Out of curiosity, I've been browsing at some property for rent in the area I would like to move to in the UK, and found some of the houses to be relatively well priced, some of the nicer ones being around 500-600 pcm. Then I went onto the Job Centre website and checked out the average wage for a job that meets my qualifications. The average I think I could get is about 16-17K GBP per year, maybe a lil more. This is based in the Northamptonshire and surrounding areas.

What I did was take away the cost to rent a house every month, and then see what I was left with, and it was a bit scary. There's not much left once you start adding your utility bills, not to mention car/petrol or other transportation costs and groceries, etc.

Now, I know there's probably not many people in that general area on this board, and things in the US vary greatly from state to state so I don't really have a basis for comparison, but for people in England, can you give me a (very!) rough idea of your cost of living, rent excluded?

You'd be better off posting your query on a UK-based forum such as the Motley Fool:

www.fool.co.uk

I worked ours out when I was considering returning from Oz so I checked all my previous bank statements etc. It came to around 700 per month excluding mortgage. This was for four of us (2 kids late teens), for rates, food, electricity, gas, sky, telephone an Internet and petrol. Didn't include clothes, spend, or any extras.

Good luck

We live on the border with Northamptonshire and £16k pa will not go far. We are a family of 4 and excluding the mortgage, we need about £2,500 per month which covers food, utility bills, phone, insurances, running of 2 cars, clothes, kids clubs etc. Hope that helps.

Also remember poll tax - that is if you pay it if you live in rented accommodation.

You're a bit out of date - the 'poll tax' (Community Charge) was abolished in 1992.

Unless you mean Council Tax...

Yes, that helps a lot, thanks. For me, it would only be 2 adults at the most and one small dog, so the bills wouldn't be very much. Also don't have to worry about extortionate electricity charges for air conditioning the way I do in Florida. As for winter heating, I'll get a sweater!!

As for the council tax thing, I'm assuming you wouldn't pay that if you're living in a private rental as opposed to a council house?

Sorry Kate, but Council Tax is still your problem! For a typical band D in Northamptonshire, you will be looking about £1,000 pa. I am not sure about flats, but I very much doubt you will find anything below £650 pa.

Boy, that's crap! The owner should have to pay that, not the tenant. :curse:

Thanks for letting me know though.

I think this is fairly accurate. We were thinking of moving from Surrey to Northampton before we moved to Oz. When I did the figures there wasn't much difference between Mortgage/Rent and the train fares to London so it wasn't going to benefit us hugely.

Looking back at my figures I would say that the range is somewhere between 2000 and 2700 depending on how you spend, food shopping, sky, gym eating out etc. One thing we noticed that increased a lot over the last few years in England (besides petrol) was the food shopping but that's all over.

In short I don't think prices are hugely different in London to Northampton for your every day things. Things like gym memberships are cheaper in Northampton but it really does depend on what you have left to spend at the end of each month after mortgage etc.

For us to return to the UK from Oz we would have to be earning at least £18-22k pa each or my husband earning over £45-50k. Family of 2 adults and 2 children and I am working this out on them being school age rather than in childcare. For the moment we are taking the hit so I can be a stay home mum.

Hope this helps in someway.

J

Why?

Who is using the council services - the landlord or the tenant?

In any case, the money for it wouldn't come out of thin air - you either pay direct or via the rent.

S'pose I'm just used to not having to pay that in my rent in the US. The owner owns the property, so why should I have to pay their property taxes? I pay for any other services like sewer and water on a seperate utility bill out of my own pocket.

Yes, but where do you think the landlord gets the $$$ for the property taxes from?

One way or another, you pay.

Council tax is not really like property tax. Council tax pays for local amenities and services that you would be using on an everyday basis.

I'm not sure I'd rely entirely on the Job Centre salaries, generally speaking it's all at the lower end of the market. 16K is not far off most entry level positions. Unless of course returning from the states leaves you in that position in the UK. Which it of course might do. Try some of the national recruitment databases, see if it looks much different.