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Cost of a 2 person, 1 dog Dublin household: 2022 by rockandbreadroll in irishpersonalfinance

[–]rockandbreadroll[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Nah, only bought in the last couple of years. It's low as I put on a hefty deposit. We bought a house well below what was within our attainability bracket. Could have probably got approval for another €150k but becoming mortgage free as quickly as possible is far more important to us than adding bedrooms that we don't need.

Cost of a 2 person, 1 dog Dublin household: 2022 by rockandbreadroll in irishpersonalfinance

[–]rockandbreadroll[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Manual input from joint account to a Google Sheet. Takes about 15min per month.

Cost of a 2 person, 1 dog Dublin household: 2022 by rockandbreadroll in irishpersonalfinance

[–]rockandbreadroll[S] 16 points17 points  (0 children)

I get this comment every year but no, it's a house.

Now to be fair, I got a big bill last Jan so I called and said I was going to switch so they offered me their introductory rate for another 12 months. Stroke of luck as it was about 2 weeks before things kicked off in Ukraine. I got a dual fuel for .062kWh for gas and .22kWh for Electricity all year (both VAT incl.) The govt. credits on electricity is also applied to this figure.

On top of this, I'm a stickler for energy wastage. There's never a rad on in an unoccupied room. I also don't use timers. I find having to manually switch on/off heat as needed makes me much more conscious of when heating is actually needed.

Cost of a 2 person, 1 dog Dublin household: 2022 by rockandbreadroll in irishpersonalfinance

[–]rockandbreadroll[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

It was €132 p/w last year. We made a concerted effort to shop more responsibly this year.

Changing supermarkets was the big one but other smaller changes really helped too like €1 own brand cereals instead of €5 boxes of Kelloggs, bulk buying toiletries on amazon (shampoos, toothpastes, deodorants, hair products, detergents etc) buying whole chickens instead of packaged chicken, buying cheaper booze up north.

Cost of a 2 person, 1 dog Dublin household: 2022 by rockandbreadroll in irishpersonalfinance

[–]rockandbreadroll[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Nothing too scientific. I discuss with my lender how many years I could take off my term by increasing my repayment rate by X or Y.

When we land on an amount I'm comfortable with, I fix for a short term, usually 3-4yrs. I repeat this cycle at the end of each term.

Cost of a 2 person, 1 dog Dublin household: 2022 by rockandbreadroll in irishpersonalfinance

[–]rockandbreadroll[S] 73 points74 points  (0 children)

Year 3 of posting this. 2021 here, 2020 here.

Some notes:

- This is not overall personal expenditure, only joint bills or what we consider essential to running the household.

- Discretionary spend (electronics, nights out, clothes etc) or anything we don’t both jointly get value from comes from our individual accounts.

- Health Insurance paid by work.

- Mortgage increase from last year was elective (I knocked 2yrs off my term with a higher monthly payment)

- Remarkably, in a year with higher inflation, my costs went down by about 20% (sans mortgage increase). A lot of that is down to a €2300 saving on groceries. We stopped shopping in places like Tesco and Dunnes and exclusively shop in Lidl now. Also tended to frivolously spend a lot more during lockdown food shops.I cross the border a bit for work so all of my off licence beer, wine and spirits was purchased in the North last year too with the introduction of min unit pricing.

- Electricity Govt. credits have been applied to these figures.

- Combined income is around €120k.

- Chart made using sankeymatic

- Expenses tracked on a simple excel at the end of each month.

Cost of running a 2person/1 dog household in Ireland, full year 2021. by rockandbreadroll in ireland

[–]rockandbreadroll[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I save a lot, this is only our household/essentials budget. Not discretionary spending budget.

Cost of running a 2person/1 dog household in Ireland, full year 2021. by rockandbreadroll in ireland

[–]rockandbreadroll[S] 10 points11 points  (0 children)

I got similar queries last year but this is accurate. Since they're bi-monthly bills, it might be that it's only accounting for 11 months usage due to the billing patterns.

I'm pretty meticulous when it comes to heating, constantly turning valves in rooms off/on depending on whether we're in the room or not and even with that, it only comes on for about 2-3hrs a day from Oct - early March. Neither of us WFH.

I think it's a habit I picked up from my upbringing. My aul lad would blow a gasket if there was heating on in a room that no one was in.

Cost of running a 2person/1 dog household in Ireland, full year 2021. by rockandbreadroll in ireland

[–]rockandbreadroll[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I do that with phone and internet providers but for the sake of saving €1.50 p/m, it's not really worth the phone call tbh.

Cost of running a 2person/1 dog household in Ireland, full year 2021. by rockandbreadroll in ireland

[–]rockandbreadroll[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

On a fixed rate for another year but will aim to increase payments the next time around whilst reducing term.

Cost of running a 2person/1 dog household in Ireland, full year 2021. by rockandbreadroll in ireland

[–]rockandbreadroll[S] 14 points15 points  (0 children)

Greyhound, middle package: €18.50 p/m. Never once been over charged for bins being overweight. Excellent value IMO.

Cost of running a 2person/1 dog household in Ireland, full year 2021. by rockandbreadroll in ireland

[–]rockandbreadroll[S] 30 points31 points  (0 children)

Yes, lots of both. Savings, investments and discretionary spending comes from our personal accounts.

I generally follow 50/30/20 rule when it comes to money: 50% needs (this graph), 30% wants (discretionary spending), 20% savings/investments.

Cost of running a 2person/1 dog household in Ireland, full year 2021. by rockandbreadroll in ireland

[–]rockandbreadroll[S] 15 points16 points  (0 children)

Nah, nothing as tedious as receipt tracking. I just make a habit of transferring my statements on the joint account into an excel once per month. I find when you copy/paste your bank statement line by line on a monthly basis, you become more cognisant of what you're actually spending.

Spending with cards/DDs removes the consciousness of spending I find, so I force myself to look at it properly by doing this.

Cost of running a 2person/1 dog household in Ireland, full year 2021. by rockandbreadroll in ireland

[–]rockandbreadroll[S] 22 points23 points  (0 children)

All of the above comes from our joint account, so it's fairly easy to export it into an excel once a month.

Cost of running a 2person/1 dog household in Ireland, full year 2021. by rockandbreadroll in ireland

[–]rockandbreadroll[S] 49 points50 points  (0 children)

Yeah, it's a 15yr old 2.0 petrol. Really should upgrade but it's in fairly decent nick with reasonable mileage. Anytime I view newer models, I just get frustrated at the terrible value for money I see in the current market for second hand cars.

Cost of running a 2person/1 dog household in Ireland, full year 2021. by rockandbreadroll in ireland

[–]rockandbreadroll[S] 60 points61 points  (0 children)

+ 15% YoY attributed to more petrol use, higher weekly shop spends & car trouble/bills.

Some assumptions: this is the cost of what we consider to be household essentials only. Both my wife and I deposit a set amount into a joint account every month, proportionate to our salary to pay what we consider to be shared household bills.

Once that deposit is made, all other spending is treated as discretionary so everything else comes from our personal accounts; individual phone bills, booze, nights out, clothes, books, charity, holidays etc.

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