To ask how much 'surplus' money your household has at the end of the month?

[SeiShann]

This is not a stealth boast. I was brought up in a poor family. Single parent mum on benefits in council flat. I started my own adult life in a similar fashion, ended up a single parent on benefits in a council house. Somehow I managed to sort myself out though, went to uni and became a nurse. Not great income but more than I ever thought possible. My fiancé also earns a decent wage although we're not 'loaded' by any stretch of the imagination.
Anyway the point of my post ... I want to buy a car. It will cost £9k and I will pay for it by selling my current car (£2k) and saving up £3. The rest will be credit. Fiancé says we can't afford it and are not as 'flush' as I like to think. Just being nosy really and wondering if I'm missing something. So after all bills are paid and the groceries bought, what surplus do you have?
We spend £100 a week on groceries (2 adults, 2 teens). After that and all bills we have around £2000 surplus. I don't think that's bad myself but coming from a crappy background, am I missing something? We have no debts

our 'surplus' ie what we havent spent by the end of the month is anything from zero to 500. but i think you mean disposable income, as another poster said?

Ah yes, that's very different. Disposable income shouldn't all be counted as surplus. We budget an amount for food, fuel, kid activities,saving, clothes, entertainment, household. Savings cover accounts for car maintenance, holidays, Christmas and birthdays/parties.

Anything left after that is surplus.

We have nothing surplus.
Frittering away £2000 a month is pretty good going.
If you're talking about disposable income rather than surplus, i.e money not dedicated to bills/food that we can spend on hobbies/treats/new clothes etc, it's about £300 (2 adults and a toddler)

Save as much as you can each month. If you manage to save 400, then borrow an amount that is comfortably within that. (around half)

I don't understand your maths here at all, OP: you spend £100 a week on groceries, but also manage to fritter the best part of £500 a week on takeaways, drink, and the occasional ebay purchase?

We have a small "surplus", after paying bills, school fees, mortgage, activities, clothes etc, about £250.

We put £100 of it straight into a savings account for planned expenses, at the moment a family holiday.

Any left over (approx £150) goes in the rainy day fund, and gets used for unexpected emergencies e.g. big repair on car.

It sounds like the OP DOESN'T have a surplus, it sounds like money being frittered away. This thread is ridiculous.

This thread is crazy. £2000 a month is £24k a year. As that is marginal income subject to (let's assume) standard rate tax and national insurance, that means that the take home equivalent of 35k a year of the OP's household income is going to mysterious places, who knows where. That's a reasonable income for a nurse, for example, as the OP claims to be, so it implies that her income is basically going to waste.

OP I understand where you are coming from I think. After all the bills including weekly shopping have been paid you as a family have £2000 left to spend on the non essentials. You have 2 teens and somehow this money seems to get spent every month, so on paper you have the money to buy a new car but in actuality the cash isn't there (according to your DP).

We too are a family with 2 teenagers and a relatively good standard of living, I can understand that £2000 can disappear, your income isn't going to waste as suggested it is being spent on your current lifestyle.

£9000 isn't a large amount to spend on a car, I recently spent more than this after trade in on my new car. I bought a new car (my choice) that is fuel efficient and perfect for my needs. I paid out of savings, as I don't do loans.

For many years DP & I just pooled all our money and he kept a track on the spending but despite having good jobs/income we seemed to run out of cash. I wanted to spend more and couldn't understand how we couldn't afford things, he tried to cut back, it didn't cause arguments but it was frustrating. We split the accounts and now pay according to our salary levels and we both have much more spare cash/savings at the end of the month after both bills and fund spending.

How can you have savings of only £2k if you have £2k surplus each month? Or have you only been employed for one month?
If it is spent, it isn't surplus.

If you have £2k from your old car (of will have, once it's sold) and are saving £3k (in your OP), can't you just buy a £5k used car, rather than using finance for a £9k used one? Most of the depreciation on cars is in the first 3 years, so you should still be able to buy a decent newish car for £5k. As an example, our previous car was an Audi A4 estate. We bought it at 3 years old for £6k and sold it 3 years later for £5.5k. Much more value for money than a new car and we didn't need to take out any finance on it.

*for a £9k new one?

The fact that people have £2000 surplus at the end of the month actually makes me feel quite sick
DH is in the Armed Forces and I teach English to Polish migrants when I have clients (which are increangly scarce at the moment) and we don't make £2000 between us!
To answer your question, we have a big fat £0 left at the end of the month...along with a lot of other normal families....

Have you only just made the discovery that different people,earn different amounts,emzil?

It makes you feel sick emzii? That's an odd reaction. Some people have much much more than they surplus, it depends what they earn.

OP I don't see the need for this. It's just common sense it won't end well for you and nobody here is stupid enough to think your being serious

But if you are- your talking to a girl who has to scrape together pennies to put £5 of petrol in her car at the end of the month so she can get to work.

Think about that before you next post. Or, alternatively, get to bed- you've got school tomorrow.

Some English lessons might help you earn more sherbert.

In the meantime, jealousy is a really unpleasant trait.

Whe n op says £9k fora new car I'm assuming she meant new to her not brand new - there aren't many brand new cars at £9k are there?

Jealous of somebody who feels the need to come onto Mumsnet on a Sunday to brag about what spare cash she has at the end of the month? Rightttt. Also, I'll tell my dyslexia to keep your comments in mind.

I would try and commit to saving 50% of your disposable income OP and then get your car. We have a similar amount to you as a surplus each month and most us going on a house refurb and savings at the moment. It's shockingly easy to start building up a pattern of non essential spending and despite earning well we have just embarked on a cost cutting exercise and this has helped us do something more productive with our cash rather than just exist more comfortably

do one luv

Why is it sickening/shocking/boastful for the OP to say she has disposable/surplus income?

I'm not sure. DH recently paid £6500 for a small car - so probably not what the OP is looking for - with a 2012 number plate.

You could probably get a new one for £9000 but maybe only a very small model. I'll admit to not knowing much about cars, though.

What I really dislike about this thread is that a couple with a disposable income of £2000 p/m (so £1000 each) should never struggle, never ask for advice and never complain.

Let's say their take home pay is each £1700. That's a decent amount but doesn't make them rolling-in-it wealthy. They have a mortgage which is £500 p/m, council tax, electricity and so on and each put £700 into the joint account, leaving them with - horror - £1000 each. Or £250 a week.

And they have teens.

But no - someone has it worse so ...

It may not be that you can't afford it. It could be that he'd rather not spend that much money on a car. We just bought a car and it was well cheaper than that but could afford more. We just don't want to spend tons on a car.

Because there is a Girl here who only has £5 to put in her car. A Girl, Gogo. Just remember that!