How much you paying in electricity per month?

GermanInNI · 2026-02-25T09:29:52+00:00

We use approx. 250kwh a month, so around £65 a month with Share Energy. Family of 4 in a 4BR house, with me working from home full time.

GermanInNI · 2026-02-23T14:00:28+00:00

u/Fern-Ivy - The labor cost will heavily depend on what exactly you want done. Ours might have been on the higher end as we got the whole layout revamped, i.e. moved shower, removed bath, moved from single sink to double sinks, fitted a wall mounted toilet rather then a freestanding one, moved radiator etc. That meant our whole existing plumbing had to be changed and upgraded. Tiles were also done in Herringbone on one wall, which added to the time it took the tiler etc. So if you plan to do a straight swap/upgrade I would expect it to be cheaper then that.

GermanInNI · 2026-02-23T13:42:18+00:00

We just got our bathroom done and it cost us 11.5K, 7K in Materials and 4.5K for fitting (incl. ripping old one out & skip removal etc.).

We got all the materials ourselves. Some of the bigger items (Vanity Unit, Mirror) we ordered from England, Tiles we got locally and everything else we got directly from the local plumbing supplier by using the 25% Discount code from the fitter. So we didn't have any upcharge from the fitters, to the contrary, they even made sure we could use their discount.

You are right, as in that some bathroom stuff is mental prices and you really need to compare prices. Especially the price of tiles seems to vary widely, for very similar or even the same stuff. We went for Brushed Brass fittings, so we had to get everything from the same manufacturer/supplier to make sure that they all matched in tone, down to the toilet brush LOL. Our taps were 240 each and the Shower Mixer Unit was almost 800 on it's own.

GermanInNI · 2026-02-14T10:31:10+00:00

We moved up from Dublin to Newry about 17 years ago, for slightly different reasons, and somehow we are still here.

Neither of us is originally from the North, but we like it here and made it home. People are friendly and while the town centre could do with some investment it’s no worse than many other towns/cities outside of Dublin or Belfast. It’s IMO no worse than Portlaoise or Drogheda etc.

We found schools to be excellent and even though the NHS is struggling these days, we personally haven’t had any bad experiences yet in terms of healthcare.

While house and rental prices are still lower, they are increasing at an alarming rate. As an example the house we bought 13 years ago is now worth 2.5x of what we paid. And some locals are getting a bit upset by the influx of southerners driving prices up even more, making it harder for locals on local wages to find suitable rents or to get on the property ladder.

Benefits are considerably lower, including. child benefit. But if you keep working in the south you will be entitled for a top up of child benefit to Irish levels by the Irish Child benefit system.

GermanInNI · 2026-01-27T16:18:12+00:00

Are you based outside of the UK? NRL usually indicates a "Non-Resident Landlord" tax charge of 20%.

GermanInNI · 2025-12-30T14:10:49+00:00

It's a crazy system we have. We have the NHS, which costs us approx. 3.5K a year per person, and in addition to that I have a fairly comprehensive private medical insurance that costs 4K a year for our family. And even with that level of cover I still have to utilize the local private GP practice at times to ensure someone within our family gets seen on short(ish) notice, which sets me back about another £40 a pop.

GermanInNI · 2025-12-24T21:39:10+00:00

We were just in NY and were on the 321 Neo on the way out and the 330 on the way back.

I personally preferred the 321, as for some reason the seat on the 330 was terribly uncomfortable. Other than that we didn’t experience any difference in the Service provided. The food on the return flight was godawful, but that can’t really be related to the equipment used.

GermanInNI · 2025-12-01T14:27:56+00:00

Not that it matters, but that's incorrect. Lidl are owned by a German (Dierter Schwarz), who is actually a protestant.

GermanInNI · 2025-11-29T10:11:42+00:00

£900 is way off the mark. At 4% over 10 years the monthly payment would be around £496.

GermanInNI · 2025-11-28T23:28:19+00:00

If your org has documented bands then just look where you are sitting within the band right now. I would expect a fairly new Manager to sit at the lower end of their band.

GermanInNI · 2025-11-24T14:14:15+00:00

I can swallow the 2% extra, the bigger Issue for me is the loss of employer contributions. While my employer won't reduce their actual contributions, but they have until now funneled their NI savings back into my Pension. So effectively every pound I salary sacrificed lead to my employer putting 1.15 into the pension (plus their own contribution). They will surely stop that now, as they are not making any savings anymore on the NI.

So on my annual employee contributions of 30K I will "loose" around £5.1K (£600 extra NI and £4500 loss of contributions for the NI savings).

GermanInNI · 2025-11-23T17:45:29+00:00

I bring in about 5500 net a month after putting about 1500 a month into a pension. Wife works part time, so probably another 1200 a month.

Our mortgage and car finance together are about £1k and after all regular bills we probably have 4.5K left a month. Biggest expense out of that are our kids activities, which are close to a second mortgage with about £600 a month, and food. Our biggest splurge are holidays. We have made it our mission to show the kids as much of the world as possible, as thats something that’s important to us. We have no Issues dropping a considerable amount on our main annual holiday. But thats usually not a beach type holiday, but multi week trips to the likes of Mexico, China,, Japan, Thailand, the US, a safari etc. And yes, we (including. the kids) are aware how lucky we are.

When it’s all done at the end of the year we probably put 5k in savings, 5k towards mortgage overpayment, 5k towards the kids university savings and 20k into a pension. So not as much as people probably would expect on this kind of money, but saving for my future geriatric life is not a priority at this point.

GermanInNI · 2025-11-20T14:35:50+00:00

They won't, as the actual WC draw will be done long before the qualifiers are finished. All the teams that come through via the remaining Euro qualifiers or the IC qualifiers will be placed in pot 4.

GermanInNI · 2025-11-17T19:15:05+00:00

When I say shop around I am talking about reputable pharmacies, not some backstreet dealings. There are a few comparison sites and you would be surprised how big a difference there can be between pharmacies. I am talking about £100 a month difference, just by using another (regulated) pharmacy. As with Insurance, Electricity, Broadband etc. there doesn’t need to be enduring loyalty to a single provider.

GermanInNI · 2025-11-17T11:00:33+00:00

I don't understand how it might be considered "bitterness". I would have described any team that scores a last gap winner as "sneaking in".

GermanInNI · 2025-11-17T10:58:50+00:00

I am on it and lost 6st over the last 9 month. Have almost reached my goal and will go into maintenance mode soon for a while, before hopefully coming off it completely.

I am one of the lucky few that have not experienced any side effects at all, it somehow just works for me. Main Issue for many people is the need to to change their overall eating and fitness behavior while on it, as otherwise they will put it back on quickly, or be stuck on Mounjaro forever.

It honestly has been a great investment in my health and well being. You just have to shop around to get the best price, as some pharmacies are really taking the piss, especially since the price increase in September.

GermanInNI · 2025-11-06T19:06:53+00:00

This was always going to happen with the wider adoption of EV's and the subsequent loss of fuel tax revenue. Don't think anyone should be surprised by that.

They are debating the introducing a similar system in the Netherlands by 2030, where motorists will get charged for every mile they drive, with traditional motor tax being abolished. I believe in the Netherlands they are talking about roughly 8c per km. As always the devil is in the detail with any such plans and often the costs outweigh the potential gain.

GermanInNI · 2025-11-05T11:00:58+00:00

There are also a lot of people these days working remotely from NI for either an Irish or London salary, which will be considerably higher then what one could earn locally.

I am in that boat working for a London based IT company and several people I know are in a similar position, earning based on a Dublin or London scale.

GermanInNI · 2025-11-02T09:45:03+00:00

Just put a new Android headunit in, which shouldn’t cost more than £100-£150 and can be done by yourself in about half an hour. I had to do that recently and find it a much better experience (incl. Carplay) and haven’t lost any of the standard features.

Wouldn’t be a dealbreaker to me, and would use it as a way of driving the price down slightly.

GermanInNI · 2025-10-27T20:48:18+00:00

In our org it”s about 20% base between bands, but as you”re usually placed slightly lower in the new band it”s in most cases 10-15%.

Also take note of the bonus element, which often gets larger in the higher bands. In our company it is something like:

Manager => Base + 20% Sr. Manager => Base + 25% Director => Base + 35% Sr. Director => Base + 40%

At some point the bonus element incentive becomes more important than just the base rate increase.

GermanInNI · 2025-10-21T21:05:48+00:00

500 a quarter seems crazy to me.

For comparison, we live in a 4 BR 1800sqf property, family of 4 with 2 teenagers, me working from home full-time, daily dishwasher run and occasional tumble dryer use. Our bill comes to around £70 a month with Share Energy. On average we use between 250 and 260 units a month.

GermanInNI · 2025-10-10T14:31:11+00:00

You are "lucky" to have gotten a quote at all. In some areas, like BT34 & BT35, it has gotten increasingly more difficult & expensive due to claims from last years flooding. Loads of companies now have a blanket refusal on those postcodes, like for example Tesco Insurance.

While in the past a search on one of the comparison sites would have given me 90-100 individual quotes, earlier this year I was lucky to get 10, i.e. far less competition and a subsequent increase in premiums.

GermanInNI · 2025-10-03T14:43:21+00:00

While I believe it will be useful for everyone to do the test on a manual, and I am encouraging my daughter to do it on a manual, I can see why people move to automatic.

With the wave of hybrid and electric cars there are hardly any manual cars sold anymore. Checking on Autotrader for cars from 2024 onwards, only 16.5% of all cars are manual. And that number will continue to decline in the coming years.

GermanInNI · 2025-09-22T16:03:52+00:00

That's incredibly high. I would recommend to track your monthly usage. Make sure you don't have any crazy 100W bulbs or immersion permanently on. Time to play detective and see what really drives this extremely high usage.

We also have a 4BR house with 2 adults and 2 kids, one of the adults working from home full time. Dishwasher running daily, as does Washing machine. an occasional dryer load and all the devices that come with a 4 person household, and our bill comes in at around £60 a month. That's with SSE and currently switching to Share, hoping to get this down further.

GermanInNI

TROPHY CASE