For Those That Live off Base Around Mildenhall One More Question

It all depends on what type of utilites you have. If you have OIL for heating, the cost is around 250-300 pounds for 500 liters. That will last you around 3-4 months. Depending on the season. If you have gas you can pay three different ways: Monthly Direct Debit, Quarterly (every 3 months), Annually. It also depends on what type of meter you have. There is also prepaid cards. Gas has recently raised in cost as we all know. The average bill quarterly is running around 100 pounds up to 200 pounds. That is quarterly. Then you have electric. Which you can heating for as well. That also depends on what type of meter you have. There are Tier 1, 2, & 3. That is the cheapest for heat. If it is Economy 7 or 10. The drawback for Economy 10 is that you have to make sure you turn it on the night before to have heat the next day. Electricity for heating will cost you a litte under gas prices. Electricity (for power) is on average about 150-250 pounds quarterly. You also have water which is Anglian Water everywhere. Same payment process. Monthly Direct Debit, Quarterly & Annually. However some properties have a standing charge which has no meter at all. For phone services, no matter where you are you have to pay a rental line fee from BT (british telephone)Which I believe is around 10-20 pounds a month. BT can be paid by Direct Debit or Quarterly. You also have internet and phone service from BT. But definitely shop around for the best price. Now with all the utilities, you can shop around except for Anglian Water. I think the money you receive for utilities pretty much evens itself out. If you want to live right outside of Mildenhall, the town is Beck Row. It is literally right outside the gate. You also have West Row which is right outside the back gate or gate 2. Mildenhall Village is also in the close vicinity. If you want to rent a house out when you get here, email me. I am in the real estate business here. The company I work for is primarily for US military. Here is my work email address ____@____.com company website is www.baselets.co.uk Depending on when you get here, start looking for a home about 30 days in advance. It will help you out so much. When are you planning on PCSing out here?

Hope all helps.

C.

We have 6 kids and rent a rather large 4 bedroom house. My husband takes care of the bills for the most part but from what I understand we use our whole utility allowance, but haven't really gone over it. (I run the washer and dryer twice a day on average). People he works with have told him we should switch our electricity provider to a cheaper one, but we haven't looked into that yet. I know a lot of people who pocket money from their utility allowance. I agree it is probably a good idea to buy a home. I know of several people who have made a killing when they sold their home. It's still a bit of a gamble though I think. We originally wanted to buy but thought we'd have more time in TLF. I don't remember what the cut off was, but TLF won't let you stay for longer than 4-6 weeks. You have to look at two rental houses every week and have a good reason for not accepting them (and they have a list of reasons that aren't acceptable reasons). Had we known that, we would have started looking on-line in the states. Also, I am not completely sure but I think Americans buying a house ove here are required to put down 10% of the purchase price when buying a home. I don't know what letting agencies you've been looking at, but if you want I could get you some more websites for letting agencies in the area.

The amount is quite high and you can normally talk to the landlord and have him/her include utilities etc. depending on the rent you might be able to convince him to include cable, telephone, gardner etc. It can't hurt to ask!

Of course if you buy a house the AF always gives you the full amount and whatever is left over you can keep. It is easy to get interest only mortgages. We have a 4 bedroom house with an office, a dining room, a living room, a large kitchen, a utlity room, 2 bathrooms, and a huge garden. We pocket/invest about $1500 per month. Mortgage consulatants are very helpful over here and some don't even charge.
Bying a house is a great investment especially when the AF pays the mortgage. When you rent you are basically just giving your money away. With the house prices down as they are you should at least be able to make 10% on the price in a 3-year tour. I.e. a GBP 180,000 house should earn you $36,000. If you haven't bought before it's a bit daunting I know, but well worth the effort.
Let me know if you need any info on that.
Søs

Hi again...

Another great question. We had oil heating... kept our house temp set to @ 20 roughly 70 degrees. We were able to live off of one entire tank of oil for a year!! That's like 300 pounds or $600. This of course is well within the money they give your for your utilities. Most of the year our utilities allowance covered everything to include sky (satellite) and phones. But... the catch... We lived in a new small house. The older homes usually are going to require more to heat... plus the larger homes take more to heat.

You can certainly try to bargain with your landlord to pay certain utilites (to still stay within your housing allowance.) The allowance you recieve for utilities is of course seperate from the housing allowance so that's a plus!!

Good luck!
Janice