My Monthly Budget | Living Alone in a London Commuter Town at 23 Years Old

Things have been happening recently for me which means my head has been stuck in my budget tracker a lot and I’m personally so nosey when other people are making these “what I spend in a month” videos. So I thought I would jump in and create a video as well as a blog post as well. 

First up I’m gonna tell you a bit more about myself, my situation and give this budget some context behind it. I graduated literally this time last year and I got my current job which I love, so I relocated from my home in Newcastle to Slough which is to the west of London. My job isn’t a grad scheme, but I’m in a junior role and the office isn’t London based. However, the office is relocating into London so most of this budget will change soon enough. I also live alone, in a studio apartment because I don’t really enjoy living with others, but I was lucky that this fit my budget.

Income

So every month after tax, national insurance and pension contributions I earn about £1600 a month from my job. I do make some money on the blogging side of things too, however that’s in a separate account and anything I make pays for the domain, hosting and other expenses that come up so I don’t include this in my month to month budgets.

Outgoings

Essential Bills

So the first category I’m going to talk about is Bills. I do not fit that 50% on bills, 30% on yourself, and 20% in savings pie charts AT ALL. My rent by itself, no bills included is £800 a month. Half of you watching this are going to be thinking “that’s extortionate” and the other half will be thinking “that’s not too bad” and that tells you how northern or southern you are.

Next up, let’s talk about utility bills. My electricity bill is still skewed because when I moved in the letting agent didn’t show me where the meter is, and so it said I used more than I did in the first month. I’ve since gotten a smart meter, so I know exactly what I’m using – but I pay £46 a month. This is also just for electricity, I don’t have gas in this flat and even my radiators are electric.

Next up is water, and I believe I was overpaying on my usage for the first 12 months, so my water bill has actually halved to £8 a month. This is probably because I’m in credit with the company, so I assume this may go up at some point to accurately be what I use.

I then have council tax, which I do get a single person’s discount on because I live alone. This is £99 a month for me and apart from rent is my most expensive bill. However, this is cheaper than when I first moved by about £20 I think was about £117 as this building is new and I think they re-assessed the flats banding earlier this year.

So all my essential bills add up to £953 a month. But then I have what I call my entertainment bills, these are the bills that I could potentially live without but I do think I’d struggle without a couple of them.

Entertainment Bills

First up is a TV license which is just under £13 a month, I normally just round up for a cleaner number. I don’t really watch much TV, especially live TV and I know a lot of people are opting to not have a license, but I do watch things on iPlayer.

Next up is WiFi, and something I may not be able to live without to be honest. I use TalkTalk and it’s £20 a month just for the internet. It’s not the best, but it’s also not the worst but I do think I’ll look around to change whenever I move.

Then I have my phone bill which is £40 a month. This is for both the phone and the sim and is quite expensive. It was a new Samsung S20 and a 24 month contract, however seeing as this is the camera I’ve been using for all my YouTube videos this year… I feel like the camera upgrade was worth it.

Then last but not least I have Netflix, and somehow I’ve been roped into paying £9 so my mum, stepdad, dad and aunt can watch it too. I do also have Amazon Prime but I pay that yearly (and often accidentally as I forget every year in April!).

So overall my entertainment bills come to £82 a month, which actually isn’t too bad at all seeing as I’m always on the internet and my phone, as well as watching TV on the PlayStation. My fixed monthly outgoings then add up £1035 a month.

Monthly Spending

After my fixed outgoings are sorted when I get paid, I actually budget what that £565 goes on every single month and I break this down into 3 categories. The first and most important for survival is food, then I have savings, and lastly I have entertainment which is nicknamed as my live your life fund.

Before talking about this spending I also want to talk about bank accounts. Whilst I use my budget tracker regularly, I don’t have the time to ensure I’m sticking within budget limits every single day. So I have multiple bank accounts, the first one is where my income goes and where my bills above are paid from. I then have a separate current account for Food, however I pay all food bills with a credit card. In order to avoid risk of credit card debt I ensure my credit card account is always less than what is in my Food account. Then I have a Monzo account for entertainment, which can be further sectioned into pots if I need to. Plus a savings account and ISA for my savings goals.

Moving on to my spending, let’s talk first about food. I budget myself £200 a month for food, so £50 a week which may at first sound like a lot. However, this includes takeouts or going out for food which was more often when I was in the office. It also includes everyday items I can get in my supermarket shop, such as cleaning products, toothpaste, and things for the kitchen and flat in general. I don’t split out my receipts when I buy things for my tracker as I’m too lazy for that.

I then budget myself  “live your life” money every month and this includes hobbies like books, art supplies etc as well as day trips, cinema tickets, getting the train to meet a friend. Basically things that you just can’t budget specifically for, but it’s awful when you have to say no to it because you haven’t got money for it that month. This isn’t used that much at the moment, although I bought new art supplies last month. But any money I don’t spend, I’ve been using the pot feature on Monzo to put money aside for a PS5. I also have round-ups turned on so those extra pennies go into the PS5 fund.

Then for savings, I use a Help to Buy ISA which is where you put up to £200 a month into it and when you buy your first home you get 25% extra from the government up to £3,000. As it’s cheaper in the long run to buy over renting down south, I’ve been saving the £200 every month to hopefully get a deposit together. I also save any excess money from my food budget into my savings account which was meant to help gain interest, but this was before the rates all plummeted.

Since April I’ve also been putting £25 a month into purchasing shares, which I’ve written a whole blog post about previously. Then I have about £45 spare in the bills account, which I actually keep in there as it lets me build up a buffer or emergency fund just in case.

So that’s what my monthly spending is like on an average month for me. Obviously this is all going to change when the office moves and when we have to start going into the office, and I’ll definitely be saving a lot less. But I hope this is helpful for anyone moving or already living near and around London. If you find these kinds of money posts helpful, let me know as I can do a more thorough one for a yearly spending one which will include my yearly averages for categories and things like travel tickets, Amazon Prime, and bigger spend months like December.