Renting a house/ flat

[Ed Doe]

Back when Mazz & I were renting our 1bed flat;

Rent; £550 pcm

Council tax £140
Water; £106 per year
Gas; n/a
Electric; £90 a quarter ish (only rented for summer, and it was electric for the heating so I expect it would've been significantly more expensive over winter!!!)
Can't forget broadband and tv; £35 a month
Then we got to think food bills. We budget on about £300 a month, but cause we both work long hours, we tend to buy a few of the more expensive ready-meals to make it easier when we get home!


Since then we've been fortunate enough to buy a house, and outgoings look a little like this:

Mortgage: £350 a month
Council tax: £150 a month
Gas: £40-90 per quarter depending on summer or winter
Elec: £40-60 per quarter
BT/Internet bill: £35 a month
Shopping: £300 per month
Fuel for me: £250 a monht
Miscellaneous (phone bills, pub, hockey fines, aa etc): £200
Water bill for last 6months was £86.00

This is a fairly small mid-terrace 2-bed house in Surrey. It does all add up...


EDIT:

As many have said, you may struggle to outright afford to rent, particularly if you're both working part-time, and I would suggest that unless you are going into it to see how you guys live together, avoid it, save the money and put it towards a deposit to buy. After renting cheaply for 6 months to see how it went, buying a house was by far the best decision we made. The alternative was to rent again, and down this way a house the same size as the one we bought would be approx £7-800 pcm. Without any bills. It's just throwing money away.