What would you do with this amount of money each month ?

[fogginghell]

What would you do with £2,400 income a month ?

You don't have to buy food, pay bills/ mortgage/rent or do big house improvements (as that's already taken care of) . You do have to buy all your own clothes /stuff and that of your dc.

I'd spend it all I wouldn't want to leave my money to somebody else if I died tomorrow to enjoy whilst I've been the one doing all the hard work to earn it. Selfish I no oh well shoot me.

I’d buy 2 more horses and a lovely horsebox and take up eventing. Currently only have 1 semi retired old horse and can’t afford another.

fogginghell if it will go to pay off the mortgage anyway why not use it for that directly, then it's clearly provable that you're paying the mortgage too should you ever split... As it is if you split after children are 18 it could be argued you kept your salary for yourself and your DH paid mortgage and bills therefore the house is his, or at best majority his...

This is super boring but you can download bank statements into excel, I then colour code what i’m spending so I can get an idea on where my money is going. I do this every few years or if I get that feeling of how can I be skint with nothing to show for it!

Pay £750 per month directly off the mortgage on top of the required payments DH makes, save £750 in a not for the mortgage savings account (or invest in a small buy to let...), spend £900 on whatever you want for the children and yourself.

Save save save. Travel travel travel !

I'd travel around the world and have adventures! But if I had kids, I would save it. I'd buy (and rent out in the meantime) little flats for my children to have when they leave home.

You can easily get a grip on where it goes. Download your bank statement, credit card statement as .csv. and play around with the spreadsheet for a few hours. You'll be surprised / horrified when you start categorising each spend!

The rest of it just disappears. I have no idea where and I don't know how to get a handle on it

First step: Keep a spending diary. Note down EVERY exepense every day, no matter how small. After a month or two you'll get a good sense of where the money goes. Then you can get a handle on it.

I would try to save at least £2k of that. Then I'd use it to buy an investment property.

So my answer probably wouldn't work for you, but in the same mindset, aiming to work less/retire etc, I'd look to save a lot of that money, especially as it appears to be entirely discretionary - you say that you pay for groceries and bits from B&M on DHs credit card, so there's probably more spending there that you aren't counting, on top of what you are spending.

The sort of things I would think about, when deciding what to do - I'm not asking you to tell me the answers to these questions, but more, think about it yourself/talk to DH about:

Is your house filled with stuff and does this bring you joy? Also look at what your DH is spending so you get the bigger picture - what's going on the credit card each month - most allow you to download and categorise a year's worth of transactions, so you can see what you're spending where, although it's not 100% accurate, eg if you buy lots of clothes, books, alcohol, make up, household goods at the supermarket, it will categorise all these as groceries I believe.

Do you have good pensions and what's your mortgage rate?

Do you expect your DC to go to university? Do you want to help them with house deposits?

How secure are your jobs and do you like doing them? Are you on track to retire when you want to? What assets do you have - house, savings and investments?

It's probably also worth looking at what your DH is spending, if you say he doesn't save.

Obviously there's no need to live on an austerity budget, but what you don't want is to find that you can't afford to retire, you can't help your DC, one of you becomes ill or loses their job and you've nothing to fall back on, because you haven't saved enough. Also, if your mortgage rate is above about 1.5 -2%, it's probably worth overpaying that, rather than saving elsewhere, as that's a guaranteed return.

I'd probably be aiming (or overpay the mortgage, but watch for penalties) to save £1500 to £2000 per month and then spend the rest without worrying about it so much, but be mindful of buying stuff you don't need for the sake of it.

I would also overpay on the mortgage up to the maximum you can without being charged. It will be more cost effective as you'll be paying more and more off the capital and therefore the interest will be less etc.
I would make sure everything I bought clothing and footwear wise for myself was exactly what I wanted and good qualify therefore making savings in the long run.
I would set aside money for holidays and also save for long term.
I would have a 7 seater car.
But in reality I think I'd just work part time 🤣

Saving is boring but it's what I do.

Deep breath, I have four times this each month as disposable income and have paid off the mortgage, have good savings etc as well as help family out etc. Once you know you can buy anything from the shops you tend not to want to buy anything/as much, iyswim?

Do you save 1k a month and then blow 2. 4k on God knows what or is the 1k Inc of the 2.4?

Go through your online bank statements and list it all. Even if you can't remember what you brought across 5 visits to Next you'll know that you spend £1k thereand it must be on clothes etc for example.

Then I'd work out what I think is reasonable to spend on the things I spend it on, and budget accordingly. Update a budget spreadsheet once a week so when you get to week 3 and you've spent your £800 limit on clothes you know you can't buy any more until next month.

If the 1k is Inc in the 2.4 I'd say
£1 k savings (hard to access)
£400 savings (fairly easy to access)
£100 Christmas and birthday gifts (DH should contribute to one's for family and kids obviously)
£300 clothes
£150 hair and beauty of this matters to you but Inc's kids
£200 discretionary spends

That leaves £250. What else matters? Assume DH covers kids activities. Do you need to save for holidays? School holiday activities? If not add £50 to the 5 categories above

Wow @CalmDownConan. Is that from career/Work, combined income with DP or from inheritance/investment/luck?
If you don't mind my asking.

(Nosy cow!)

Monzo bank account let’s you break down all your spending into categories so you can see exactly what you are spending it on. You can also put money aside in pots for specific items and it gets removed from your available spend.

I didn’t have any disposable left over when I had children at home but now at 63 I’ve paid off my mortgage and have a decent car, helped all adult children through university, rent deposits, bought grandchildren’s shoes etc and enjoy a couple of holidays a year ( including travelling to visit 2 adult children and families abroad), theatre etc.
However, the only reason I can do this without still working full time with very small teachers pension and not reaching state pension age for another 3 years, is because I had a small inheritance from my late elderly parents.
So what I’m trying to say is, if I’d had dispensable income at your age, I would have tried to invest/save so that whatever life threw at me , I would have enough to enjoy the latter part of my life, whatever it threw at me.

Hope that all makes sense .

WineIsMyCarb I should have said we, not I, a good chunk of our monthly income is from DH work - my salary covers our local bills so we can save the rest. We both live in a developing country advising to the government, so salaries are generally higher for our skills in this respect (think infrastructure development). Been out of the UK for 10+ years.

I think luck has been involved to some extent and reading the mood music of where the opportunities are and being flexible, willing and able to move. No other help unfortunately (fortunately?).

As PP said you need to sit down and go through credit/bank statements with a highlighter. I did this and it was illuminating! And painful. Two hours well spent.

Then you need an excel spreadsheet. IMHO better than any app.

This changed my approach entirely.

I’m in similar circumstances. I used to spend on crap without thinking. Now I transfer the bulk into an account with no debit card. I don’t need more clothes, etc (and I had accumulating) and it’s nice seeing the amount the grow every month as it means I don’t need to worry about travel or the big things that matter.

My earnings are my own and I don't have any 'essential' expenses. Investments also come from DH income. While it's tempting to 'up your game' in terms of buying luxury items, I think the novelty would wear thin pretty soon. The older I get, the less I want stuff and my hobbies are pretty cheap ( walking, galleries). I pay myself a set amount each month ( nowhere near £2400) and save the rest. I'm very disciplined about the amount, and treat it as a fixed salary. My 'pay' covers social expenses, lovely days out, clothes etc as well as my children's expensive hobbies ( weekly occupational therapy included). I do pay for our holidays, which have become increasingly lovely.

The rest I save and invest. I enjoy seeing the money grow and learning about where to put money for the best return.

Invest it for my teenage children and help my elderly dad out.

This thread is quite depressing really for people who don't even have that amount a month before expenses sigh

Save into pension. Save into accounts for my kids for their future education/training. Have some excellent holidays. Pay for private school.

Sorry @Tensixtysix I didn't mean to depress you.
Dh and I both come from working class backgrounds and have had times in the difficult past when we've put food back at the till as we havnt had enough money to cover it. I do realise we are very lucky now and I appreciate every little thing, that's why I'm trying to be very careful going forward. x

Save it as soon as you get it by setting up a direct debit to a saving account . That way you can’t spend it . Overpay the mortgage. I’d be aiming to be mortgage free ASAP .