If you are planning on moving out, you may be wondering about the cost of living independently. Whether you are going to be renting or buying a property, there are lots of bills that you will have to be responsible for, and a key part of living on your own is knowing exactly what you have to pay for.
While everyone knows that they will have to find enough money to cover their rent, food and transport costs, the idea of having to choose utility providers may come as an alien concept. Knowing how to choose the best gas supplier or electricity company can be tricky and often proves to be quite challenging when first starting out on your own.
Making sure that you have arranged all of the essential services and utilities that you require is essential when moving into your own property, but in order to do that, the first question you need to ask is- what bills do you pay for a house?
Organising an Electricity Supplier
The first answer that probably comes to mind when asking what bills do you pay for a house is the electricity bill. In our modern age there isn’t much you can get done without a reliable electricity supplier. We rely on electricity for almost everything, from cooking our food to entertaining ourselves, so knowing how to choose a good electricity supplier is vital if you want to get good value for money.
While there are many electricity companies that can supply your energy, they don’t all offer good deals, so it’s important to compare the different offers available before making your decision. Doing your research is essential, and visiting a site like MyEnergy can help you to find the right electricity supplier to suit your needs. The Department of Energy and Climate Change have even suggested that most households could enjoy savings of up to £200 per year just from taking advantage of a better energy deal, and when setting up a home of your own, every penny counts.
How to Choose a Gas Provider
If your home has a gas cooker, gas fired central heating or a gas fire, you will need to know how to choose a gas provider that offers you the best value. A lot of people make the mistake of simply going with the property’s existing supplier, however that may not be the right decision. Prices can vary considerably from one gas company to another, so if you want to know which is the cheapest gas supplier you should carry out a comparison check.
If you require both gas and electricity for your property you may well benefit from choosing a single dual fuel provider as often you will pay a reduced amount when taking both services from the same operator. When you’ve just moved out, arranging an energy account can be a daunting task, but you can find some more information about how to go about setting up your gas and electricity for the first time here.
Paying Your Water Bill
Water is the third major utility bill that you will need to pay when you have your own home. Your water bill will not only cover the water that you use for showering, washing your clothes and drinking, but also the cost of your sewerage services. You can either choose to pay your water bill by direct debit on a monthly basis or when the bills arrive, which will either be once or twice a year.
Many homes these days have a water meter which ensures that you are only charged for the exact amount of water that you use; however there are still a number of properties which do not yet have a meter installed and which have water bills that are based on the property’s rateable value. If you will be living alone or will only use a small amount of water each year, you may be better off switching to a water meter if your new home does not already have one installed.
As a residential customer, you will not be able to choose the company that supplies your water, and you must use the one for your area. This means that you cannot shop around for the best deal, although luckily, most water companies charge similar rates in any case.
Supplying Your Telephone Service
Although there are some people who rarely, if ever, use a landline telephone, many people still consider having a phone line to their property to be a necessity. If you plan to use a broadband service you will often need to have a phone line installed too, although you can, if you wish, choose a different supplier for each service. There are numerous companies to choose from when it comes to finding the cheapest phone line rental, and comparing all of the different options is very important if you want to save yourself money.
Looking at all of the different packages on offer from each supplier can be very confusing, especially when taking into account that some also include broadband and TV services too. You need to think hard in advance about which services you actually want to take advantage of and how much use you are likely to get out of them. There is no point in paying for something that you don’t need, so if a package includes the use of a TV service that you don’t require, it isn’t a good fit for you and you could cut your costs by choosing something that is more suited to your requirements.
Broadband And TV
If you’ve asked yourself what bills do you pay for a house, you may have forgotten to take your home entertainment into account. Internet and TV play a major role in our modern lives, and most people can’t imagine living without them. Assuming that you’ll want to watch your favourite programmes and keep up to date with your social media account, you’ll need to factor these costs into your budget too. Some people prefer to arrange a broadband provider that is separate to their phone line supplier, however often it is better value for money to opt for a combined package from a single company. There are exceptions to the rule, especially if you don’t need a phone line.
In the past anyone who wanted to install broadband in their home had to have a fixed phone line too, today there are other possibilities. A fibre optic connection does not use a phone line and therefore it is, in theory, possible to arrange for high speed broadband without taking it as part of a service bundle. Fibre optic broadband offers numerous advantages over a traditional ADSL set up, and you can find out more about the benefits here. At the present time, however, only a couple of suppliers offer separate fibre optic services and the savings are not huge, so you may prefer to opt for a package after all.
TV Licensing
You should also remember that you will be required to pay for a TV licence if you plan to watch live TV or the iPlayer TV catch up service. You can arrange to pay the full amount as a one-off fee once a year or alternatively, you can pay by direct debit every month. If you have a TV licence, you can watch the main Freeview channels without having to pay anything extra, however there are some channels which are subscription only, and if you want access to these you will need to either pay a Freeview supplement or you will have to arrange for another TV service on top such as Sky.
TV Packages
While these fee-paying TV services offer an impressive array of channels they can take up a large chunk of your monthly budget, with packages coming in almost £100 per month for sports and movie channels and HD subscription, so it’s important to think carefully about which channels you really need and how much you can afford to pay before checking out the various deals on offer from all of the providers on the market.
As you can see, the answer to “what bills do you pay for a house” can prove to be worrying reading, especially for someone who is moving out of their parent’s home for the first time. It can seem very overwhelming to suddenly have all of the responsibility for paying for all the utilities and services that we use in everyday life. The good news is that if you take the time to check out all of the different options available and compare the various deals on the market to discover which are the right ones for you, you can save yourself a lot of money and make sensible choices that will make the most of your income. By doing the proper research, you’ll be confident that you’ve chosen a reliable company and that you’ll be getting the best possible value for money.