At 9.50pm on Sunday 9 February I had a notebook with seven lines in it, a phone hotspot running on fumes and a cup of tea that Matt had made me at ten to eight, now cold and skinned over. The notebook said DULL STUFF across the top. By ten o'clock every line was crossed out, and I felt a satisfaction I would normally associate with a finished payroll run.
We were in the second week in the house, the heating at last doing what we asked, the boxes only half unpacked. Matt read out names and dates and I typed. I did them in the order of who would send the sternest letter first, and it took two hours and ten minutes. This is what each one wanted.
Seven accounts
- Council tax. Sheffield City Council's online form asked for the date we moved in, our previous address and the name of every adult in the house, then whether anyone qualified for a discount or exemption. We are two working adults, so no. The house is Band A, and the bill for the rest of the year, February and March, came to £262, payable by direct debit in two goes.
- Water. Yorkshire Water wanted both names, the move-in date and a direct debit. The house isn't metered, so there was no reading to give: the bill is based on the property, and ours was £39.80 a month. There was a box asking if we wanted to hear about a meter. I ticked it and moved on.
- TV licence. It asked for the address, whether we watch live TV (we do, the news and the football) and how to pay. £169.50 for the year, spread over a direct debit as £14.13 a month.
- Energy. Already done on completion day, with the photos, but I logged in to check that both readings had gone through. They had. The tariff is the supplier's standard one, which is a job for another evening.
- Broadband. The account was live from the January order, so this was a login, a payment date (the 25th, payday) and a long look at the Thursday visit that had gone nowhere.
- Home insurance. The policy began at exchange, so I only checked that the address was spelled correctly, the sums insured were as I remembered and the contents cover now applied to the boxes in the front room. Everything was right except my date of birth, which was out by a year in my favour. I corrected it.
- Bins. The council's website tells you your collection day once you put in the postcode and pick your house from a list. Black bin for general waste, blue for paper and card, brown for glass, cans and plastic bottles. I printed the calendar and put it on the fridge door with a magnet.
Three dates for one house
What nobody warns you about is that a house move has at least three dates, and every organisation wants a different one. The insurance wanted 15 January, the day we exchanged. The council and the energy supplier wanted 31 January, the day we were given the keys. The van, and my instinct, said 1 February, the day we moved in.
On the water form I put 1 February. Their view, as I discovered on a six-minute phone call the following week, is that you're responsible from the day you get the keys. They backdated the account by one day, which at £39.80 a month comes to about £1.30. It's the most expensive typo of my career, and I once overpaid someone's sick pay by four days.
Where the money went
I added up the new lines in the notebook before bed. For February alone, council tax at £131 for the month, water at £39.80, the TV licence at £14.13 and broadband at £31.99 came to £216.92. That was before gas, before electricity and before the first mortgage payment, which was still three weeks away.
Matt looked at the number and said, "That's a lot of money for four things you can't see." I pointed out that the TV licence at least has a television attached, and he went to put the kettle on.
