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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

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

217 replies

SeiShann · 14/06/2015 16:10

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

OP posts:
RJnomore · 14/06/2015 23:31

This thread is hilarious actually.

You are disgusting for having income which isn't spent on the bare essentials of life - and you're damned if you have to borrow for a big purchase because you can't afford it outright.

yoursfan · 14/06/2015 23:35

Ah, don't be jealous, Sherbert. The OP is too stupid to know the difference between disposable income and surplus cash and has to rely on her boyfriend to tell her if she can afford a car or not. I'd rather be skint than that dim!

Gemauve · 14/06/2015 23:39

Most people can't save whilst renting because it is generally more expensive to rent than to buy, but it is cheaper to buy a car in cash than it is to finance one.

It's the same: it's cheaper to buy a car for cash, but it's also cheaper to buy a house for cash. People who don't own houses have to pay to rent, people who don't own cars have to pay for public transport (and in some parts of the country, that is both expensive and useless).

Someone living in a village with a one bus a day link and nothing at the weekends may need a car in order to get gainful employment. Telling them to save out of their benefits until they can buy one for cash isn't wildly helpful. Lucky you to able to buy a house for cash: Enfin je me rappelai le pis-aller d’une grande princesse à qui l’on disait que les paysans n’avaient pas de pain, et qui répondit : Qu’ils mangent de la brioche.

MagratGarlik · 14/06/2015 23:39

Who said "damned"?

I am simply saying, I personally don't understand borrowing for something like a car. I'm quite well aware that others may feel differently, as is their prerogative. Good, we all view the world differently, but that doesn't mean I am "taking a high moral tone" or "damning" anyone. Just stating my view.

Perhaps the OP's DP feels the same way and this may be why he doesn't want to enter a finance agreement for a car when they could buy a cheaper one, or save. Just a differing view-point. No stress. My goodness.

Plarail123 · 15/06/2015 07:12

Some really nice supportive people on here as usual. We have £0 at the end of each month BTW. And our car cost about £9k and it is pretty shit!

BlackeyedSusan · 15/06/2015 07:31

my dad was like that. really careful with money as he had a difficult childhood where he was deprived of stuff and v poor. he could not spend money, even when he had enough to live on.

I think you have plenty for a car. cars are important bits of equipment and are better off being reliable fi you can afford it.

littlejohnnydory · 15/06/2015 07:44

You have more left over at the end of the month than we have coming in each month (we're a family of six). HTH.

littlejohnnydory · 15/06/2015 07:49

Our car cost just over £1,000. It's a shitheap.

WhyCantIuseTheNameIWant · 15/06/2015 07:57

How much money is left at the end of the month? Usually about a week and a half... Glad ds gets school dinners, so is happy with beans and toast for his tea!

TheWordFactory · 15/06/2015 08:00

OP it seems to me that you are your partner have a basic disagreement over how to spend your income.

He sees certain expenditure as good living, where you clearly see it as waste and want to save it for large ticket items.

This is a massive issue in many relationships.

WhyCantIuseTheNameIWant · 15/06/2015 08:01

As for what exb has left over at the end of the month... I think that still depends on what he scrounged out of his new GF. As getting or keeping a job isn't really his thing.

owlborn · 15/06/2015 08:02

£2k left? Holy crap. I was feeling super pleased at my regular £300 into savings.

Do you mean you have £2k after bills + conservative grocery bills but not counting everything like clothes/travel/hobbies? Because I think that's a lot less esp when you have teenagers. You need to properly track your spending for a month and work out what you'd be cutting out.

Stinkersmum · 15/06/2015 08:08

We have a good few £k left over each month. My car cost £1200 and I love it. Takes all sorts I guess!

Preciousbane · 15/06/2015 08:09

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Theoretician · 15/06/2015 08:35

It's ridiculous to say buying a house and buying a car are comparable.

You can always buy a car that gets you from A to B for about £1000. You can't buy a used house for 5% of the price of a new one of the same size.

People are much more likely to buy more car than they need, than buy more house than they need. A house tends to go up in value with time, a car is nearly worthless after ten years. (Point being that any unnecessary money spent on a car is more wasteful.)

Housing might consume 50% of household income and transport 20%. Saving for the minimum essential car might take months, saving to pay cash for the minimum house would take decades, in the unlikely event that it's possible at all.

haroldsfakebluetits · 15/06/2015 08:37

dreams of having 2k left over each month

Theoretician · 15/06/2015 08:38

I do agree that if a car is needed for work that may be a case for borrowing. However 90% of money spend on cars is not bare essential expenditure for enable work, so it doesn't follow from that case that borrowing to buy cars is generally OK.

Mintyy · 15/06/2015 08:49

Perhaps he just doesn't want to write off such a large sum of money? Nothing is as wasteful as buying a new or very nearly new car. The depreciation is massive.

The 10 year old car I mentioned earlier (actually I've just realised it is 11 years old) is worth £500 and we have spent about £500 on it on repairs and MOT in the past 12 months. That still makes more financial sense than buying a new car, where the depreciation is way more than £500 pa.

I'd always prefer to spend spare money on travel or home improvements, or going out for the occasional posh dinner, or theatre tickets.

Not everyone can understand the mentality of spending that much on a car! To us £9,000 is nearly a whole year of mortgage payments (and we have a small mortgage for London), I just couldn't bring myself to do it for something as boring as a car.

Lorgy · 15/06/2015 09:13

We have nothing left over at end of the month and not much more than your surplus at the start of the month.

Salene · 15/06/2015 09:15

We have about 8k a month spare after bills, (oh works overseas in Africa in oil industry so very well paid) I want a new car but my husband says we can't afford it, even though we have lots of savings. He won't be happy till he has about bloody 500k sat in the bank, and even then he will say we are skint

But he is a tight arse and will always find a excuse not to spend cash. He has us driving about in a 2005 renualt. Yet could afford in my eyes a much nicer newer car.

Some men don't like spending, your partner sounds the same. I've found the more my hubby earns the more he wants to squirrel it away.

keepitsimple0 · 15/06/2015 09:30

Some people are saying 9k isn't that much for a car, but it sounds like it would be to the OP. Unless the OP has special car needs (i.e. for a business), there is plenty of wiggle room below 9k to get a reliable car.

I am amazed at the amount of tolerance people have for getting into debt over a car.

NinkyNonkers · 15/06/2015 09:33

I don't think having 2k left over is disgusting, I do find extreme inequality disgusting...But that is a different topic. Grin

Carrie5608 · 15/06/2015 12:37

OP you need to spend a couple of months writing down where the spare money goes. Is it really on take aways etc or is it on things that should have been budgeted for eg. Repairs, household expenses like getting the washine repaired. If so its not really spare money.

Then you need realise that you don't have £2000 spare you both do so either you agree on how to spend it or you get to save half and he gets to have a take away on nights you don't.

I agree with other posters thoughthis is a relationship communication issue.

JackShit · 15/06/2015 12:47

We have about £1,200 coming IN ffs!

Work bloody hard for it too.

The World is a very unfair place.

Fudgeface123 · 15/06/2015 12:50

I don't know why I click on these threads, there must be one every few days. What the fuck does it matter how much people have left over at the end of the month, surely what you have left is all that counts

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