Is £100 a week spending enough?

YANBU OP
Everything is horribly expensive
I budget roughly £500pm for DS and I for “spending money” (anything that isn’t a bill, food shop, child care cost or rent)- so includes clothes, haircuts, makeup, swimming lessons, cubs subs, fun stuff, presents etc etc and it’s really really hard to keep to.

So £25 of your weekly £100 is written off before you've even started by a wildly expensive gym membership? So you've actually only got £75?

Moisturisers/razors/shampoo/face wash can presumably only be costing you an ABSOLUTE max of say £30 a month even if you buy spendy ones?

Food treats for the kids should not be coming out of your personal spends, why aren't they part of the housekeeping? I bet your husband isn't spending his on treats for the kids.

None of these things should be making a big dent in £100 a week though. I suspect it's the little £4 on coffee, £8 on a quick lunch out/at work, that's all adding up. Most people just don't have the money to spend like that, unfortunately.

I have £175 a week. That's to do any gifts for people, hair cut and make up etc and my socialising. I also top up bits for the food shop out of that like milk etc. Also any clothes I want comes out of that.
I pay for my travel separately to that so I would struggle on £100

How often are you getting one of those coffees?

Your spending doesn't seem to match your budget.

To me, £100 to spend on whatever you fancy feels like loads, but I also wouldn't be including toiletries or travel or stuff for the kids in that. That should come out of the normal household budget.

It would be tight for me but everyone has different budgets so only you can say.

It's about what I have, but like previous posters it depends on what you consider to be shared expenses coming out elsewhere. Anything kid related including cafe visits comes out of joint money not personal. Same if dh and I socialise together. So my personal covers haircuts, individual socialising, clothes, yoga class.

I pay 120 for the gym each month and it’s worth every penny as it offered structured lessons which I attend daily. Works out at £4 a session. Health, strength and wellbeing are priority, critical to longevity and stress levels.

I have £15 a week. Take it out in cash when it's gone it's gone.

It's tight based on your lifestyle. So you have to decide whether you want to cut back on your spending to keep it within £100 a week, or allocate yourself more spending money.

It seems as though your husband is managing ok. I suspect that's because he has a cheaper lifestyle and not because of men's and women's costs being different. You talk about 2 haircuts a year and buying basic toiletries. I don't see why his total costs for these are any different. Yes, an individual hair cut will be cheaper, but he probably gets his hair cut more frequently than this.

I spend 100 per month on gym membership and that gets me lots of swimming /HIT and yoga classes

I mean, that is a ridiculous amount.
I am paying £160 per year for my gym (classes would be extra), but the other gyms around here I checked out tended to be £33pm including classes.

I think I probably spend too much on food and booze treats especially for the kids.
I would presume that treats for the dc come out of family spend, not personal spend, including if I bought myself a cuppa when taking them for that treat.

A coffee at the deli near my kid's school is £3.80

Coffees out are extortionate.
Which is fine if you have plenty of spare money in your budget for treating yourself, but I presume from the fact you've started this thread, you don't have the amount of spare money needed to feed that habit - so walk home and make yourself a coffee there.

I mean, any "how much....." question is as long as a piece of string. There seem to be a disproportionate amount of wealthy people on MN, who will think £100 is a drop in the ocean. Many people have closer to £100 per month to spend on themselves.

I transfer £100 every Friday to another account to help me budget. It never lasts the week.

I’d say it’s a decent amount but certainly not enough to go wild, especially if around a fifth of it goes on the gym so you only have £75 to spend as you please.

If kids have a separate budget, why are you buying them treats out of “your” budget? I’d also put the toiletries in the weekly shop for everyone.

For our finances we each have an allocated amount of 'personal spending' going into individual accounts with everything else being joint. This was £100 a month for the first ten years of marriage, and we recently reviewed and updated this to £150 a month. So £100 a week sounds like lots to me BUT we have a lot of things that are covered under joint spending like any necessary clothes spending for work or to replace a worn out/wrong size item, or cost of travel.
I don't usually go our for hot drinks or meals, basic toiletries are part of joint spending as are haircuts (£23 every 5 months for mine). If i wanted more expensive items those would be a personal spend and i would have to save up for them. I usually have money left in personal spending to buy presents, games, craft supplies and takeaways when i want to skip cooking.

My point is that everything is relative, and the money figure can be misleading as for different people it covers different spends. If you have the money available from your joint account to increase personal spending, and that is in line with what you both want financially, go for it. We have always allocated the same amount for both partners though, as otherwise it can feel unfair.

For me petrol is the biggest expense after council tax and gas/electric. I think i have about 100pw but when birthdays/Christmas come up it can be tight, particularly if you need to go out which is automatically £50 if there's food and a drink involved.

I'm on pension credit so that just covers food electricity gas and water. To socialise I meet people at church every Sunday. My budgetary approach is wear it out, use it up and make it last. My food is largely suplimented by Olio.

We seperate money to both contribute towards presents, Christmas, holidays each month I put x into holiday pot and so does he.

OH and I spend about £30 a week each on things like going for lunch, drinks, cinema, coffee etc.

Hair cut every couple of months is £45, toiletries are around £15/month. Clothes/shoes/bags etc are very variable but I’d expect to be over £600/year. Transport is £120/month or so for fuel, parking and train/bus tickets. Holiday on my own with friends at least once a year and that’s £3-400 & I got to the theatre regularly so average £100 a month on tickets.

So with everything you mentioned I’m spending over £100 a week on average. It sounds a lot (& is not insignificant) but it definitely buys a lot less than it used to. Not that l long ago I used to be able to easily have a lunch out, a couple of coffees & a cinema trip in a £25 budget. I now quite often see the £30 swallowed up just for lunch. Things have got significantly more expensive

Nit weekly! 😆

£100 after shopping and bills is a nice amount to be left with, but things like your gym membership £100 a mth, think things through like do i use this enough to be paying this much or could you get a cheaper gym membership and find a yoga class elsewhere or go swimming on certain days, maybe look around at prices and think of whats a necessity and what you would maybe be able to cut down if you need other things more ♡

I spend about £75/week but I rarely get a haircut or spend anything on beauty or go for a meal out and don't really buy clothes (mainly replacing anything worn which was more this year as needed new coat, shoes etc) - it covers my hobby, the occasional massage, socialising (drinks, coffee and cake), occasional theatre ticket, presents (for DH, best friend and some small things for my parents) a girls weekend away once or twice a year. I added up all my spends over the year to average out what it was per month. WFH though so reduced opportunities for food out, popping into a shop etc

I have £250 per month. But doesn't include petrol, toiletries (they go in the joint Tesco shopping). Neither does it include any health care like contact lenses or dentistry. So really it just covers personal socialising without DH, clothes, and the occasional present for DH. It doesn't go as far as it used to but it's enough.

That's actually quite a lot when saving. It's more than most people I know have to spend on such luxuries even when not saving