Is £100 a week spending enough?

It sounds a lot but if it includes travel you are stuffed. A peak return from where I live to work is £40 and £10 for the station car park, I only do it once a week but even so. I cancelled my gym membership because I couldn't afford it and I now colour my own hair. Money goes nowhere now. I have moaned on here before about batch cooking to reduce my food bill and being super strict about coffee out etc but sometimes I think bloody hell, it's all a bit grim.

@RosesAndHellebores I'm not disagreeing with your choices of how you spend but the world is divided into women who can afford £300-£500 for a handbag and those for whom one from M&S for £50 suffices.
And others who pick one up from a charity shop for a fiver.
It does make you very privileged to be able to spend close to £500 on a bag even if it's only occasionally.

MONTHLY SPEND
Hair £75
Coffees £30
Parking: £30
Cosmetics/skincare: £40
Clothes/shoes/bags: £120 (averageish)
Drinks/dinner with the girls: £80
Uber: £50
Cards and the odd gift through the year £30
Vitamins: £20
Magazine/book/£10

Me

Hair £75 every 10 weeks, and £170 twice a year (for colour.)

Coffee- zero

Parking - zero (find a free car park)

Cosmetics- unsure but averages out at around £20 a month

Clothes etc - I don't count because I go months without buying anything.

Drinks/dinner-almost zero- the very occasional coffee with a friend

Uber- zero

Cards and birthday gifts- maybe £200 for friends/family per annum

Vitamins- zero- buy the food instead (other than Vit D - £3.)

Magazines- zero - books around £5 averaged out over a year.

I still think it's important to consider if we need something or not.

@nolegusta I'd say all my purchases are needed and all get worn and worn again. I feel I'm fairly frugal but choices and views differ. We are talking here about discretionary spending rather than essential spending. Personally, I prefer a Coach or Longchamp bag, and I can afford it. I could, of course, use a bag for life from the supermarket, but I neither want nor have to.

1500 per year is quite a lot - how much is essential? I do think we all need to consume less, but would agree that quality over quantity is better.

Do you think so? How interesting. It's about £1500 a year. I buy very few coats, bags and shoes and keep them for a long time but I buy quality. Some months I spend nothing, others I might spend between £500 and £1000.

The point is, however, if we have spends, they are our spends to spend as we wish. I would rather treat myself to a mid range bag than a gym membership.

Hang on - you budget £100 for going out. Soooo...you have a set budget...for personal spending?

How is this different to what the OP is describing?! Why don't you see that what you do as "pocket money"? Is it just the fact it's not a sort of general personal spending budget - you think it's somehow ok if it's separate budgets for specific items?

So you think it would be reasonable if OP's DH has £1400 left at the end of the month as personal spends and she only has £400?

Perfectly normal to agree to have the same spends each. The whole point is that it's an amount for personal spending that can be spent on whatever and there's no monitoring of the spend. I fritter my money away on random coffees and bits for my hobbies, DP saves his for tech items he's after.

In our case, we both get paid into the joint account and then our personal spends get transferred into our individual accounts. Would love to know what you think's wrong with that setup?

This is why constant reviews of budgeting is so important. As in: What are you spending your money on? If it’s 100 a week on lunches and coffees and nothing left for clothes is that what you want?
Keep a constant tally and keep it under review.
I am trying to save and pay down mortgage so am pretty sensible with money and my budget shows I spend around £700/m on what you have listed. If I only had 100/w I know what I can lose first.

What your describing is pocket money, the money left over for fun once bills and vital spends are covered.

It's how some people budget. It works well for many people, if you have limited income and/or want to save and/or have a limited income and/or want to be aware of needless/emotional spending.

Um, that's quite big spends if that's every month! How many clothes and bags does one person need? 🫣

Is the deli coffee something you could live without?

Ah, how the other half live. 🫣

But the extra that women 'have' to spend vs men is negligible within the context of a £100 pw personal spending budget. If that's your argument it would need to be offset by the outdated expectation that men pay for dinner, drinks etc.

Plus if we're talking about things like 'a basic face cream, sanitary towels, tights, different styles of shoe etc' well men need more shaving equipment and might also buy moisturiser. Also if you have fewer pairs of shoes they wear out quicker so need replacing more often so the necessary cost is determined by how far you walk not how many pairs of shoes you have.

The amount you need to spend on these items is small anyway in the context of £100 pw personal spending. If you buy things that are more expensive than standard supermarket/Superdrug items, that's a choice rather than a necessity. Plus moisturiser lasts months. I probably buy 2 or 3 pots a year that cost about £5 a time.

Another poster has listed their spends and said she doesn't think its 'big spending' but to me the amounts look huge. I've put what I spend in brackets as a comparison.

^OK, my personal.spends per month are:
Hair £75 (£20)
Coffees £30 (£10)
Parking: £30 (£5)
Cosmetics/skincare: £40 (< £5)
Clothes/shoes/bags: £120 (averageish) (£50)
Drinks/dinner with the girls: £80 (£50)
Uber: £50 (£5 averageish)
Cards and the odd gift through the year £30 (£10)
Vitamins: £20 (< £5)
Magazine/book/£10 (£10)^

I have an Art Pass that costs about £7 pm and probably spend £50 on petrol to visit sculpture parks, museums, coast, countryside pm.

But in any case, it boils down to the amount being affordable, sensible prioritisation of your budget and equality within a relationship.

It's when your personal spending impacts the amount available for essentials like housing, bills, groceries, savings for annual and irregular expenses, emergency fund, pension or joint costs that, while aren't essential, are 'nice to haves' like holidays, family days out, Christmas presents, nicer food and decorations or your partner's personal spending money that it's a problem.

@shouldntbeonhereagain I must beg to differ. I like nice make-up and perfume and that's my choice. I could spend a third on L'Oréal rather than Estee but I don't. DH spends more than me on shoes and clothes. Day to day I'm happy with Clarkes/Gabor - he has Church's. He also buys his lunch every day and has a much greater coffee habit than me. Plus his fucking car and golf club, etc. Don't start me on the books and sheet music. I reckon his spends come to far more than mine.

@MissLeToe well I spend that, possibly a bit more. You seem to be suggesting that's a problem. Why?

I think it' s a massive amount.

If that is just for your own personal 'treats' it's huge.

I am fortunate in that we're both semi retired , have a comfortable income and I'm not counting the pennies.

I don't work on a weekly budget anyway- it's more monthly or annually.

Basically you're spending £400 a month (or £500 on a 5 week month) so around £5K a year on clothes, hair, skin care, presents and fares.

Sounds a lot to me.

Is it overall £400 a month? Because on a five weekly pay month your actually on much less which is probably not helping your calculations.

What's controlling about it?

DH's dad lives round the corner, my parents are 40 miles away. When I go and visit, I pay for any costs. They're my parents, not his

It doesn’t sound controlling to me. My DH’s friends live over one hundred miles away so he uses his personal money to get there a stay in a hotel for the night rather than it coming from joint money.

It was the 'travel to see family and friends' that raised a red flag to me. Seems on the controlling side

They are managing their own finances, though?

They each have £400 a month to spend on whatever they like - that's the point of the thread

Well for the exact reason you have said - so that each adult, can spend on whatever they please, without the other one raising an eyebrow each time.

When we were young and skint, and I was balancing the account to the penny (literally) every month, seeing dh had bought something that I thought was a waste, really grated, when we were trying to skim a £1 or 2 off other bills. No doubt he felt the same about something I might thing I needed, but he didn't. So we decided to give ourselves equal amounts of "personal spending money" each month and neither could question what the other one used it for. We've then continued that as our budget is more relaxed.

If you are on a tight budget, nobody can 'just spend' on whatever they want, unless it has been accounted for.