How much does it cost to run a flat?

[dabofoppo]

Im hoping someone here can help im looking to move into a rented flat but before i move into one i want to know roughly how much to put aside for gas/electricity etc. I had a rough figure of around £200ish a month including Tv licence line rental etc but i have no idea how accurate this is. It will just be me living in a two bedroom flat. So can anyone who currently or has recently rented a flat tell me ( not including rent ) what the average monthly outgoings are? thanks

[Famous Graham]

dabofoppo said:

Im hoping someone here can help im looking to move into a rented flat but before i move into one i want to know roughly how much to put aside for gas/electricity etc. I had a rough figure of around £200ish a month including Tv licence line rental etc but i have no idea how accurate this is. It will just be me living in a two bedroom flat. So can anyone who currently or has recently rented a flat tell me ( not including rent ) what the average monthly outgoings are? thanks

That's a bit high if you're not including council tax. Probably closer to 100.

I share a two bed flat with my landlady and I pay 30 quid bills on top of the rent/CT. So it's about 60 for the gas/electric/water. 10 for TV licence, 10 for landline, 10 for broadband.

She could probably do with looking for new rates/deals for the latter two, but she can't be arsed

ETA - depends on whether maintenance is involved really, as you can see below. I don't have that worry as my landlady's owner/occupier.

Edited by Famous Graham on Saturday 1st January 23:10

[Ikemi]

For me:

Electric: £25/month
Gas: £30/month
Water: £22/month
Home Contents Insurance: ~£15/month
Maintenance: £70/month
Council Tax: £120/month
Phone/Internet: £18/month

Total: £300/month

This excludes a TV license, my mortgage costs and food bills.

[CTS86]

dabofoppo said:

Im hoping someone here can help im looking to move into a rented flat but before i move into one i want to know roughly how much to put aside for gas/electricity etc. I had a rough figure of around £200ish a month including Tv licence line rental etc but i have no idea how accurate this is. It will just be me living in a two bedroom flat. So can anyone who currently or has recently rented a flat tell me ( not including rent ) what the average monthly outgoings are? thanks

I've just rented out my 2 bed flat to move down to the Midlands with work. From memory I was paying the following (some are quarterly/annual charges but it's all worked out monthly below)...

Water £24
Electric £39
Council Tax £79
Maintenance Fee £56
Line Rental £15
TV Licence £12
Ground Rent £10
Internet £12.50
Phone £12.50

So total of £247 PCM excluding rent.

[sunnygym]

It's the food shopping thats expensive say £200 a month easy

About £60 DD a month for gas and elec

£120 council tax then you got water and tv licence

[MitchT]

The cost will depend mainly on the location and the energy-efficiency of the place. I rent a two-bed flat and my costs are...

Gas: £40/month (average over a year)
Elec: £25/month (average over a year)
Water rates: £45/month
Council tax: £120/month (Band C) paid over 10 months
BT phone line: £14/month
24Mb broadband: £18/month
TV license: £145.50/year (approx £12.13/month)

If there's anything you think I've missed let me know!

[okgo]

My one bed flat cost about £400 to run. Inc sky etc

[dabofoppo]

Thanks guys The places im looking at are all band A or B so im guessing the council tax wont be a lot?.

[10AE]

Council tax will be about £100 a month depending on area with single person discount.

Elec/Gas is a minefield, but for the average bloke who is out a couple of evenings a week and doesn't have the heating on max 24/7 a figure of £30/month would be about right.

Water £10-£15/month for a single person.

Phone/BB = £10-£30/month

Contents Insurance = £5-10/month (Assuming a single bloke doesn't have much to insure).

Total of £155 - £185 or so is about right based on my experiences.

[Ikemi]

MitchT said:

If there's anything you think I've missed let me know!

Maintenance fee, ground rent and contents insurance ... You don't need the latter, but you would be mad to go without for such a low monthly cost.

As someone else said, my biggest shock was the monthly food bills. I can easily spend £200-250 on food

[10AE]

sunnygym said:

It's the food shopping thats expensive say £200 a month easy

For a single person? We (a couple) spend £150 max a month but that is mostly ingredients and making stuff ourselves rather than ready meals!

[LukeBird]

Ikemi said:

As someone else said, my biggest shock was the monthly food bills. I can easily spend £200-250 on food

+1 Again!
I don't really pay attention to food (much like petrol, I don't really pay attention to how expensive that is!) but my god it's pricey nowadays.
My housemate and I spend several hundred quid a month on food.

[MitchT]

Ikemi said:

MitchT said:

If there's anything you think I've missed let me know!

Maintenance fee, ground rent and contents insurance ...

The maintenance fee and ground rent, in my case, are included in the rent.

Contents cover is about £240/year (£20/month).

[10AE]

MitchT said:

Ikemi said:

MitchT said:

Contents cover is about £240/year (£20/month).

Unless you have a very high level of cover to warrant that cost, you need to shop around a bit!

[D_T_W]

For my 2 bed flat, it's not too bad

Gas - £40
Electricity - £40
Council tax - ~ £125 (Band C)
TV Licence - ~ £12 (can't remember exactly)
Mobile broadband - £15
Mobile Phone - £20

I've no phone line as I'm only here for 9 months, and I don't watch enough TV to justify paying for Sky.

I figure I spend about £200 a month on food, but I do buy a bit of crap to go with the actual food, so if I needed to I could probably trim it back to about £150

[Ikemi]

MitchT said:

Ikemi said:

MitchT said:

If there's anything you think I've missed let me know!

Maintenance fee, ground rent and contents insurance ...

The maintenance fee and ground rent, in my case, are included in the rent.

Contents cover is about £240/year (£20/month).

Ah, fair enough!

[grantone]

They're terrible at advertising it, but I just got a tenants contents only insurance product from Towergate through broker Macbeth Scott & Co. £52 for £5000 of cover with a £50 excess. I was dubious as it was a referral from the letting company, but cheaper than anything else I've seen.

[missdiane]

Some of your council taxes are quite high! I feel quite lucky

3 bed house, but to get an idea;
CT £108 (without single discount)
Electricity £55
Gas £49
Water £17
TV lic £11 or 12
Phone & BB £15 but look fo deals
Insurance £15

Gas and electricity is very variable, depends on your heating and other equipment and how much you use them

Edited by missdiane on Sunday 2nd January 09:36

[PaulG40]

missdiane said:

Some of your council taxes are quite high! I feel quite lucky

3 bed house, but to get an idea;
CT £108 (without single discount)
Electricity £55
Gas £49
Water £17
TV lic £11 or 12
Phone & BB £15 but look fo deals
Insurance £15

Gas and electricity is very variable, depends on your heating and other equipment and how much you use them

Edited by missdiane on Sunday 2nd January 09:36

Phew I thought I was going mad seeing those 'low' utilities bills you lot seem to have. I have a combined elect/gas with EON and my DD is £95 a month. Although I've just had a new condenser combi boiler fitted in place of my old back boiler so should see things start to drop.
I pay £30 a month for water, metered, found it easy to just pay a set amount than get £100+ bills every quarter as I never used to budget for them.
Luckily I'm band A CT so only £97 for both of us.
I budget £450 for food and petrol a month too.

Edited by PaulG40 on Sunday 2nd January 11:00

Edit: Always look for elect/gas deals. We've found the best deals going combined and their online deals tend to be the best. Tend to chop and change often.

Edited by PaulG40 on Sunday 2nd January 11:03

[Nickyboy]

Mine is as follows

Council Tax: £108
Gas: £48
Electric: £53
Water: £32
Sky/BB: £36
TV: £17
Insurance: £22
Service Charge: £52

Mine = £368

Things like gas/elec/water can be made a lot cheaper if you're on your own but i have 2 lodgers so things stay on for longer. The service charge is a bugger as 99% of the time they do feck all but when something to do with the building needs doing then its covered.