How much per month for personal spends?

[WhenWillWanksWildly]

We’ve always had our own personal ‘pocket money’ set aside from household and joint expenses. We were recently clearing out a drawer of paperwork and found my personal account bank statements from 2007! It was fun to look back at what I used to buy but it struck me that the £100 per month we had has never been increased.

We both work full time and our combined income is pretty decent. We are going to review our spreadsheet and give ourselves a raise this year. Inflation between then and now suggests £162.82. Does £150-200 feel about right?

we allocate £800 per person for our personal spends.

After all bills and savings around £500. I rarely spend it though and add a bit more to savings.

Around £400 a month each but we are about to decrease it to cover more things for our child.

Oh so by personal spends, what you mean is the little housekeeping play money your Dh gives you to keep you on a short leash while he buys his ‘personal spends’ out of your joint money. No wonder the amount hasn’t changed since 2007! 😂

I have no idea what our personal spends are each month are but £100 is about a third of what I spend to keep my horse in livery every month. I’d never get to travel or do my hobbies or have a spa day if I could only spend £100 a month. Bet your Dh would be keen to raise that limit if he had to pay for his own coffees and daily lunches out without you paying for half.

£800pp, which covers gym classes, prescriptions/dentist/contacts/etc, charitable giving, various professional subscriptions and insurances, as well as clothes/shoes/haircuts, seeing friends etc.

No leashes or ‘housekeeping’. We’re both on decent wages and have a good standard of living but I do know that he spends more out of joint money than he should (and so does he). I didn’t think I put that in the try and sway the argument but maybe I did and need to convince myself I should get more rather than we should get more? I do tell him he doesn’t realise how good he’s got it with me!

Some things I wouldn't consider personal spends at all - pets/medical/insurance/charity/gym. The balance has definitely been in my favour more than once in the past if I did consider those as personal spends.

Theres a bigger range of answers than I thought there might. £100 definitely does feel tight for both of us nowadays. It was certainly a shock realising we haven’t given ourselves a raise in 18 years.

Why spend that if Nivea can do the job?

Different strokes and all that.

OP we do £200 per month each. Would like more obviously, but that would mean less going in to joint days out/holiday/car maintenance etc. funds.

At present we have £400 per month each. Everything we buy for ourselves personally comes out of that, plus any presents we want to give. So mine pays for my haircuts, a monthly massage, clothes, books, my Audible subscription, birthday and Christmas presents for my side of the family and for my DH. plus anything else I buy which is just for me. I usually have enough left at the end of the month to put some in my personal savings, but then I might need to take some out of savings for DH's birthday and for Christmas. He has just had his birthday and his present was around £300 so I needed to use some of my savings to top up my personal allowance. If I go out on my own and buy myself a cup of coffee that comes out of my personal money. If we go out together it comes out of our money.

I'm retiring in the summer and our income will drop, so I expect our personal spending allowance will have to drop too. I have already made sure my adult children are aware of that... The budget for birthdays and Christmas will probably have to drop too.

@IVFmumoftwo As I said on a previous post Nivea for me doesn’t do the job. I come out in spots and redness. So I stick to works for me. I’m not advocating we should all do what I do - the OP is asking for perspectives and then will pick and choose what works for her.

I give myself £400 a month, no idea what DH has. It’s plenty for me and I don’t spend it all every month. I save £2k a month though, so if I want to spend more one month I have plenty of savings I can use. I’m pretty low maintenance though and don’t buy a lot in the way of clothes/beauty etc. Most of my spare cash seems to disappear on the (expensive) teens!

Our finances are the same.. basic haircuts and toiletries are joint. Lunches out are personal,
We've just upped our personal allowance to £200/month.

Means I can go out for a dinner and spend a ridiculous amount on wool

How can £100 a month cover ‘weekends away with friends’, among other things!

Life is for living OP, up your budget a bit, even just to account for inflation.

Cerave is pretty good but £100 seems ridiculously extortionate.

@IVFmumoftwo actually I have tried cerave. It might seem ridiculous for you but it works for me and I’m happy! I won’t tell you how much the rest of my creams cost then! 🤣

We have a joint account which we use for household bills, food, vehicle/house/garden expenses, petrol for both cars, joint savings and holidays. These are basically our essential costs for running and maintaining the household, vehicles and paying for holidays.

DH pays much more than I do into this as he earns twice as much as me, but that leaves us with about the same amount each month.

From what we each have left, we put some into personal savings, I cover costs for my DS (things like an allowance, bus fares for 6th form, clothes) and he covers costs for his dog (things like food, vet, kennels).

I have £250 a month left after that, and I think DH has something similar for personal spending.

Since the beginning of this year, I've been putting mine into a separate personal spending account so I can ensure I stick to a budget, as it's easy to dip into savings and I'm trying to avoid that going forward.

Mine is for clothes/shoes/bags, going out with friends, Christmas/birthday presents for friends/family, but also needs to cover things like new glasses, prescriptions, any toiletries bought outside weekly food shop. But I'm trying not to buy any more clothes/shoes/bags this year, let's see how that goes!

DH tends to spend his on CDs, new trainers every few months as he runs a lot and some beer (which doesn't come out of our weekly shop as I don't drink).

If we buy food out, that comes from personal spending, although DH doesn't really do that, but I do as I go out for coffees/meals with friends sometimes. We both mainly WFH so lunch at work is never an issue but when we go to the office we take packed lunches.

We both think it's fair and TBH either of us could save less one month or dip into savings if there was something we particularly wanted to buy. But we're trying not to since we're mid 50s and want to save as much as we can for retirement.

Can't imagine working hard Monday to Friday for a decent salary and only giving myself £100 a month to spend on me. It would take 2 months "pocket money" to get my hair done, 3 months "pocket money" for my Botox.

How can you do weekends away on £100 a month?

We have £250. It used to be plenty, but now I'm paying Mounjaro, it isn't! Fortunately I had built up a surplus and have lots of crap I can sell.

I agree, £100 wouldn’t even cover a dinner/drinks!!

Aside from all bills (including exercise classes, monthly nails and hair etc), I have different pots I add to every month including one for travel - I’d use that money for flights and accommodation. My spending money (day to day or on a trip) would come from monthly allocated ‘personal spend’, probably 1k a month but it rolls over if I don’t spend it all.

I truly don’t understand how you’re doing anything on £100 a month??

£300 for me, but I could definitely spend double