Advice on my general back to work money plan

[166lady]

I am 30 with 2 very young kids (under 2.5 years old). I’ve been a SAHM for 2 yrs and I am planning on going back to work in a couple months and putting them in nursery 2 days a week (I’ll be working 2 days a week).

My income will be around £1700 monthly. I will split £700 equally between a private pension and general savings pot. I’ll give myself around £400 spending money for treats clothes beauty etc and send rest to DH to help with household bills (inc fuel groceries and a junior ISA for the kids).

Is £400 personal money excessive? I’ve been living off less whilst being at home but thought as I’m working 2 days I’d give myself some more leeway and enjoy abit more.

I would start with this
400 pension
300 savings
400 personal spends
At the end of each month add any unspent personal spends to your savings

Eg if you underspend by £52 your monthly savings become 352.

I have upweighted your pension due to gap in work / power of compounding.

I would do this and review in 3 months. In any reviews I would prioritise "feeding" the pension and once you have a good few k in savings next year or whenever you are happy you have a savings buffer... I'd increase the pension contributions again.

Millennial are crap at saving for pensions. Don't be one of them.

Op it is all dependent on lifestyle isn’t it

What is your husband’s income?

What does DH have for personal spending? You should both have the same.

Yes he does have around the same for spending (actually abit more I think as when we go out as a family he will pay most of the time for lunches or random outings)

He earns generally well (around £3.5k monthly)

This is true I hadn’t thought of it like this, I will definitely look into giving more into pension and then seeing how things pan out and if I need to move things around. Issue was as I was self employed before my pension suffered as I didn’t think about it but I am definitely going to add to it from now on

Eeekkk then definitely 💯 prioritise your pension now.
I would look to continue to raise contributions as you increase your working hours .....

As the poster above said, depends on lifestyle. I have regular hair & nail appointments and spend a bit on beauty products and clothes. £600 would be realistic for me.
it also depends on whether you’re having to buy clothes etc got the kids. Soft play trips etc also add up.
i agree that you should have the same spends (and pension!) as your DH. We pooled our joint Income, deducted the bills,savings etc and split what was left between our personal accounts.