AIBU to ask what you have left monthly after bills?

Pennies, if that much!
Being disabled and having to try to exist on benefits doesn't leave anything spare.

I’m a single mother on UC living with my parents who are in their 70s and my DS3.

I have no rent or bills to pay other than my mobile phone and food for me and DS.

My income is around £815 per month and I end up spending £450 and saving the rest. I used to spend £1000pm but had to cut down drastically by not buying clothes anymore, no coffee when out and about and no take aways.

I basically don’t buy anything for myself and only spend money on food or bus travel. I buy everything for my DS on Vinted, my coffee is free with a Waitrose card or £1 with Vodafone at Caffè Nero.

Despite all of the above, I am quite content and feel comfortably off. I’m able to save around £350 as a safety buffer.

Ironically, I feel happier now that I spend £450 a month rather than £1000. I feel more satisfied with what I have. Now I know why people who earn £100k a year feel poor- it’s because every time they get a raise, their expenses go up too - shopping at Lidl for £50 will fill you up the same way as £350 from Ocado but you’d have low self-esteem when your next door neighbours are buying everything from expensive supermarkets.

It massively depends what you are counting as 'bills'

In my head there are the 'core' bills which have to be paid, no matter what:

Mortgage
Council tax
Water
Elec and Gas
Car insurance
Home insurance /life insurance

After these core bills we have several thousand left but there is still a lot has to come out of that.

The there's a whole lot of other bills which actually if we were completely completely skint and in real trouble we could cut:

TV /Internet package
Kids private tuition costs (not private school fees, stuff like maths tutor if struggling with gcse)
Kids extracurricular costs like sport/drama/music clubs
Memberships of professional bodies
Other subscriptions for phones, small subscription type apps
Union membership costs

This sort of stuff takes out probably another £600 - £700 per month

Then you have stuff like food, petrol, clothing, transport costs, which while not technically bills? Have to be paid, they are essentials, and they are pretty big sums for most people. If you really include everything, like food, car fuel, haircuts, dentist, optician, clothing, money for birthday and Christmas gifts, school trip costs, even modest amounts for little bits of socialising.... This is going to be easily £1500 for most families, half of it alone will likely be food/petrol. You also can't avoid home maintenance costs which might be irregular but do have to be paid eg boiler servicing, the washing machine breaks and you need a new one etc etc.

So while it would be easy to say there's thousands left after bills that would be naive, the reality is a lot less than that after real essentials are paid, and that's before luxuries like holidays, some will have luxury lease car costs.

After bills/food etc there is nothing left :(solo parent. Do 2 jobs and earn c 50k but mortgage is 1200 a month and rest just piles on. Its hard but I always go with life works out eventually

Similar:( single income (well i work nearly full time and have a side hustle) /solo parent. I dread a disaster /unexpected bill. Relying on vinted sales to make up deficit and trying to find a 3rd job:(

£250 on food is great. I’m a single mum of 1 and spend at least £500 a month on food but we do have play dates. I’ve tried to cut it down, I don’t know what I’m doing wrong 🙈

If i have a "perfect" month where all goes to
plan (and I stick to my £200 a month spending money) then:

£3.77

However I am a planner so I am saving up monthly for things like:

passport renewal in 2027
new tyres; I will need new eventually...
boiler service
etc

you might say i micro manage my money!

The day before pay day, so after absolutely everything has been paid for, under £100.

I'm a single parent earning 40k/year. I haven't been able to save since November. There's very little room for unexpected expenses and it makes me very anxious.

Between us we get £3400 (ish) a month.

£1200 rent
£160 council tax
£200 gas/electric
£170 maintenance
£200 petrol (2 cars)
£60 car insurance
£55 Sky
£200 savings
£30 savings (child)
£95 holiday
£50 water
£45 sky mobile
£60 (subscriptions like Netflix, prime)
£250 shopping
£160 daughters activities
£95 IVA
£100 Credit card
£15 tv licence
£100 car payment

we don’t buy clothes every month, and don’t have birthdays every month.

£3245 total outgoings so we have £155 left over. Which usually goes towards things like extra petrol, birthdays etc.

when worked part time, I got £416 a month but the rest was benefits as I worked 20 hours a week; but that was 20 years ago….. and I know times have changed, but I rarely had anything left over. I always remember putting away £10 for emergency taxied and enough for a day saver bus ticket so I could see my mom once a week.

After mortgage, council tax, energy bills and phone, broadband, gym etc we have 7,500 ish. But we both are high earners. As a % we spend about 28% of our income after tax and pension on mortgage and bills.

Minus £220. Nothing spare at all. I take home £2100. Plus have an extra job to help.

We have about 2.9k left each month after bills. Food, holidays, savings etc come out of that 2.9k.

I consider food shopping and fuel a bill, so that comes out of our account for household expenses, as do things like days out or dc’s activities.

Generally, I have about £1000 a month that doesn’t go into the account for bills. Some of that does end up going on necessary expenses (additional fuel, unexpected repair, food shopping for a family event that’s a one off). So it’s not like I have £1000 every month to spend on clothes and my brows (I have never had my brows done 🤣 and I might buy clothes once a year when I absolutely must). Generally, it goes on medicine and parking and hobbies and vet bills and at the moment, I’m taking a work related qualification that I pay for myself that’s like £300 a month.

I’m not a single parent though and I’d consider us quite comfortable.

Thank you, I’m doing my best with the little I do have!

Wow ...... amazing amount left over

@UnhappyHobbiti think average salary of £38k a year will be based on average full time salary whereas the average household income of £55k a year will be taking into account all those people who work part time. So if you had an average salary of £38k a year but worked 3 days a week that's ~£23k a year as your household income.

Is that correct? The BBC published yesterday that the UK national average household gross income of £55,000.

I love the simplicity here . It would be easy to fritter away£167 but you have your head screwed on .

I know it is. You need to stop being so ridiculously narrow minded.

Single and no children and left with about 3,500 after bills. Try and save about 2,500. I’m saving for a house.
I’m very fortunate for this salary and have also previously been in debt and struggling, so I don’t take it for granted.

About £700 would be more if I didn’t have a bad spending habit of buying clothes on credit 😆

Dual income, mortgage paid off and child is an adult who has recently graduated and is working FT.

Our stage of life is different to you and I have never been in your position.

After bills, we have approx 3.4k left per month.

Nothing

Ah ah, nothing. Literally, I live in the red. Paycheck to paycheck.

Not sure but rent council tax electricity and heating oil , electricity internet and insurances around £2300 then cards around £300 then food around £700 , petrol £300 so around £300 left . Mum to 3