How much do you fritter?

[physicsisfun1]

Do you think £200 a month to live on for clothes, Birthdays, nights out, meals is ok?

How much do you spend on these things?

I know clothes aren't fritter for my one dd but the rest of the money just goes.

I have been wasting about £500 a month. Clothes fine but the rest appears to be takeaways, make up, stuff from amazon.

Grrr I want to stop. Is £200 a reasonable budget?

I think it is a good amount - I allocate £150 a month for this. However, I think I would put £50 specifically aside for birthdays and Christmas.

Depends how much you can afford surely?

Some people might not have £200 available for those things after they have accounted for all regular bills, annual expenses and some savings, so spending £200 pm would be a disaster.

But if you have a lot more spare, it's fine and you could probably spend more.

I mistakenly thought this was about deep frying various fruits at first but to answer the question you're actually asking..... I'm a bit of a tight arse at the moment. So probably only about £4k per month. Or about £100 :)

Me and DH give ourselves £300 each and we get by. Tight around Christmas, feels like loads in the summer

I aim for £100 spending money a month, on eating out and little bits. Money for clothes, birthdays, teeth, eyes etc. is in a separate savings account, though, as I don't need to access that every month.

I've had to seriously cut down on this as my money was just disappearing, especially to Amazon.

I tend to leave £200 in my account then move anything left at the end of the month into my savings.

I never ever buy takeaways...I see them as a complete waste of money. If I'm ever tempted, I make a shopping list of food I could get in the supermarket for the same amount of money.

We both have £500-600 per month for this stuff, but we probably each spend around £450 and save the rest. I've done £200 before and found it ok, just a bit tight. Couldn't include birthdays/haircuts in that though

The only clothing I get new is shoes and underwear. All the rest is secondhand.

Nothing beats an as-new pair of jeans by Armani for 2 quid :D

I think that sounds enough unless you have loads of fri bds and family who make a big deal of birthday celebrations.

Friends and family, that should say.

I don’t really cut my hair. I like it long so at least that is a saving.

I don’t have loads of birthdays just my two nephews and dd. We all agreed just to get adults some nice cakes or biscuits instead.

My Dd Birthday is a bit more expensive but her Dad sometimes helps with that.

If you waste £500 monthly, can you set up a direct debit for £300 to go straight into a savings account monthly?

Depends on your financial situation really, but yes, I'd say that's reasonable I spend about double that

I can afford to spend more but I will reach my savings goal sooner if I don’t.

Good idea about the dd.

I put aside £100 for misc spends but that doesn’t include clothes (budget £150 a month for 3 of us), hair/ toiletries (£100) or gifts (£100). I spend about £150 on eating out but I’m really trying to cut this back.

I often don’t spend that much btw it’s just what I allow as a max. Clothes and hair budgets roll over but eating out and misc resets

It's plenty.

I think the easiest area to save is to cut down on meals out. A meal out at, say, £20 a head including drinks, can be around five times the cost of cooking at home. If you're celebrating a friend's birthday, can you suggest coffee and cake rather than an expensive meal out, and a £10 budget for presents?

Rather than takeaways, have a few ready meals in the freezer (they aren't all full of nasties) for when you can't be bothered to cook.

As for Amazon, keep potential purchases on your shopping list for 7 days (unless truly essential) and then see if you still want/need to buy them, having first checked to see if they can be found second hand.

My monthly spend is £175-£200, I reckon, so £500 seems a lot!

Too much but it's always after bills are paid and savings are accounted for

We are fortunate to have alot of disposable income. But boy do we fritter. I really don't like it as its such a waste. I am trying very hard to cut down.

I hate spending money so £200 would be too much for me.
If you can afford it & don't mind spending money, sounds like a big improvement for OP, though.

£200 is a good budget outside London

Im not overtly frivolous but live in London so probably £1500 in total on unnecessary stuff including restaurants, drinks, events, clothes, make up stuff etc. Holidays would be on top

If you’re feeling as if you can’t stop spending on crap I really recommend a no spend month where you literally buy nothing other than the essentials (I classed one takeaway a week as an essential... because it obviously is) then once your month or two is over you really reevaluate your spending. I’ve managed to save quite a bit this way.

Thanks all some good tips.

I have just added up my just eat orders since January £500. That doesn’t include Dominos or when I have paid cash. Ridiculous!

No wonder my clothes are getting tight.

A no spend month would be a major challenge. But I will try it.

That was me in the past 😂
Hundreds a month on takeaways.

It is a challenge but it really does help. I did Jan as a New Years resolution and ended up doing Feb too and it’s completely changed me.