Budgets v Actuals

I have mentioned before in this blog how difficult I have found the process of keeping an eye on the costs. As we have just about reached the end of the refurbishment I now have to try and reconcile it all. This caused me to wake up far earlier than I intended to this morning to review all the figures again.

So how does it all look?

The revised estimate last discussed here was £40,677. I have sent the builder what I believe to be the final reconciliation and having received the final accounts from everybody else involved it now appears that the total expenditure on this project (excluding the cost of money) will be £41,389. An over spend of £712 or 1.75%. This is still subject to minor changes as there are some small additional invoices for materials that I have estimated. I cannot be too upset about this although there is a small part of me that wishes we could have nailed it to the penny.

The main variances were "Legal and Professional" mainly because of the additional cost of insurance and the HIP which I hadn't considered and "House and Garden Clearance" where I had under estimated the number of skips required by some margin! There were other items that turned out to be more expensive such as electrical works but that is because we increased the scope of the job from first estimate by including outside lights, wired smoke alarms and so on. There were some savings to be made as well with the decision not to re-point one of the flank walls, fitting carpets instead of laminate and the price of all of the bathroom furniture helping to keep the over spend down.

The cost of money has been higher than expected. Back in September I estimated this to be £2,959 based on three months @5.49%. It has been nearer four months since we completed so this figure is (which is of course going up every day) is currently £3,329 and has been calculated line by line on when money has actually been spent. This figure will rise by c. £31 per day now for every day the property remains unsold or unrented. This is a sobering though and one to keep focused on.