To ask how much disposable income you have at the end of the month?

[Mrsshearsagain]

We have about 1000 left at the end of each month after everything is paid and still feel skint

Zero but if I was in your position I would keep a spending diary & then examine where all the money is going. I would also save about 500 monthly for an emergency & top up my pension.

...

According to the money advise person, after bills, allowing for £70p/w on food, I will have £250-ish per month to play with.

I consider myself to be very fortunate and intend to spend this on computing and programming qualifications as well as perusing my hobby in canine obedience and training.

russianblu I didn't include haircuts or kids activities in the 'bills' but in disposable income. In the bills bit I include all essentials like mortgage, electricity, nursery fees etc. if I was to allow for toiletries and haircuts etc (which are essential), my disposable income really falls... :-(

I haven't had a haircut for about 3 years and I spend the absolute bare minimum on toiletries.

They are not essential.

Depends on how often I have had to stay in hotels during the month, so could be anywhere between €3 & 9k. Seems a fortune? Yes, but I am self - employed & nit entitled to any kind of state benefits, so I try to have 6 to 12 months' worth of basic living money saved from when I am working. It costs me around €1700 per month to live, mortgage, bills, health insurance, food. I do not live in the UK.

Well it depends in what you mean by essential. A haircut can lift your mood better than a lot of things and trying out a new facecream gives me a boost, I don't know about others.

Feeling like a scrag end wouldn't be worth the money saved.

This must be the worst, 'I'm well off' thread ever

£1000 a month is quite a lot of disposable income so you sound like you're doing OK. It took us a long time to get to this stage and it's easier to fritter than you might think. Are you finding that you're going out a lot to eat as this is a great way of losing lots of cash. Whatever you are doing just reign it in a bit.

Fwiw this isn't a boast but we have quite a lot more disposable than you and it takes discipline to not feel skint. It's easy to live to your means but IMHO you need to watch the pennies constantly.

Thank you, OP, for daring to ask something I always wanted to know. I have a similar amount to you but feel extremely rich although we both work damned hard for our income. It's taken ages to get to this stage and we write everything down as we spend so we can see where it's going. We have lived through times where we had no disposable income and we may be in that position again at any time.

'feeling like a scrag' is irrelevant when you need to pay for food.

I'm fortunate not to have to choose.. but my haircuts are only 20 quid anyway. I've modeled for students for free when they have assessments so there are ways around that. When my daughter was studying her level 2 they were always hunting around for people to model for them.

We were made up the other month when we had £4 in the account at the end of it.

But that was after bills etc, and spending on clubs, activities and other things you spend disposable income on.

If everyone were like the majority on this thread, with no spare cash at all after essentials, then surely the majority of people would end up unemployed. It is thanks to people like the op making all of these 'frivolous' purchases that so many people have a job to go to. Threads like this seem to turn into a competition as to who is the worst off. This is certainly not representative of 'real life' judging by the number of people who holiday abroad, have regular big days out eg legoland.

Our income is not big by any means, in fact I am a fulltime student. However we have always been very frugal and so have savings. My husband and I are the only people I know who don't have expensive mobile phones etc. I think there are people who believe they are frugal, but actually aren't, and I bet some on this thread fall into that category. Does anyone here NOT have a TV? Internet? Mobile phone? Sky TV? Holidays, meals/snacks out, nights out? We had none of these things for years after we got married in order to save a deposit to buy a house, I don't see anyone living like that now.

TV and Internet ARE essentials in this country. According to the poverty scale.

Which we fall under because of our income and because we don't have carpets upstairs. We haven't had a night/meal out in over a year, not had a holiday since the kids were born.

Lots of people live like that, I am not suggesting that people should feel bad for how they live, its great that people have good jobs and work hard and make money, but suggestions that 1k disposable income still makes you 'skint' or haircuts being 'essential' are simply fabrications of people who are comfortable.

About 850. Just started a new job. It's more than I ever dreamed of having tbh. Saving for a house of my own.

I should add I've never had this kind of money before. I used to earn min wage or just over when I came out of uni with debts coming out of my ears (unfunded post grad) I never went anywhere, walked everywhere bought only what I could afford to eat not what I liked eating. The shock when I was told me new salary was unreal. I still don't know what to do so I'm basically stashing all my money for possible hard times ahead and living the same as I used to.

missduke I really don't think people are offended that the OP has £1000 after essentials. It's the way the op was worded saying this meant she was poor. This is crass considering not only do many have a lot less but some have less than £1000 before essentials. If the op had been worded differently, say for example: "I don't know where the money goes, one minute I have what feels like 0 plenty of spare cash, next minute it's all gone. I seem to fritter it away." The op would have, I predict, had a much better reception and receive daily much more advice on getting a balance between saving and treating herself. People were offended as the post appeared to show complete lack of awareness of what is reality for many.

missduke I have Internet, yes because I find it essential (sick of justifying this) it saves me money because I can have online tariffs for gas and electricity, Internet banking saves the £8.50 on the bus to get to the bank (8 haven't got the time to spend the 6 hrs walking there and back), same for paying my rent, it allows me to study which is my chance of eventually earning more, it allows dds equality of access to education as much of the homework set today is online, job applications must all be done online these days, my shift changes are dine via email often with very little notice so I need to be able to check it regularly and it allows me a little entertainment (yes I've heard it before I don't deserve it as I don't work hard enough). I know the library has Internet but it is only open part time and to maximise the number of people who can uses it each member is restricted to 30 min per week. This is not enough time to pay my bills, do my banking, sort all my emails, write an essay, complete an online lesson for my course and apply for several jobs. Add in that it doesn't allow for checking my emails several times a day and the library's opening hours regularly clash with when I'm working reducing availability further I really need Internet. I have a mobile. It's on a contract I took out over 10 years ago so is pretty cheap now. I have a TV, it's small and was purchased years ago when I was earning a lot more.

As for the other things I genuinely don't have Sky TV or any other pay per view TV service, I really don't eat out, I really don't have nights out, I take a packed lunch to work, we don't go on holiday we don't even have passports, I don't wear make up and cut my own hair. I do buy shampoo, soap and toothpaste for hygiene purposes though.

To have a grand left after all your outgoings is doing well & for you to feel skint is very U.

useless you shouldn't feel you have to justify buying shampoo.

Some people clearly have no idea what basics are necessary to avoid extreme social exclusion in this country, which is a huge part of what makes up poverty.

Of course the internet is essential and of course using the resources on it save way more than the menial amount it costs.

There's an old saying look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves.

We have similar and yes at the end of the month we seem to have no money left, just went through the account and we have spent a lot on 'cheap' lunches out, takeaways, nice wine and treats.

Quite a shock and I am determined to rectify are frivolous ways as we don't actually have anything to show for it!

But I do support there's always the least one mner or even someone in real life ready to jump up and down about the scummy poor spending money on non food and how irresponsible they are for spending proper people's money on frivolity. If I turned up at work unwashed it would make it very unpleasant for the proper people and I'm liable to be sacked for breach of infection control procedure. Losing my job and therefore earning even less is surely more irresponsible than spending 99p on supermarket value shampoo. At least you'd think but when you're scrounging scum the rules are stricter aren't they.

OP I might be wrong but I think what you mean is you have £1000 after paying the bills, to cover you for the month? Yes, that sounds like a lot and is a lot of money (It's all my eldest earns in a month so I have no idea how she will ever afford to live anywhere) HOWEVER that is how much we have to start every month (ie on payday my money plus DH's money less mortgage/utilities/insurance/phone bill) and it goes nowhere. DH spends about £80 per week on fuel (covers 30-35k miles a year, lots of that not covered on expenses as his office moved and he doesn't get paid for his daily commute mileage). We do not eat out/get takeaways/go to the cinema. Supermarket shop £50-£80 per week depending if we need to get toiletries/cleaning stuff. My fuel about £20/week. By the time we have spent on the odd bits like birthday presents/clothes (only when necessary and usually in sales or Primark)/summer holiday (we set a limit of £1500 per year on holidays) there is naff all left. I have no idea how most of the country is managing to survive if we struggle on that.

Circa £1.5k leftover.

Mumsnet is described as a middle class forum. Yet every money related thread I read always ends up being dominated by posters who are surviving on a £1.56p a week.

OP if you want to get a better hold of your disposable income and keep some aside for a rainy day, you really do need to start paying attention to what you're spending it on. You can then set yourself a target budget for each month.
With our bank, we have set up something called a 'sweep'. Basically we agreed on a total budget that should get us through grocery bills, petrol and 'treat' expenses (after all the regular monthly mortgage/utility bills) and our bank automatically sweeps anything in our account over that total monthly budget into a regular savings account on a specified day of the month.
This helps keep our spending under control and also builds up a decent emergency savings pot. Some months we sweep more than others, the main thing is to set the sweep up for a date straight after all other monthly bills are paid.
I think it works for us because you don't have to think about it and it's done before we have a chance to spend it at the start of each month!

Mumsnet is described as a middle class forum. Yet every money related thread I read always ends up being dominated by posters who are surviving on a £1.56p a week.

Maybe because those who do have a lot of spare money think its quite crass to boast about it, so the only people who repond to therads like this are those who are struggling.

This is just a stealth boast thread.