Wow, and I thought I was frugal. Granted, I'm not sure what a council tax is or what the American equivalent of that would be. It sounds like a property tax, but you pay it even when you're renting? The food bill definitely seemed low to me, but not impossible I suppose.

Other than the $10 mobile bill, you could do all that in a small apartment in America. Or at least you could until recently. I just say small because your electric bill on anything I think more than 1BR is going to top ~$120 . Electric bills have gone up 30% for me this year.

We don't have council taxes, though, though there are all kinds of other taxes. Typically that would be built into your rent, assuming you rent. Rent is really expensive. Car insurance is a lot more than GBP45 a month equivalent.

These days, I feel like you'd be very limited what you could eat on a $300 food budget a month. If you need 90 meals a month, that's $3.33 a meal. You can't buy a meal for that, hardly anywhere, for good reason. I'm sure you could do it and not starve, but it would be a lot of beans and rice. Yes, it is substantially cheaper to buy and cook your own food, but we're looking at the ingredients cost quickly approaching what you have to spend without, certainly, any extravagance like prepared foods.

Insurance in the USA has gone up like 30% even just recently. I think people are dying of the vaxx. They never did "figure out" what was causing so many people to die and claim life insurance, nor does it appear from rates that the torrent has abated. Insurance operators are still losing money in market conditions. That is to say: their customers will not absorb the rate increases as fast as they need to make them to try to balance their actuarial tables. People may be giving out on the road, increasing auto rates, too. The industry may not survive without government help.