Budget?

In trying to see if the salary I was offered will work for my wife and I in London, I've been working on a budget. I tried scouring as many sites as possible and basing it off our current spending habits in the states. This is per month, based on two people who generally buy generic food and cook at home, are cool with a smaller 1 bedroom/studio apartment, and will (hopefully) be living somewhere within 20 minutes of Old Street (not sure if it'll be north or south).

Flat w/utilities - £1,300
Groceries/housewares - £250
Transportation - £185  (2x Zone 1-2 TravelCards)
Cells   - £35 / ea (we want smart phones w/data)
Internet - £38
Haircuts - £28
Free Spend    - £65 / ea
Eating out/entertainment/clothes - £250

How close or far off am I? Am I missing any hidden fees or costs? I know spending type questions like these are always difficult to answer, but thought I'd throw this out to see if I'm even in the same area number wise. FYI, these numbers would still leave a bit extra to spend on more entertainment/eating out or save for purchases.

Thanks for any input!

Most of your costs look around about right, although everyone will have different amounts they spend on different things depending on personal preference and what they can afford.

Internet - £38

£38 sounds a lot for internet alone - a few months ago I was paying £30 a month in total for 10 MB broadband internet, landline (with free weekend calls) and digital cable TV (about 65 channels) with Virgin Media.

Did you budget in council tax with your utilities?

It sounds about right. We budgeted our monthly living expenses to be £2400 here in London. My husband and I live in a one bedroom apartment about 30 minutes southwardly from Old Street. We eat out once or twice on the weekends and for the most part are quite budget conscious. Compared to your budget, we spend more on groceries though...but then we also don't get haircuts. Dunno if that helps.

Cells   - £35 / ea (we want smart phones w/data)

You can get smart phones with data plans for quite cheap without a contract.  I believe there are a few threads on here about this, but I use PAYG, and pay either £10 or £15/month on O2 for free texts and web service.

You might want to look right around Old Street. I live in a 2br flat 5 minutes walk from the station, so I basically pay £0 for transport costs. (Since moving in April, I've spent £160 on PAYG oyster fare, mostly for going places in the evenings or visiting friends on the weekend.)

So that could free up some money from your travel budget, and allow you to have a short/easy commute. It completely depends on where you want to live, though.

Otherwise your budget seems reasonable, though I agree you could get by with less for cell phones - I'm on a £10/mo plan right now which gives me plenty of minutes/texts/data.

Hi Mozingod,

There are quite a few potential mandatory expenses you've not included here. I'll attempt to fill those in. There may well be others too, but I'll cover the immediately obvious ones.

As mentioned, Council tax is mandatory and will most likely need to be paid via you directly to the local authority. Sometimes, in rental costs, this is included so indirectly you've paid it. It's hard to put an exact figure on as it depends on the area and type of property and each local authority's pricing band/levels. In and around London, I'd estimate a figure of perhaps £150/month - could be quite a bit less or more of course.

Insurance - it's always wise to insure your belongings including anything of higher value.

Savings - How much would you intend to put away each month?

Emergency funds - for those unexpected costs.

I'd say those above are quite important mandatory costs each month in order to maintain as best as possible your chosen standard of living. The ones below will be more discretionary

TV license - could be grouped as more mandatory though. I think it's £160 for the year for a colour TV license.

Internet - this cost as mentioned I think is quite a large amount, however, depending on your usage it may be about right. If you are a more casual internet user, then a cheaper package will most likely suit.

There's other elements to which could be varied - have a look at this similar thread here on this forum, including the OP's view after a year I put forward 'relative' amounts!

http://talk.uk-yankee.com/index.php?topic=57943.0

Cheers, DtM! West London & Slough UK!