how much are your bills?

[sunshinedaydream]

I'm going to be renting a 2 bedroom flat in St Andrews starting in September and my flatmate and I are wondering how much we can expect to pay for gas, electricity, water, internet, TV licence, council tax. I know it varies by usage, but if you are or have been living in a 2 person flat in St Andrews, you input would be very helpful! Please reply to this thread or email Maeve (mlk5) or Anne (ak683) directly. Thanks so much!

[Kegrad]

If you're all students you don't pay council tax, which includes water.

TV licence is £150 for the year, you can pay monthly or quarterly or all at once but they charge slightly more for some methods. You can get a refund for the last 3 months if you don't need it over the summer.http://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/check-if-you-need-one/for-your-home/students-aud1/

For my place, an upper floor 2 bed flat (with lounge and kitchen), we pay direct debits of £28.50 per month for gas and £35 for electric. We have gas heating, hot water and hob but electric oven and electric shower. These are meant to average over the whole year so you pay the same all year but use more in the winter. Prices are going up soon though.

We don't have internet, just using mobile broadband. Getting a landline in if there's not one already working can be expensive, £115 or more. You need a phone account to get broadband. Most are for at least 12 months, but I'm sure others on here can suggest things that are monthly contracts. Also look at http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/phones/cheap-broadband

[guest]

I think you do not need to buy TV license, unless you watch TV very often. You simply won't get caught.
Heating in winter would be very expensive, the bill could go up to £60 ppm for fighting the cold only.

I would say £20-50 ppm in total (internet+gas+elect) would be an average figure for most students.

[sunshinedaydream]

Thank you!!! We will be staying through next summer so perhaps we should get the mobile broadband for a 12 month contract.

[Kegrad]

Mobile broadband is okay but expensive if you use it lots. It's also not as fast and you're limited who you can use in St A's (three is pretty good, t-mobile gets no signal at all, but that could change as they combine networks with orange). I meant the 12 month contracts for landline broadband. If you're staying for 12 months you could probably get some good deals, as long as there's already a phoneline in the house.

[sunshinedaydream]

Yeah I looked into landline broadband. Have you heard of Sky Broadband? http://www.sky.com/shop/broadband-only? ... =AFC-54840 They have a nice package with unlimited data usage