OP
OP
PaulSB
Squire
- Location
- Chorley, Lancashire
@PaulSB
Yes, of course you can make savings like that and why not. You can also make savings by shopping around on utility bills, insurances etc. Ditto you can also ensure that whatever savings you have work as hard as they can for you.
I've no idea of your financial position but my best advice would be to map out your cash flow for a decade or two ahead based on likely expenditures, known income streams, savings returns etc and you may get a surprisingly optimistic forecast.
We have a beautiful & decent sized house (paid for), have a really nice lifestyle that suits us (we're outdoorsy types), eat well, can afford to drink whenever we feel like it, the house is always warm and toasty (oil/coal/logs) and run a nice new car (small) all for a relatively small amount of money.
The 'background' cost of this inc' all utilities, food/drink, council tax, insurance blah, blah, blah is £12.5k pa for the two of us.
Holidays (If we fancy them), capital expenditure such as repairs on the house or a new car and stuff like that are not included in that number.
We never set out to keep the figure that low that's just how it pans out - surprised us really. We have no requirement to keep the number low (we have plenty of savings, pensions and a few other income streams at the moment) so don't srimp and scrape to achieve it. It's easily do-able unless you are trying to get by on a State Pension and no savings I guess.
I'm really pleased I asked these questions as there have been lots of very interesting remarks.This post reflects us in many ways and I'm surprised by the figure of £12.5k pa. My calculations have been coming out in this region and TBH I thought I was overly optimistic and must be missing things. We are fortunate to have my wife's NHS pension (not huge as she took a lot of time for the family at one point), my private pension plus the state pensions in 4 years time. We have spent the last three years fixing everything in the house that could foreseably go wrong in the next 10-15 years - roof, boiler, windows etc. and have the back porch to do this summer - helps reduce draughts and keep heat in - and the backyard so we don't trip and break a hip.
The food savings I exampled tempt me because I love cooking, and not just carrot soup(!), and want to learn more and more. I'm not mean but do like to live as well as possible for as little as possible as that actually improves one's quality of life by making more cash available for pleasure. Another interesting area is looking at all the small things one spends money on and questioning their need.
I have already looked 4 years ahead and reached the conclusion at 65 things should be fine but must admit had though to look 10-20 years in the future. I've rather taken the view the next 10-12 years are VERY important and to look at the rest when I hit 73!!
