How much do you have left a month?

[Silkster365]

All interesting stuff - good tip on the car front Bozza, think we will do that as it happens.

Don't think we will be far off where everyone else is on a monthly basis then by the sounds of it. That means 2 things for me;

1) good to know we will have about the same left per month as others;
2) worrying that it's not just us who will be screwed if mortgage interest rates go up 2 or 3 % which they will do eventually!

 

[Tricky Dicky]

Around £3k to live off after all the direct debits

Yup, I would say about the same - all bills paid, barring food and probably about £3k left.

 

[El Presidente]

My salary does not cover my mortgage, utilities and maintenance payments. I therefore have five part time jobs to cover the shortfall, which can be confusing at times.

 

[grubbyhands]

I'm very fortunate now as I no longer have a mortgage as I paid it off some 4 years ago. I work for myself so to a greater or lesser degree I am able to control my earnings and subsequently how much disposable income I'm left with at months end. The only point I will make, and this is from a purely personal point of view, is I bought a house in a less popular area initially and of a type that wasn't really what I wanted BUT it got me started on the mortgage ladder and when I sold,because it had gone up in value, gave me a larger deposit to start a new loan on something more like what I wanted. I don't mean to sound simplistic or patronising but thats how I did it. I also realise I seem to have strayed from the original thread. So, the answer is variable as regards how much I have left each month,could be as much as £2k. Sorry!

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

Not really Grumpo just getting a tad scary really that people cannot move on.

Drama queen

 

[Deleted member 18477]

I also am saving for a deposit, the only way I've been able to make any headway is by giving myself a very strict budget and sticking to it. On pay day I pay landlords mortgage (sorry......I mean rent) and all other bills, I then give myself £100 a week to live on (and thats really only for food and the odd night out) and absolutely every other penny I earn goes into my savings.

It can be tough, and sometimes it feels more like an existance than a life, but once your savings start to grow it gets strangely addictive. By living like a monk I'm putting over £1,000 a month into savings so hopefully within another 24-36 months I should be in a strong postion to buy. It sounds like a long time but it will pass soon enough.

My only other option was to bump my parents off to inherit their place.

You're doing the right thing!

 

[Beach Hut]

Drama queen

Hardly, several of you are so obsessed with making a derogatory comment these days it is virtual cyber stalking.

Surely you have better thought processes ?

 

[Beach Hut]

I also am saving for a deposit, the only way I've been able to make any headway is by giving myself a very strict budget and sticking to it. On pay day I pay landlords mortgage (sorry......I mean rent) and all other bills, I then give myself £100 a week to live on (and thats really only for food and the odd night out) and absolutely every other penny I earn goes into my savings.

It can be tough, and sometimes it feels more like an existance than a life, but once your savings start to grow it gets strangely addictive. By living like a monk I'm putting over £1,000 a month into savings so hopefully within another 24-36 months I should be in a strong postion to buy. It sounds like a long time but it will pass soon enough.

My only other option was to bump my parents off to inherit their place.

You are to be commended, short term pain for long term gain which is something I did when younger.

Trust me this is the right decision.

 

[CheeseRolls]

Moving from Somerset back to Sussex has meant three things...

- Current rent is double our old mortgage
- Mrs Bozza is no longer working
- Commuting expenses for me

...all of which means my household is now running at quite a significant deficit every month.

The best thing I did for my own personal money management was smoothing out those bumps of expenditure that can happen such as car repairs and Christmas. I calculated how much those things cost over a year, divided by 12 and, essentially, direct debit that money to another account on every pay day. That means I never have a "I could have done without the car needing new tyres this month" moments because I'm regularly putting money away for such eventualities.

Very good advice, which also worked for me.

First step, wean yourself off credit cards and other forms of short term lending. This needs planing and sacrifice.

Find a way to build up some savings. We didn't have a great model for doing this when we bought our first house, but when we had been there a few years, had two small kids and were down to one salary, I found the income and outgoings statement we had produced for the mortgage company. We were worried at the time about paying this, but years later we had less income and were managing, it is surprising how much discretionary spending you allow yourself, if you don't keep a check on this. When we wanted to move on, I realised sticking money into a savings account wouldn't work, so I started overpaying the mortgage. I got this to a stage where we were paying 2.5 times our mortgage, which rapidly ate into the capital, but also equalled the repayments we were going to have to make on a new house. The main reason we were able to do this, was my wife retrained as a teacher, once the kids started school, things were tight for a while, such that I stopped buying a daily newspaper to read on the commute to London, in order to save a little money.

If things get a bit tight, know where you can make sacrifices.

We currently spend 125-130 per month with Virgin Media. This covers TV, Tivo, V+, broadband and four mobile phones. I would probably need to spend £100 on sorting out my TV aerial and internal wiring, but a switch to Freeview, could half this bill. I hope no one on here who is claiming they are skint is currently paying out £35 a month for one sodding mobile ?

Football - cutting out away trips, of which we average 4-6 per season, would be a start, but we also have three season tickets, two adult and one under 16. I would fight very hard to keep these. The first thing that would go is matchday expenditure, beer, cokes and the odd pie and sweets. Other than beer, everything can be bought in cheaper.

Eating out - We have very few takeaways, less than once a month on average, but eating out has potential for saving. I allocate £150 per month for this, but in reality we exceed this most months.

Holidays - Not much planned this year. The kids are doing a weeks basketball course in Barrow-In-Furness, so me the missus and the dog, will be renting a cottage in the Lake District for a week. The money isn't there right now, for anything grander.

Gym Membership - We pay £38 per month for two of us. The gym is a two minute walk from our front door. We don't get full use of the gym, just a couple of circuit classes a week. Apart from the last 6 weeks, we have made good use of this, so the money isn't really wasted.

 

[Simster]

I don't have any left as it stands but I'm in a similar position to you, ie. I want to buy a house but don't have any deposit unless I save.

Me and the missus could afford to buy a house but we don't have the capital up front. We rent a flat, so our bills are the same as a home owner as in rent, electric, water, gas, council tax, sky/broadband, the car running costs and various insurances etc. our monthly outgoings average about £1400.

I'm now 35 and have resigned myself to never buying my own house now as much as I would love to. And now We have a baby on the way due in July so we will have even less cash available. But we have tried to enjoy life as much as we can by going to the pub midweek to break the monotony of the week up. Having a take away at the weekend, buying a new pair of shoes or a new shirt for me every 3 months or whatever.

But on the other hand I have no savings to speak of, I've only just started putting into a private pension this month now my work has started the government compulsory pension plan early.

The trouble is that I desperately want a stable environment to bring up my baby, and that to me, means having my own house to provide said stability. Renting is a horrible thing to do, I realise mortgages are variable and can rise with interest rates etc so it can become too much. But the longer you have a mortgage, eventually it will get cheaper the older you get if you don't remortgage. Rents on the other hand are always going to increase. Now I've started a pension late I'm going to have to figure out how I can pay my rent when I'm 75 (if I live that long) on a small pension and the state pension (if that will even exist in 35 years).

It's really hard to deal with for me personally knowing I probably won't own my own place. I'm quite an intelligent chap who can normally figure out how to deal with a situation one way or another with a decent attainable answer but this question has me stumped and is depressing now being able to figure it out.

Between us, after bills, we have about £400 to play with so to speak, so if we just go to work, come home, eat and then go to bed, stay in on weekends and repeat that cycle we could save £4800 per year. So 3-4 years of being hermits and not seeing friends or socialising or going out. (That includes giving up my season ticket) I haven't looked recently at deposits but unfortunately neither of our credit ratings are particularly good so we could need circa 20k to even be considered and then it would have to be a bad credit mortgage with higher interest rates and a higher deposit , even then it's no guarantee of acceptance.

Or we could live up north where we could afford a house, but I can't earn the same money in the same engineering sector as I can down here and that would mean a complete move away from all family and friends.

I realise this has been a bit of a thread hijack but it's nice to know that at least other people are or could be in the same boat.

I feel your pain. The housing market has been skewed by buy to let mortgages over the past 15 years. If I was running the country, I'd make this tax inefficient, to deflate prices for flats and starter homes. If I was you, an engineer having to rent, I think I'd seriously consider moving abroad to somewhere like Germany or the Netherlands, where engineers are paid what they deserve. Not an easy thing to have to consider, so I do sympathise.

 

[CheeseRolls]

My salary does not cover my mortgage, utilities and maintenance payments. I therefore have five part time jobs to cover the shortfall, which can be confusing at times.

I do fall into the camp that believes I wouldn't work if I didn't have to, but at the same time, if you need more money to get to where you want to, this is what you have to do. Fair play to you.

 

[Hiney]

Everything has gone to shit in the last 6/7 years.

I had to take redundancy from HSBC in 1999 and instead of being sensible with the money, we pissed it up the wall. I then went self-employed and was earning decent money until the crash. It's been a long hard road since then but there is a bit of light at the end of the tunnel.

My advice to anyone is basically don't spend what you haven't got and, as Bozza says, put money by for all the things that don't get paid monthly.

 

[Beach Hut]

I feel your pain. The housing market has been skewed by buy to let mortgages over the past 15 years. If I was running the country, I'd make this tax inefficient, to deflate prices for flats and starter homes. If I was you, an engineer having to rent, I think I'd seriously consider moving abroad to somewhere like Germany or the Netherlands, where engineers are paid what they deserve. Not an easy thing to have to consider, so I do sympathise.

My thoughts as well with the buy to let, this has totally screwed up the housing market.

 

[Tricky Dicky]

Everything has gone to shit in the last 6/7 years.

I had to take redundancy from HSBC in 1999 and instead of being sensible with the money, we pissed it up the wall. I then went self-employed and was earning decent money until the crash. It's been a long hard road since then but there is a bit of light at the end of the tunnel.

My advice to anyone is basically don't spend what you haven't got and, as Bozza says, put money by for all the things that don't get paid monthly.

One thing I am so glad I did was NOT p*ss all my money up the wall (your phrase, but one I would have used anyway). As soon as I bought this house, I was not comfortable with the debt I then had, so I resolved to overpay on my mortgage every month, as much or as little as I could, and it took a while but the mortgage came down, I kept paying off and gladly paid my mortgage completely about 8 years ago. One of the best financial decisions I ever made. Looking back I can see that at one stage I could have been heading for major debt problems if I hadn't behaved and been sensible.

 

[CheeseRolls]

I feel your pain. The housing market has been skewed by buy to let mortgages over the past 15 years. If I was running the country, I'd make this tax inefficient, to deflate prices for flats and starter homes. If I was you, an engineer having to rent, I think I'd seriously consider moving abroad to somewhere like Germany or the Netherlands, where engineers are paid what they deserve. Not an easy thing to have to consider, so I do sympathise.

I liked the Lib Dem plan to build two new garden cities.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/pol...meron-to-come-clean-on-new-garden-cities.html

Granted it helps that they are nowhere near me, but a lack of supply, is still the biggest factor for me, in driving up house prices.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

My thoughts as well with the buy to let, this has totally screwed up the housing market.

This and selling of council housing.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

I feel your pain. The housing market has been skewed by buy to let mortgages over the past 15 years. If I was running the country, I'd make this tax inefficient, to deflate prices for flats and starter homes. If I was you, an engineer having to rent, I think I'd seriously consider moving abroad to somewhere like Germany or the Netherlands, where engineers are paid what they deserve. Not an easy thing to have to consider, so I do sympathise.

A number of years ago there was an interesting documentary about two engineers from Brum who went to do the same job in the US. Their lifestyle change was incredible; crummy house in the UK to small detached houses with a pool. They joked about how they now had two of everything: cars, tellys, holidays etc.

 

[spongy]

I feel your pain. The housing market has been skewed by buy to let mortgages over the past 15 years. If I was running the country, I'd make this tax inefficient, to deflate prices for flats and starter homes. If I was you, an engineer having to rent, I think I'd seriously consider moving abroad to somewhere like Germany or the Netherlands, where engineers are paid what they deserve. Not an easy thing to have to consider, so I do sympathise.

I had considered it. But I don't want to live abroad. I like it here, and the missus wasn't keen on it either.

I reckon I could save £300 a month, but that is overtime earnings, so not guaranteed, i do about 13 hours a week extra. 7am-7pm mon-thurs and 7am-1.30pm on a Friday. That's a 55 hour week and it hurts come Thursday when I'm knackered. I'm also studying at college part time to get some qualifications as I don't officially have any. You could call me a time served apprenticeship but I want the bits of paper so I can move up in the world. I don't want to be on shop floor all my life.

If rents were so high it would help. I've had to move to Burgess Hill, nearer to work and cheaper than Brighton. But with baby due in the summer we will have to move into a 2 bed place. And anything half decent around here is circa £850pm. So that eat any and all extra cash, and if my overtime dries up I'm screwed as I rely on it to live.

It doesn't help that I have 1k tied up in the deposit for the current flat, so I need to save for another deposit (normally 6weeks rent) and the credit reference checks, one letting agent charges £150 PER REFERENCE. We need 3 done as I need a guarantor so that's £450 before I even start.

Letting Agents are ********s, artificially inflating the market, to make the property owners more money. To them it's a business, but this is my ****ing life they're profiteering from.

It makes me sick to bottom of my stomach and very depressed and angry that I won't be able to offer my child at least a comparable upbringing that I was given.

 

[Greyrun]

Drama queen

My thoughts as well with the buy to let, this has totally screwed up the housing market.

Blame Gordon Brown I only purchased a rental property when he screwed up my pension.

I

 

[hans kraay fan club]

Right now, still paying a mortgage, and with two school aged kids, my wife only works part time, so we have little 'left' at the end of the month. 'Left' is obviously subjective - I'd calculate my 'left' figure AFTER all the direct debits which include such 'essentials' as three Albion season tickets and £60 per month to Virgin media.

Beyond those its a fairly frugal existance though. We don't really go out, drink little, don't smoke. No glamourous foreign holidays. My biggest outgoing after the mortgage and fuel bills, is probably DIESEL.