Calculating affordable mortgage repayments

[eiregal]

My boyfriend and I are just starting to think about buying a house and are trying to work out how much we can afford to pay in mortgage repayments. We both have small personal loans which obviously need to be considered but how can we calculate how much our utility bills will be if we don't have these bills already? Is there an average to go on for 2 people living together, i.e. an average monthly/bimonthly ESB bill etc.? Any advice would be greatly appreciated as we don't want to leave ourselves short.

 

[Imperator]

As a minimum you could find out the standing charges for connection to ESB, Gas, phone provider etc. These fees are available on the relevant websites, and can be a large portion of a bill.

In addition the other fixed costs to be considered would be rubbish collection, TV Licence, Chorus/Sky/etc. Again this is information readily available from a provider.