How much "mad money" do you have?

We don’t separate out money like this but I reckon we probably spend around £800-900 a month average on the things you mention, days out, meals out, clothes, hair cuts, sometimes less, sometimes more. It hasn’t always been that much, used to be less, but if we had credit card debt then we wouldn’t be spending that- it would all be going towards paying off the debt.

We have £350 each here.

That covers all hobbies, phone bill, personal spends like clothes hair and toiletries, gifts (except for DC), travel that isn't family travel eg weekends away with friends, food and drink bought for ourselves.

A weekend away, a new pair of glasses / shoes or a hair cut and colour wipes me out!

Nothing really.

Not saying we don't have treats or a social life, but it's not to be spent in the way you describe.

If we had £400 a month spare we could have a nice holiday every year, instead of being sick with envy of all our friends jetting off all over.

1400 into joint account
1000 into savings
700-800 for me.

since you asked I have no debts a beautiful detached house in lovely area with no mortgage, about 150k in savings and enough pension to have about 2k disposable each month.

edited or type

I agree with this. I spend what I want rather than a predefined monthly amount.

We have collectively got 35 grand in savings and add collectively £1100 to it monthly not including pensions.

we still don’t have “mad” money. We get £150 each a month to fund anything discretionary including going out or takeaways. When it’s finished it’s finished and we wait till the following month.

I spend whatever I want and just keep a general eye on not going too crazy. I put everything on my credit card for the points and pay it in full every month. So I never spend more than I have in my bank account that isn’t already earmarked for something.

I would definitely argue that if you have credit card debt, your mad money budget should be zero.

You joking?! Being given £400 a month isn’t sad 😂 most people would love that surely.

Me and DH both have £100 a week into our monzos to do whatever with, however also free spending from the joint accounts of course. I try and keep kids things from the joint and things just for me from the Monzo but so often I buy things for various people in one transaction. I rarely spend all of my money.

Mate if you have £3000 credit card debt you do not have £400 "mad money".

We save and we have “weekly spends” which is basically what is left after bills/savings divided by the weeks in the month. But we also “pay” ourselves £200 each which is our own money to spend on what we like. Nights out, clothes, hobbies. Etc

How on earth have you run up £3k on a credit card if you really have £400 a month to fritter on crap? What on earth are you buying? I get £60 and DH and I have joint fun money of £60 for a date night or similar.

Is that £400 really just fun money or do things you need to buy e.g. Christmas presents come out of it too?

Is having an extras pot stopping you overspending or does it just make it seem normal to spend that much every month? I think you feel obliged to spend it as a monthly outgoing when it's not. It's your opportunity for savings being frittered away

Fair enough, each to his own. I guess those people wouldn’t have so much money if they were mad spenders anyway

I don’t have an amount as such - as a couple we pool all our money and we don’t specify “mad money” or a personal budget. We have a current account and we just pay for things out of the one big “pot”, nothing is allocated. I probably wouldn’t spend more than a couple of hundred pounds on one item for myself without checking with DH, but he wouldn’t care if I did.

I can afford anything I need and I don’t have many frivolous wants - if I want or need trainers or a haircut I’ll just pay for them, albeit my last trainers were £29 and I cut my own hair. But I don’t fritter money, I just don’t enjoy buying or having “stuff” for the sake of it.

.

@Strangequinoaconcoction I have tens of thousands in savings but that’s for emergencies and/or pension so it doesn’t affect how much I get to spend on myself.

I have about £300 a month going spare but at the moment it’s not really fun money as most of it is going on dentistry. 🙄 (This is something I didn’t previously have to budget for but has now become an issue so I will now be putting aside a proportion of my savings towards dentistry as I suspect there is a fair bit more dental work to come).

But when I do get to spend it, I would spend it on birthday presents if someone has a birthday that month, maybe a lunch out with a friend. I spend some on vape liquids. Occasionally clothes but I don’t buy clothes often. A good quality shampoo and conditioner- again I don’t have to buy this often as I only wash my hair once a week.

I have £225 a month just for me. I put between £50 and £100 in a different account for irregular activity (eg once a year I have a weekend away with friends)

A lot of people have tens or hundreds of thousands in savings so the concept of just having a few hundred a month to indulge themselves doesn’t really apply.