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Cost of living in the UK


Guest Andy

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Gas and electric, £130.00 per month for a good sized 4 bed detached house, no mortgage.

Rates £146

Water rates £30

Sky tv £60

phone and broadband £35

Weekly Big shop for 4 £125

Wine 3 litres £18.00

Decent whisky £18.00

petrol £1.40

Car insurance £500

House insurance £350

car tax £170

 

Comparison using 2AUD/1GBP (my costs in Melbourne):

 

Gas and electric, £130.00 per month for a good sized 4 bed detached house AUS - about the same. Electric can go up in the summer due to aircon.

Rates £146 AUS - don't pay because can't afford a house

Water rates £30 - AUS - about 20GBP

Sky tv £60 - AUS - can't afford

phone and broadband £35 AUS - about 44GBP for Telstra package

Weekly Big shop for 4 £125 - AUS - about 100GBP, but nothing fancy like fish, steaks, lamb chops. Just mince and potatoes!

Wine 3 litres £18.00 AUS - 5l box 7GBP

Decent whisky £18.00 AUS - can't afford but about 30GBP

petrol £1.40 - AUS 70p/l or 30p/l for LPG (which is how I can afford to run a 5.4l V8 on LPG)

Car insurance £500 - AUS - about the same excluding TAC

House insurance £350 - AUS - 200GBP for contents

car tax £170 - AUS - 350GBP including TAC. (and a 10 year old carp car will still cost 5000GBP and you have to pay tax on s/h cars! Plus the annual fines you pick up and the insurance claims from being side swiped every now and then).

 

so if you can live off cheap wine in Oz, you're on to a winner.

Edited by rikyuu
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Guest TheArmChairDetective

Funny, but not a single person has included MOT. are you all on the fiddle :-)

AND it's also good to note that there isn't a single smoker on PIO !!!

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I'm shocked at how much people pay for gas and electricity. I used to pay £80 a month for a 5 bed semi and I got a refund last year and another one when we left the UK in July. And I worked from home so I was at home using electricity pretty much all day everyday.

 

Edited to say I used to spend a lot more on groceries for the 4 of us than most people to make up for it though. :arghh:

Edited by NicF
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You need to shop at the food markets, 3 large bags, (tesco size) 3 decent size pork joints, about a dozen chicken thighs, 8/10 pork chops or lamb and normally he throws in a large whole chicken for £10 for £15 he adds about 2doz sausages a huge box of the large burgers, (24) that no roll is big enough for, and a small joint of lamb :biggrin:

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Our shopping is probably a bit cheaper and for six - but we shop only at Lidl's now

My car tax is £90 - diesel skoda Fabia - althought the Octavia would be the same - plus I get over 60 MPG.

Don't drink much - but you can get a quality bottle of pear cider from Lidl's for £1.

Our elec and gas are a bit more. Car insurance is a bit less.

 

But I think you're pretty much on the money Ropey.

 

 

 

We have take outs about 3 times a week.

The wife drinks Hock, or Libfremilch, it's still double the cost of wine in Oz.

A Peugeot 308. 1.6 litre.

 

i could have made them dearer, but that would be pointless.

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Guest paulwbafc

Its hard to compare cost of living. In uk my weekly wage was £400 take home a week. In oz take home per week is $1255 £803 for maint fitter job. Property is more expensive in oz but thats a secure assett and other outgoings aren t double uk. I have not had less than a 4% pay rise in oz. In uk i got at best 2%. I have spent a lot of hours working out projections and it is possible to buy a property in oz for 15 years then sell up and be mortgage free in uk.

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We have a 4 bed detached and pay the following:-

 

Mortgage:- £400 pcm(70% interest-only though)

Gas & electric:- £150 pcm (we often get a credit at the end of the year though)

Water:- £51.28 pcm

Council tax:- £175 pcm

Life insurance:- £79.20 pcm (3 policies: 1 for me, 1 for husband and 1 for kids' guardians incase we die)

Sky (broadband / freeview tv + 1 package / telephone + free local calls):- £40 pcm

Mobile phone contracts x 2:- £25 pcm (more if we exceed our usage or free calls)

TV license:- £13 pcm

Cars x 2 (insurance / tax / MOT / personal mileage / servicing / repairs / breakdown cover):- £390 pcm

Allowance for both of us:- £80 pcm (magazines, coffees, lunches out, etc.)

Childcare:- £75 pcm (3 afternoons a week, should be £260 but she gets funding for most of it)

 

Savings

Savings for holiday:- £100 pcm

General savings:- £300 pcm (seasonal [birthdays / Xmas / Easter / anniversaries, etc.], dental / optical, ad-hoc toys / magazines for kids, house [repair / replacement of household items, appliances], garden, school [uniform, stationery, learning activities], new clothes / shoes for all of us, etc.)

Pet:- £45 pcm (hamster bedding / food, dog food / insurance / vaccinations / worming / de-fleaing / grooming)

Shopping (groceries & household stuff [cleaning products, etc.] for a family of 5):- £550 pcm (we often go over, and that's shopping at Asda / Lidl, etc.!)

 

After all this leaves the account, we have £50 pcm spare (usually goes to pay off the extra shopping). My husband is on a good wage and also gets a car allowance, although only 1/3 of that goes towards the car (most of it goes on day-to-day expenses).

 

Not sure how this compares to Oz - am guessing our outgoings would be 2.2 greater, but then OH is hoping to earn 2.2 times more, so swings and roundabouts eh ;-)

Itchy Feet

PS - The savings amounts are 'ideal' figures (i.e. what we'd LIKE to spend, or as much as the budget allows), however we do end up overspending on quite a few categories (in particular, clothes and shoes for the ourselves and the kids). So it's not unusual to go overdrawn some months...

Edited by ItchyFeet76
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Its hard to compare cost of living. In uk my weekly wage was £400 take home a week. In oz take home per week is $1255 £803 for maint fitter job. Property is more expensive in oz but thats a secure assett and other outgoings aren t double uk. I have not had less than a 4% pay rise in oz. In uk i got at best 2%. I have spent a lot of hours working out projections and it is possible to buy a property in oz for 15 years then sell up and be mortgage free in uk.

Your Your plan is To make big bucks in oz and then return home mate?

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Guest TheArmChairDetective

Well done Itchyfeet, it's the incidentals that people forget that add up as well.

Your magazines might only be magazines but as an expenditure even if they only add up to "a meal out" it's still a cost.

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Down on the South Coast costs per calendar month:

 

Mortgage on 4 bed detached £1200

Elec/Gas average about £100

Water £40

Council Tax £169

Sky TV/unlimited broadband £47

Phone line (BT) £18

Shopping for 5 £750

Home insurance £33

Car insurance x 2 £44

Petrol/Diesel £80-100

Life insurance £100

Mobile phones x 2 £50

TV licence £13

Approx Tax/MOT/repair 2 cars £60

 

Days out/clothes etc £50

 

So approx total for family of 5 £2800

Obviously there are other expenses that are more one offs like Christmas/Birthdays etc

 

I'm not completely sure if we have anything left after that lot !

Edited by Chardy
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South Wales, more or less the same with one big difference: £650 for a small 3 bedroom semi detatched house. Rent was quite cheap, it usually 650-700 for a 2 bedroom in a decent area. What really killed me was car maIntenance, unpredictable and expensive if you cannot do it yourself.

Though, you can spend much less if you know where to go and you do not care where you live and what you eat/drink...

 

Down on the South Coast costs per calendar month:

 

Mortgage on 4 bed detached £1200

Elec/Gas average about £100

Water £40

Council Tax £169

Sky TV/unlimited broadband £47

Phone line (BT) £18

Shopping for 5 £750

Home insurance £33

Car insurance x 2 £44

Petrol/Diesel £80-100

Life insurance £100

Mobile phones x 2 £50

TV licence £13

Approx Tax/MOT/repair 2 cars £60

 

Days out/clothes etc £50

 

So approx total for family of 5 £2800

Obviously there are other expenses that are more one offs like Christmas/Birthdays etc

 

I'm not completely sure if we have anything left after that lot !

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Guest TheArmChairDetective

S'funny, Absolutely no one has included the prices of routine servicing.

It's not like they cost peanuts, your cooker/washing machine/boiler/car etc etc etc.

I have annual servicing contracts so I know how expensive they are.

Come to think of it, my monthly gas DD is the same as my monthly Gas Service DD....Must look into that.

And the Car's, about£1200 a year for the service costs and that's not putting some by for new tyres etc.

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Fair amount stacey, but it pays to buy in 15-18kilo sacks, you save a fair bit!

 

definitely! we're lucky that we only have two dogs but it still mounts up when you buy them bones and other treats.

 

Its the medication from the vets thats the hard one at the moment, almost £50 a month for erics heart tablets. Best spent money in the world though if it makes him feel better and gives us longer with him

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S'funny, Absolutely no one has included the prices of routine servicing.

It's not like they cost peanuts, your cooker/washing machine/boiler/car etc etc etc.

I have annual servicing contracts so I know how expensive they are.

Come to think of it, my monthly gas DD is the same as my monthly Gas Service DD....Must look into that.

And the Car's, about£1200 a year for the service costs and that's not putting some by for new tyres etc.

 

My jeeps in the hozzy now tec,train to work tomoz,alternator belt too slack,so not charging,easy job to do meself(tho i hate cars!),but having a "pit" its much easier for stevie to do it,so he is!

He was saying how much servicing cars has dropped off,people cant afford it atm,at least round here they cant.

The gas service debit thing?boiler maintenance,its rhubarb,IF youre one of the really unlucky ones,THEN its worth it,other than that all they do is hoover it out,bin it off mucker

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