To ask how much money you have left...

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After paying for essentials each month? So after paying your rent/mortgage, food and bills, travel and if applicable childcare, what's left 'spare' for socialising, buying clothes, going out etc etc. And are you able to save much?

DP thinks we don't have much money left after bills, I think we have more than enough and I likely more than the average person. If it's not too completely rude to ask, would you mind sharing what you have spare? Thanks so much

About 700. Seems to go pretty quick! Save 100 a month.

-£500

I am a student, says it all

It's easy to save prechildren if you don't have kids, DH and I use to save £1000 pcm before children and still could afford a very nice lifestyle earning mid £30ks 10 years ago. The we had kids, my salary dropped to less than half for a year while on maternity leave (i.e. I had a very generous maternity package), then we took a 20% cut in income when we both dropped our hours and then you are hit with childcare costs (we currently pay £1200 pcm). We only saved token amounts for a few years but DH recently changed jobs and went back FT and no longer had any travel expenses. So we are back to saving £1000 pcm. But we both have personal disposable income as well after the bills are paid so we're very comfortable, but not extravagant, we don't have foreign holidays, have only one car, don't spend money on smartphones/Sky, only go out once a month, small mortgage etc.

We have a household income of ~£80k though so well above average. A few people asked about jobs, DH is a software developer, I'm a scientist in the Pharma industry. Both have >£15 years industry experience but we don't have stellar careers, neither of us do a lot of overtime. We're very lucky really.

It was 3k per month due me now not working FT it's now 2k per month. Interest on savings and shares mean that area varies but we made 20k in our best year

We earn about 100k between us so 5600 a month after tax. £2.6k on mortgage bills etc. Dh is a director in an Internet provider firm and earns 80k. I work part time in school hours and get 20k as a bookkeeper. Dh really really works for that money though.

God, this thread depresses me! :D

We have approx. £30 a month after bills, food and petrol. We're saving nothing and can't afford any kind of social life.

Fingers crossed it will change this year when Mr Bog gets a job. He's been looking since last June with no luck so far, but that's gotta change sometime, right? Until then I'll find a way to keep us going on my £1200 a month. Somehow.

Some of you have more left over individually than what our joint income is combined

I have approx £250 after bills, but I'm very good at meal-planning etc. so our food costs are very low. Also no DC which helps.

A good chunk of that goes into savings for our wedding later this year, though. Neither of us spend much on ourselves.

DH is a construction manager, I'm currently working part time from home as a Business Development Consultant.

We are expats - our rent, bills and food, gym, going out, clothes etc are covered by an allowance, so our salaries are completely ours to save. It's been this way for the past 6 years so we've managed to save a fair whack.

We have no kids and live in a fairly cheap place, as well as living frugally so the allowance also covers 4-5 holidays for us a year.

It's not all fun and games though.

Nothing , I'm a single parent, just gone back to college and on benefits .
After rent , food , paying my 20% of the nursery bill we have about 20£

I earn 1200 a month. My share of rent and bills is 400, food maybe about 100. So that leave 700 left. I feel very well off.

I used to have about 2k left over. Then went down to part time and 1k left over.

Now I've quit and its a good job I saved when I had the choice! Will be eating 700 quid a month into my savings

The elephant in the room is housing. Someone that bought at the right time and is benefiting from uber low rates thanks to the robbing scum boe printing money could be far far better of than someone on double the income that is renting.

Dh and I have £50 a month "pocket money" allocated to us. I often end up having to spend mine on groceries or extras for the kids. I rarely buy snything for myself.

Purple my DH is an academic and I worked in admin our highest combined income at any point was 63k. we bought a house at a good price before house prices went crazy and have also done quite well as small investors. We are good at working things out and researching stuff, plus I'm happy to haggle with anyone from the bloke on the market stall to the AA or Sky.

I got a discount going in to a nightclub once because I was with my 3 sisters and persuaded them that familial DNA deserved a discount.

• 100+ at the moment!

Somewhere around £1000. But that's with me paying all mortgage, childcare and bills. DH earns too but is self employed so am not sure but that will be on top.

None. We are getting further into debt just surviving. Hoping more work is around the corner or we're pretty screwed tbh .

1k

Depends what you class as an essential... after bills and loan repayments I have about £1500 so have to get food and fuel with that along with all of life's extras. If I really pared it down to the bone I could probably save £1000 per month but it would be a miserable month.

After everything about £1500. Save £1200 of that and have £300 ish for clothes/haircuts/going out etc. TBH we don't even spend that £300 at the moment as we have a 2 year old and a 6 month old so going out is rare and no point buying new clothes for them to be sicked on and covered in paint/play doh/yoghurt!

At the moment, £1500 after all bills, subscriptions, food, fuel, toddler groups etc are paid. Later this year it will go up to anywhere between £2100 to £3500 depending on what hours I go back to work on. I'm currently on a career break to be at home with our 18 month old, so we are on one salary. We're in the fortunate position of having no mortgage, which helps.

About £3000 depending on how much freelance work I have done.
That's on paper though, we put £2k of it away and I'm not sure what happens to the rest

DH is on a good wage, manager in a large company. Nowadays I only work in a school about 2 hours a day. We have an income from investments too.

Houses are part of it. We have not always got it right, bought a doer upper which ended up being a money pit, but did make a hefty profit on one house (doubled in a few years) and we got our big family home for a good price.
We got into the saving habit young and never got into debt.

Having two good wages coming in pre dc, we managed to save most of one wage each month which enabled us to pay down the mortgage. It's small now and due to overpayments will be paid off in 2017.
Plus we are late 40's so should have something to show for working all those years.
We do spend a lot on going out and doing stuff, but I have a budget for clothes now as I was wasting a small fortune.

The only drawback to having lots of disposable income is that while I really like my job and am around for the dc and have a full life etc. I have no incentive to work more hours and sometimes I would like to as I have loads of experience but then I think why bother? Maybe I will when DD is around 16.

I remember after divorce having a £1.3m mortgage, no savings and being over drawn whilst paying £90k out a year on the mortgage and 5 sets of school fees. That took all my optimism to cope with!

As for what is over I work for myself so income varies each month. At the moment I am able to save. As Charles Dickens said( this is now known as the Micawber Principle after his character) in the Victorian era but as true today as ever:

"Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds nought and six, result misery."

About 400.00 pcm after essentials for saving/holidays/diy/nights out. Most of the time we need to pick which one we use the money for. Want a new bathroom so no holiday this year for example.