats and fish. Our shop also includes household stuff and pet stuff when necessary, so things like foil, sandwich bags, washing powder cat and dog food, wipes, toilet roll, kitchen roll etc etc. When we ate a lot of potato/bread/pasta/rice products our shop was cheaper.
Boxes of OatSoSimple porridge sachets are always on a 2 for £... offer plus buying a 2 pint carton of milk twice a week. That's a week of breakfasts for £5.
Fresh meat in the 3 for £10 deals. Waitrose is normally the best one as the offer includes a whole chicken (which covers 2 nights dinner) and a packet of mince (I can use to make 2 night's dinners) plus 1 more pack of anything which I put in the freezer.
If any of the many butchers near the kids' school has good deals on then I get meat from there instead.
Fresh fish (usually from the market) is around £5 for enough for the three of us for 1 or 2 meals depending on how I cook it, and sometimes some left over for the freezer.
Fresh fruit and veg is £1 a bowl and I usually spend around £10 on that.
Topping up on store cupboard bits when needed is around the £3-£6 mark.
Putting meat/fish straight in the freezer and making batches of meals then freezing some means that once a month my shopping bill is less than £20 as I only need to buy fruit, veg & breakfast stuff.
Part of the reason we never considered trading-in Crewe Towers is that we can get by on a single wage rather than needing both of us to be working. Just seemed like a wise contingency.
We probably could manage on the sort of money the OP is talking about.
Our CT is about £1,800 per year and our leccy bill is about £1,500 a year (we just got a £400 rebate after paying £150 pcm last year. Yay!).
I actually sat down and worked out our monthly accounts in fairly accurate detail last year and (looking at my rather nerdy spreadsheet) it seems we need to spend about £800 pcm to cover all our bills, including stuff like insurances, interweb, mobile phone, car expenses etc.
We can then "manage" on another £400-odd PCM although we'd immediately run into problems if, say, we needed cash to replace a dead TV set or washing machine etc and we wouldn't be able to accrue any savings.
Some of us have a mortgage of say £800 pcm on top of the £800 for everyday bills.
I wish I had a nerdy spreadsheet template...I need to review my outgoings for the year ahead. I will most likely need to spend some money on a new washing machine, some small maintenance and repair or replacement works in the house and garden etc. I like to have worked out what the upcoming bills are so I always have a clear sense in my head of what I can or cannot spend or save.
....However we dont eat carbs apart from fruit and veg carbs and so spend a lot of money on nuts, fruit and veg, plus meats and fish......When we ate a lot of potato/bread/pasta/rice products our shop was cheaper.
Tiacat, I'm not criticising your diet, you can eat what you want, but I'm curious.
What do you substitute for the rice/pasta, etc in your meals to provide you with the readily available energy that carbohydrates normally supply?
When I'm cooking then normally I would first select the meat then the accompanying starchy food. I'm struggling to think of meals I could make without rice/spuds/pasta/noodles/bread/wraps.
And OP, my council tax is £2250 and my gas/electric is just under £1800 p.a. and no, I don't live in a castle.
Necessities like food, council tax, gas, clothes would come to £3000 per year. Leaving £4000 per year.
Its probably around the equivalent of someone earning £16k full time, as they have to pay tax - £2k, commuting £2k, and housing £5k per year, leaving the £7k figure.
A lot more than £3K in ours, as our poll tax is half that £3k, then there's Sewerage, Gas, Electricity, House Insurance, Car Insurance, Car Tax, Water, Building Maintenance, Building Insurance, TV Licence, Petrol, just for starters. Food is way down the list. But you could just about live on £4k if you lived in a tent.
Another idiotic thread from the same poster claiming everyone can live on peanuts ignoring a lot of the expenses that people have.
Fact is in most parts of the country it takes a salary of at least £20000 to be able to live alone. Throw in children and that increases greatly.
But people could, and would have to live on those figures if there was no other alternative. The people who could live on £20K would be the lucky ones.
What a ridiculous thread. Of course I could manage to get by on it, but would I be happy? No I bloody wouldn't!! I like holiday's, I like eating out, I love food and spend quite a bit on it each week. I like to enjoy my life and I work hard in order to ensure that I can.
Comments
We probably could manage on the sort of money the OP is talking about.
Our CT is about £1,800 per year and our leccy bill is about £1,500 a year (we just got a £400 rebate after paying £150 pcm last year. Yay!).
I actually sat down and worked out our monthly accounts in fairly accurate detail last year and (looking at my rather nerdy spreadsheet) it seems we need to spend about £800 pcm to cover all our bills, including stuff like insurances, interweb, mobile phone, car expenses etc.
We can then "manage" on another £400-odd PCM although we'd immediately run into problems if, say, we needed cash to replace a dead TV set or washing machine etc and we wouldn't be able to accrue any savings.
I am confused. If all your bills come to £3K ( Just not realistic) Why would you need the other £4K???
I have done better off calcuaitons etc, 16k shows that after paying for everything including household expenses and food I will have just £10 a week left over. SO this is a fantasy world original post.
Here are just a few of the main things I pay out on.
£1100 council tax
£850 Gas + Electric
£600 Water
£350 insurance
TV Telephone Broadband £860
Food for 2 people based on average £60 per week £3000
It isn't only for one person ,and i didn't say it was
When I read about other people's council tax it makes me so glad to live in the borough that I'm in.
Band E here is £833.27, even a Band G place is still £1136.28.
If Band D is average then that's £681.77 in my borough.
My food shop is £30-£40 a week and that's for me & 2 kids.
Get rid of "luxuries" like cars, mobile phones and internet access and you're limiting your chances of getting a job, get rid of "unnecessary" expenses such as insurance policies and you end up in an even worse situation as a result of, say, getting sick, somebody dying or if a home appliance carks it or there's some problem with your property.
Sure, you can survive like that but you'd better get used to it, and even learn to enjoy it, cos it's probably only ever going to get worse.
BIB: Would be interested in what sort of things you buy for that amount? I can't think how I'd get my food shop anywhere near (I do have a husband as well though)
He claims he has his own home and £180k in savings:o
http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showpost.php?p=74195952&postcount=23
I'm sure he did but maybe a bit of a fantasist.
Boxes of OatSoSimple porridge sachets are always on a 2 for £... offer plus buying a 2 pint carton of milk twice a week. That's a week of breakfasts for £5.
Fresh meat in the 3 for £10 deals. Waitrose is normally the best one as the offer includes a whole chicken (which covers 2 nights dinner) and a packet of mince (I can use to make 2 night's dinners) plus 1 more pack of anything which I put in the freezer.
If any of the many butchers near the kids' school has good deals on then I get meat from there instead.
Fresh fish (usually from the market) is around £5 for enough for the three of us for 1 or 2 meals depending on how I cook it, and sometimes some left over for the freezer.
Fresh fruit and veg is £1 a bowl and I usually spend around £10 on that.
Topping up on store cupboard bits when needed is around the £3-£6 mark.
Putting meat/fish straight in the freezer and making batches of meals then freezing some means that once a month my shopping bill is less than £20 as I only need to buy fruit, veg & breakfast stuff.
not here and my council tax is over £1200 for a one bedroom council flat, water has never been included, that`s a private company.
i live a very simple and quite frugal life and find your numbers highly unrealistic.
The system is different in Scotland which is, presumably, what the OP was alluding to with the word "North".
Personally, I'm in Band D and am paying around £1,800 a year for CT and water-rates, combined, on a house that was, quite possibly, one of the cheapest in Scotland that isn't on wheels.
Add in £1,500 for leccy (lord knows how anybody could make do with only £500 of leccy per year) and I'm already over the magical £3k mark without considering other essentials such as building insurance, telephone and, erm, food.
I probably could scrape by on £7k a year (around £4k for bills and £3k for everything else) but it'd mean getting rid of almost everything that wasn't related to food or shelter and I'm not sure that's a standard of living we should be advocating in the 21st century.
Where? Mine is vastly much more than that!
Another idiotic thread from the same poster claiming everyone can live on peanuts ignoring a lot of the expenses that people have.
Fact is in most parts of the country it takes a salary of at least £20000 to be able to live alone. Throw in children and that increases greatly.
Well exactly. People drawing up specimen budgets always tend to ignore expensive emergencies. Your boiler packs up - you have to find £1500 immediately, unless you think you can manage with no hot water from now on. Your car dies - and those of us with cheap old cars obviously face that danger - and what are you going to buy with less than £1000? Your daughter is getting married in Florida, and is hoping you will at least come to the wedding, if not pay some of it. Even your decent work clothes giving up the ghost can be a catastrophe if you have no spare money. When did anyone last see a decent business suit, in their size and in very nice condition, in a charity shop? One of my grimmest financial moments came when my husband said that he desperately needed a new suit, and was going to do the rounds of the charity shops looking for one, and I had to tell him that we couldn't afford it, since even in a charity shop a good men's suit will be about thirty quid.
As ever the answer to this and most of your threads is, yes, you'd probably scrape by (in some areas) and be satisfied but wouldn't be particularly happy about it, unless you enjoy living a meagre, frugal life, which is what it would have to be in a lot of areas.
Our weekly shop usually comes in at about 80 per week for two adults at Lidl/Aldi. However we dont eat carbs apart from fruit and veg carbs and so spend a lot of money on nuts, fruit and veg, plus meats and fish. Our shop also includes household stuff and pet stuff when necessary, so things like foil, sandwich bags, washing powder cat and dog food, wipes, toilet roll, kitchen roll etc etc. When we ate a lot of potato/bread/pasta/rice products our shop was cheaper.
Cheers for info. Sounds very healthy too
Some of us have a mortgage of say £800 pcm on top of the £800 for everyday bills.
I wish I had a nerdy spreadsheet template...I need to review my outgoings for the year ahead. I will most likely need to spend some money on a new washing machine, some small maintenance and repair or replacement works in the house and garden etc. I like to have worked out what the upcoming bills are so I always have a clear sense in my head of what I can or cannot spend or save.
Tiacat, I'm not criticising your diet, you can eat what you want, but I'm curious.
What do you substitute for the rice/pasta, etc in your meals to provide you with the readily available energy that carbohydrates normally supply?
When I'm cooking then normally I would first select the meat then the accompanying starchy food. I'm struggling to think of meals I could make without rice/spuds/pasta/noodles/bread/wraps.
And OP, my council tax is £2250 and my gas/electric is just under £1800 p.a. and no, I don't live in a castle.
A lot more than £3K in ours, as our poll tax is half that £3k, then there's Sewerage, Gas, Electricity, House Insurance, Car Insurance, Car Tax, Water, Building Maintenance, Building Insurance, TV Licence, Petrol, just for starters. Food is way down the list. But you could just about live on £4k if you lived in a tent.
But people could, and would have to live on those figures if there was no other alternative. The people who could live on £20K would be the lucky ones.