Where does your money go?

[Blueberriesandbows]

I earn reasonably well - good job and not on min wage. In upper tax bracket. Yet I run out of money every month. I budget but could be better. I feel like budgets dont take into account what things cost now...my budget of a year ago isn't working. Nothing Has changed . I could easily afford 2 lunches a week out say ler week during work. Now my local sandwich shop wants 7 fucking quid for a blt!! It's a baguette but still. I never thought id be at the point of having to make all lunches myself for work. What are your experiences? Do u also find it tricky or just budget better? It's been a hard summer . Its not even the 20th and I have run out of money. My blt is tasting stale at that thought8

Yeah I definitely dont budget thoroughly enough and have never had to but it's now catching up on me ! I'd have a 12 pound cake and coffee most weekends. Lunches twice a week easily. A takeaway per week. I think i am going to have to reign it all in and see how much money I have technically wasted every month... but it sucks as its not lavish or never used to be ! I don't know how lower income families cope. Honestly . I give myself between 800 and 1000 a month spending money. It sounds like a shit ton. I run out quickly. What do you frugal lot do ? Whats your budget for yourself gor spending after bills and food ? This includes clothes for me and dc BTW but I spend less on that now as I've just decided it's a waste and never really makes me feel happy

Coffee shops and sandwich shops take the piss.

You can easily spend £20 on tea, bread a lettuce but get two dishes and rice at a Chinese/Indian takeaway which will be far more filling/satisfying.

Food is our biggest expense. I used to earn less but have more disposable income...now food prices have eaten up my increase in wages and i have less disposable income than before. I'm grateful I am not struggling too much but it's very disheartening

Mortgage
Utilities
Food
Stuff for the kids
Cars are paid off

Tbh I try to be really careful with money. The majority of the time I cook from scratch, I'd say 99% of our meals are homemade.

I occasionally buy clothes but rarely as I have FAR too many, and WFH requires a different wardrobe so I'm basically wearing up years of over purchasing

£800 a month?! That’s loads!! Although does depends what it covers. If just fun money that’s bonkers, if it’s your car etc then that’s different.

I probably spend around £100 on me to include clothes,
make up and hair. The. I save another £100 odd for holidays eg went to see Take That with my holiday fund last month.

But if you ask where my money goes. Food. That’s where it goes. My teens can inhale food like it’s going out of fashion. I cook from scratch, 3 meals a day at home and am spending £700 a month. Seems ridiculous when I get free eggs and beef!

My regular monthly outgoings are £1850 (including regular savings) which leaves me £1650 for food, eating out, holidays and clothes. I don’t budget
speifically but always have plenty left over. I make a weekly meal plan (including packed lunches!) and do a weekly food shop, rarely do “top up” shops because I think you end up buying more than you went for. I have
coffee & cake/ bacon roll out most weekends, sometimes lunch and dinner out maybe once every 4-6 weeks. don’t do takeaways and have a very M&S / next sort of budget wardrobe. I’m low maintenance when it comes to hair and beauty too!

A large chunk seems to go on replacing stuff i already bought once and it didnt last as long as I hoped. So it always seems to be a fridge, or an oven, or a washing machine, or a vacuum, or the boiler, or car bits, or a sofa which collapsed, or flooring that got wet, swelled and disintegrated.

I started adulthood thinking i'd make these big purchases and that would be that but some im on my third go on some items already.

I get a meal deal from Sainsbury for £3.95 as it includes a Costa hot chocolate. I go to Lidl’s and buy a ready made salad for £1.25 and add half a packet of cooked chicken breast for £1.99 ( save the other half for the following day.

Ive down graded, my money goes further that way

i update my budget quarterly, have a 5 year plan. Save more than I can afford- so I can take nice holidays

but I still run out of money by week 3

need to get back on the monthly meal prep as that was saving me £150 a month

As others have suggested, you need to track your spending and work out where your money is going.

Most people in the country never earn enough to pay the higher rate of tax, and obviously manage with what they have.

None of us can really say where your money goes as that is something you need to track yourself. I know where my money goes as I've always had to track my spending.

On Monday I made:

A big pan of veggie soup
A bacon and courgette quiche, with 5 eggs
A massive pasta salad with veg
Two chocolate/courgette loaf cakes

Me and DH have had that for lunches all week. It probably cost £30 max to make, and it's made easily ten meals, there's still cake leftover.

And I don't feel like I've missed out.

I have a spreadsheet with all income and outgoings on it. I use Monzo and then allocate money to various ‘pots’ to keep me on track. I highly recommend. This allows me to save what I can, put money aside for ‘treats’ that month, make sure I’ve got enough for all the stuff the kids need that month and then spend the rest. I’m noticing that I’m needing to put more money in my ‘food shopping’ and ‘kids’ pots each month and that I have less free money.

I refuse to put less in my savings as I know I’m going to need them one day and worry that Im going to need to start dipping in prematurely. As a result, I eat out less, make my own lunches and generally try to be a bit more frugal. I try where possible not to go over allocated budgets for things like food shopping but do find that during the last week of the month I’m shuffling money around various pots and just generally have less. It’s frustrating as I work hard and feel like I should have more financial freedom than I do. I really feel for those on low incomes and have no idea how some families are surviving- it’s a disgrace really.

OP, just wondering what your £800pm is meant to cover? DH and I have £175 each, this covers our personal treats (ie coffee out, doing something with our own friends, buying eachother presents, toiletries that are more treats than essential etc). We spend approx £70pm on gym/exercise classes. We're both retired, so easily do coffee & cake out, a lunch out and trip to pub one afternoon each week - this costs approx £240pm. So that's where £660pm goes - we can add to that with mini breaks away, camping, winter log cabin, other trips. This is all nice, but not essential. On the other hand, we're quite happy to take lunch with us (we've always took our own lunch to work) - I guess it depends what your priorities are.

If you're starting to struggle with prices going up, take a long look at everything you've paid out for from your £800pm budget - think about what's essential, how you can do some things a bit cheaper.

Absolute rage bait 😂😂

For anyone struggling to budget, do the first couple of episodes of Rebel Finance School on YouTube, you can download all the budgeting tools.

Write down for a month every penny spent. It let's you see where your money is going.

My monthly budget is total income less standing orders and I amend this every year or so. Anything that isn’t a s/o or d/d gets written down in my diary and I keep a running total. Seeing the running total stops me overspending. Last month I had to replace my hoover and take the dog to the vets so early on in the month I knew I had spent £300+ so needed to keep any unnecessary spending low. If you aren’t good at budgeting it’s worth sub-totalling at the end of the month to see just how much you are spending on each category and see if you can reduce it.

I have a savings account linked to my current account and if I don’t spend the full budget one month I transfer what I didn’t spend into that to be used for holidays or whatever,

I’m retired now, but always used to take a packed lunch to work.