Done to death but how much is left for the average person!

[procratinationstations]

Following on from last week's huge thread about 100k earners, it got me thinking is what we have left over after bills considers average or fortunate. DH thinks everyone else is better off but I think he'd be shocked.

Family of 5, 3 teens. No school fees, no clubs or hobbies. 2 dogs who are small and cheap
own! An old car that isn't used much and an average house, with average mortgage and costs.

We have £300 after household bills left each to cover anything that isn't food, toiletries or supplies (dog food, prescriptions etc) so that's clothes for all of us, haircuts, takeaways (we never have these though!) going out anywhere for any of us, travel, kids lunch at sch, birthday presents etc.

Is this normal - I'm not moaning - I just want to know where we are in the scheme of things.

Save about £1500 monthly and fritter about £1000 on non necessities such as saving for holidays, subscriptions, charity, meals out, clothes, gifts. Very lucky here.

No idea as I've never been organised enough to analyse it properly. Just happy and grateful that we can live without loans (other than mortgage) and just about manage to stay out of overdraft every month. We generally have 1 holiday a year and buy whatever we like to eat, but don't eat out all that often or have takeaways. We run 2 very old cheap cars.

When Covid struck I had to reluctantly cancel our three monthly donations to charity as my DH's income disappeared. Must put that right now that we're back on track.

I think your budget is really tight. Have a look here www.jrf.org.uk/report/minimum-income-standard-uk-2021

I don't thin they'd count your income as reaching a minimum living standard.

I don't know whether you can cut your bills (and if you're spending £250 a week on food or driving a vehicle that does 20 mpg, I think that might be the problem!). If not, I think you really have very little compared to many (more than some though of course).

Assume you mean £300 a month not a week. Is that right?

I bought dd some new pyjamas this month and re stocked cleaning products that I don't need to buy weekly or monthly. As a result I'm not able to pay the internet bill so I'd say I have nothing left

@Shehasadiamondinthesky. Do you mind telling us what degree you did for what new profession? I have a yen to do likewise!

My finances are a nightmare.

Single parent, 3DC, student. Can’t work as it’s a STEM degree, so pretty much there 9-5 Mon-Fri.

£250 child support. Which is a joke considering how much he earns/the lifestyle he has whilst barely seeing our DC.

I’d say around £100 left a month after rent, bills, food. I don’t drive. I can’t afford to learn, let alone pay the eye watering first year of car insurance/buy a car/etc etc.

My direct debits that cover the usual mortgage, utilities, insurances, subscriptions etc. comes to around £1000. My net income is £3,100 pcm and I have no kids or live in partner.

I usually spend £800-1,100 a month on general stuff which includes my groceries, leisure, frivolous purchases etc. as well as non monthly expenses such as car stuff, vets, holidays and the odd big purchase. I could spend a lot less but don't see the need.

I then usually save £1,200 a month by overpaying the mortgage and saving into a S&S ISA. Sometimes less if I've had an expensive month e.g. booking a holiday. I keep a float in my current account which usually sits between £700-£1,500 at month end and have a separate emergency fund of around £8,000.

I used to be so skint I couldn't heat the house so this is a nice change. I'm early 30s.

I usually have approx £1200 left a month after everything is paid. I’m not a particularly high earner. But (and it’s a big but) my DC are fully adult and financially independent. I had very little spare cash all through their childhood. It’s tough. Having DC costs an absolute fortune! That being said, I am frugal day to day. Don’t have a car (live in London), no cleaner or memberships like the gym. Don’t spend on beauty and not much on clothing.

Having been pretty poor for most of my life, I do appreciate my situation now. Being able to buy what I want (within reason) is a lovely feeling.

In theory, around £1500 between DH and I after bills, mortgage and food. But in reality, there’s always something cropping up (our white goods seem to be taking it in turn to pack) and I know what our monthly food spend nowhere near covers what we need, I’m using more petrol than ever as older teen DC have got part time jobs where there isn’t a public transport route, so I’m never out the car, and the cost of petrol is racing upward, as is the cost of food.

Our money should be going further, but it isn’t.

I am not moaning btw, I am very fortunate, ten years ago DH was patching up my one pair of boots with duct tape so they would be reasonably watertight for my getting to work.

After food and bills I have about £800 for the month. I send £500 to various savings so use the £300 for everything else.

Our finances our separate and Dh has around the same although earns less so pays less bills.

Forgot to add, about ten years ago I was a single parent to three and had £300 a month after bills, food had to come out of that.

About -£200! Hoping once we get out of the childcare fee years things will improve but it's hard, especially if something unexpected crops up as we have no savings either so have to use a credit card and pay it off over the year.

About £6k a month left over after bills, could be more if I chose as I set my own salary. Go back 6 years though and we were in a terrible situation where I was a carer for our sick child and husband had to change job to one barely over minimum wage to be close to home for said child after the long commute was proving a problem when they were blue lighted into hospital a few times and at that time we were going more than £1000 more into debt every month. Ended up more than £50,000 in debt. Necessity is the mother of invention, I was so stressed I didn't sleep at night over our finances, I started working self employed from home and on an evening to fit around his job so one of us was always available for our child, it went well, I took on staff to do the face to face stuff while I did all the admin from home, continued to go well, husband got a job back in his original field which is WFH fully thanks to the pandemic, and we ended up paying off all our debt and mortgage by our mid 30s which just is never a situation I imagined being in when our child was born sick and our lives changed so much. I feel very lucky every day to be here, but I do save most of our money as I'm aware it takes very little to be back where we were 6 years ago (still live in the first house we bought when we married, only one car and that's company owned, although we do have lots of hobbies and travel).

[quote DrNo007]@Shehasadiamondinthesky. Do you mind telling us what degree you did for what new profession? I have a yen to do likewise![/quote]
I did a podiatry degree. I just couldn't stick the 12 hour shifts in nursing any more and do 9-5. Private podiatry is exceptionally lucrative at the moment as hospitals are kicking out their routine patients post covid so they can do more wound care.
I work in the NHS but my private podiatrist friend often earns up to 5K a month.

After bills, kids activities, food and transport, £1,100 for a family of four. Overpay the mortgage and save the rest, although some of the savings pots are short term. We run two old cars, I'd love newer ones but that would reduce the surplus massively.

We've been worse off in the past with one of us on min wage and other part time but earned £200 more than the threshold for child tax credit. I'd look at spreadsheets with less than £100 left knowing we'd likely drop into overdraft or use a credit card.

Even though we are earning more, I still have to exert real discipline for the last week of each month. Once the mortgage is paid off we'll be in a much nicer position.

After all bills and food we have about £1000 left for a family of 5. That pays for kids activities, day trips, clothes etc.

We're definitely 'normal' earners...no £100k salaries in sight

Family of 5. Total income - £3800pm. No debt. Renting.
All bills (including dcs clubs as DD's) - £1900.
Usual budget for food, petrol and household stuff - £1000pm.
We have £900 a month left over. We save £250 into a long term savings share plan and generally manage to spend the remaining £650 on nice to haves or extras - days out, holidays, takeaways, unnecessary stuff for house/garden/dc etc.

We should probably save more but life is for living and all that.

I don’t really knows I just know that we have enough money to spend 😂 which sounds awful .
We have no debt or mortgage
We both have new cars well mine is almost 3 years old so I will probably get another one next year when the lease ends and DH is 18 months old
If I want to buy something within reason I can
So I can’t go a buy a super yacht or a brand new Ferrari or Rolls Royce
But if I want to spend 5k on a holiday I can without thinking about it I just tell DH that’s what I’m doing
I gave my adult son £500 to go on a two week AI holiday a few weeks ago .
My son is getting my what would have been my inheritance when my parents house is sold as the money won’t make any real difference to my every day life
I put everyday stuff on my credit card but it’s always paid off every month

Varies monthly, after bills/horse/food/sports etc are paid for we have between £1400-£3000 left

Nothing at all.