As a percentage of your take-home pay, how much do you spend on rent + bills..?

Mortgage/Rent = 0% of my income.

By being a bit canny when younger, I’ve paid off the mortgage and can now spend my income on spangly bits (and, more importantly, trips to put them to use).

Something I’ve noticed (and not just in this thread) when rent v mortgage raises it’s head is that homeowners list mortgage, utility bills, car expenses, food, hobbies, entertainment, etc., when comparing costs but never seem to include household repair, maintenance and improvement costs.

Rent alone is about 1/3 of my take home. All told I guess about 80% of my income goes on…… life, but I have a better half and two young mouths to feed. Be nice to have more but there you go.

OP, I was going to say enjoy it while you can and sod worrying about what you’ll think in 10 years time, but 9 bikes?!?!?!?!?!?! I have 4 and rarely get to ride them all these days.

nothing in rent, housemate lets me stay here for free, (he inherited the house so he doesn’t pay mortgage either, just bills) I’m supposed to clean and cook, (i still do most of the cooking) but now I’m on placement and working I can contribute to the food shopping (yay!!)

60%, but thats without taking into account m/bike insurance, CC payment, mobile phone contract, TV+BB, some savings and a pension. With all that added on, something like 70%

23% mortgage alone, about 33% including bills.

psling – probably because in the scheme of things I don’t think maintenance costs really come to mind (unless you’ve bought a project). Unless you get hit by a new roof or boiler then the cost is generally added to the day to day stuff.

We’ve been renting 3 years now and our landlord hasn’t had any major costs to worry about. In fact he’s probably done quite nicely out of it!

mortgage + bills?

59%

(not including car costs, or food)

never seem to include household repair, maintenance and improvement costs

Because they are one-off costs that are unquantifiable?

I have spent £1800 on my house in 9 years (boiler went 2 years ago) over and above the cost I had when I bought and did it all up (it was a very cheap shell that I modernised from scratch).

I might decorate next year, I might not. I might put a new carpet down, I might not. The roof may blow away, it may not. Impossible to tell and impossible to include in costs we spend now.

Rent and Bills excluding food and travel to work is between 60-70% of my take home pay 🙁 I don’t have a very highly paid job and I can’t even get full time hours at the moment.
Still I’m reasonable happy which everyone tells me is what matters. Right?
Still, I’m not entirely convinced, I’m pretty sure more money would make me a little happier.

Can people who live mortgage free please eff off to another thread – thanks!

😛

can everyone who earns more than me, pays out less than me, or both… please eff off 😛

75% of my take home goes to a joint account for bills, mortgage etc.

Mrs b works one day and keeps it as her money.

Gigantic mortgage is the main issue.. fingers crossed that rates stay low another year, as I’ll finally be out of my 5 year 6% fixed 😯

I spend 63% of my royalities on quails eggs and baboon milk.

23% I spend on tartare sauce.

The rest I spend on Twix’s as they cost 70p these days.

27% on mortgage and bills

Rent + all the bills and my nippers clubs has got to be around 80%. The joys of being a single parent.

Mortgage+all bills takes 37% of my take home pay. although i the food budget comes out of the rest.

I don’t earn a great deal but i bought my house before the mortgage boom so it’s tiny – you wouldn’t believe how tiny 🙂

It’s strange, i’ve had a weird few yrs with a soul-destroying relationship implosion followed by redundancy and a long stretch on the dole, but i’ve more money now than ever before! Even though i’m living alone and shouldering all the bills etc because i gave up a hobby that was rather expensive i seem to have a lot more cash…

Prob 25% of joint income goes on mortgage and council tax and some bills… Some more goes on private pension, some goes on fuels, 10% on food (quite a lot actually), and then the rest disappears somewhere leaving very little at the end!

And it’s not as if I don’t earn a good wage either!
Makes me think I could work half the hours if I tightened the belt!

DrP

Rent + all the bills and my nippers clubs has got to be around 80%. The joys of being a single parent.

Fair play to you neilsonwheels. I’ve got massive respect for anyone who has to do it all on their own. A good friend of mine is in the same boat and her spend is similar to yours, she reckons it hones your budgeting skills to a very sharp point.

you’re doing well to keep it at 80%!
i have pennies left at the moment 🙁

about 45% of my pay goes on mortgage and rent- mortgage top up on the uk property we had to rent out when we moved abroad due to redundancy in UK (shortfall in mortgage cost vs rental income) and the rent we pay for the property over here. Once household bills etc are covered, I have about 60 quid a week left for personal spends. Luckily, I have another half who pays for the remainder of food and petrol etc from her income.

Pretty skint come the last week in the month I tell you!!

my rent and bills is about 65% of my wages. i can barely afford food 🙁

Wow this made me think. A quick calculator / online banking bashing and I’ve worked it out as
42%

Thats all bills including mortgage against both our incomes combined.

Its more than I though.

No wonder I’m always skint!

About 15% for me, soon to be about 3% when i pay the mortgage off.

its 30% of our basic

trying to keep it that way when it comes to buying a house but it seems that the difference between a shit house/nice house is 200 quid a month roughly at the moment – but trying to explain that it will rise exponentially whn the interest rates goes up 🙁

15% of joint income goes on mortgage and household bills, but against the interest only mortgage. But I’m doing the risky think of paying the capital off in chunks with investments..

A lot. Hearing earlier on the news that if your expenditure on rent or mortgage was >35% of household income then you were in a difficult position made me pause for thought. We’re doomed!

My name is Bill……………..so everything really

Mortgage, utilities, and food are about 3% of our monthly income. Life is Good.

mortgage interest is about 10% but I try to gloss over that fact when telling the wife about it. I throw all the spare cash we have at it.

Mortgage, utilities, and food are about 3% of our monthly income. Life is Good.

wtf?! I think food alone is at least 10% of our dual household income.

For me, it depends on what you call bills. If you are just talking mortgage +utility bills, then probably 30% of household income. If you mean everything that isn’t ‘play money’ then about 90%!

If your mortgage/rent is >35% eh?

Just worked out that my mortgage is 14.5% of my take home pay so i’m not doing too badly considering. I pay my mortgage weekly (Aussie style mortgage from Yorkshire Bank) and my rent from before i bought this house was exactly double what i’m paying in mortgage payments now – and that was ten yrs ago so christ knows how much it would be now!
And that was for a house with no central heating and only an immersion heater for hot water!

Mortgage, council tax and basic utilities account for about 60% of my take home.

Things are pretty tight in the Whyte household right now, not looking forward to the next few years and my pay freezes with inflation the way it is.

At least i will have payed my bike off in May next year so thats another £50 per month.

Hopefully things will get better in a few years, at least i still have a job so im not feeling to bad about things.

Just less than 50% of my income goes to all the necessary evils. That covers all bills (including all food and a bit of booze) and a bit of money to go towards savings for house upkeep.

All bills (mortgage, insurance, TV package, utilities etc) are ~50% of my take home pay

Mortgage alone is ~22% of my take home

Honestly though, sometimes i wonder why i bother! I.can’t afford a mortgage and have to rely on my other half for food and utility bills. i can pay my half of the rent and council tax but that’s it! All other money goes to lunch, petrol, insurance and parts for when something falls off my Motorbike. i have only taken into account the rent and tax!

Mortgage + all bills + food and general spending money = 50% of take home.

Just worked this out. Mortgage + bills + childcare + bills + food. Somewhere about 30% of our joint income. Yep we are very fortunate and appreciate it when alot of people are coping with much less.

rent, council tax plus “essential” bills, cable/satelitte, mobile don’t really count. comes in at around 35%, car and food top that up a lot,

21% on rent for a two-bed flat in South Manchester. About 25% including bills / council tax etc.