To ask what peoples income and outgoings are and amount left over each month?

Following

Single mum two children

Income £3100
Mortgage £850

Gym £48
Phone £20
Groceries £0 (aunt pays)
Water £51
Gas and electricity £69
Petrol £80
School activities - I pay as terms but I reckon works out £30
I’m pretty frugal I suppose. Ish. Highlights and hair cut every 12 weeks. The odd pedicure. Brows done every 10 weeks.

Feel pretty comfortable. Enough for days trips, be odd treat and one big holiday (one week Caribbean) and two mini uk breaks.

Oh I’m big on Insirance

Health insurance £64
Life assurance and critical illness £81

£2500 monthly income and £1500 is spent on mortgage, utilities, car costs, phones etc. We spend between £300-£350 on food each month (2 adults, 3yr old and ff baby) and try to save a couple of hundred a month for Xmas, holiday and general savings.

income £1.4k for me and son

mortgage free
no council tax
no debt
no travel (free bus pass)

gas/electric £70
food £160
broadband £20
paid activities£20
tv liscense £12
insurance £12 (pay lump sum once a year)
mobile £25
water £30 (pay lump some once a year)
nails/hair £40
xmas £45

all a month,anything else comes out of whats left approx £250 a week or £1k a month

ok so you have £2300 AFTER TAX and approx £990 after the expenses you told us about so this 990 needs to cover

food, clothes holidays house insurance life assurance presents house repairs savings etc

this seems doable not luxury but doable £300 ( ie £70 a week for food) another £40 for toiletries and cleaning products, house insurance should not be more than £40 a month, life assurance could be as little as £20 a month,
clothes £50 should be ok you should save about £200 for holidays even if at home and emergencies like boiler repairs, another £100 to cover birthdays and christmas and you still have about £240 left for eating out, paying more off your credit card, extra savings etc
if you cut the gym completely you could save more, £40 for your phone should be cut when contract out nearly everyone will have enough data etc on a £10-15 SIM only deal, if money is really tight you will have to cut son's clubs it is not worth going into debt for
what are you actually buying from amazon you need to use Martyn lewis mantra
if you are skint; do I need it? can I afford it
if you are not skint; will I use it? is it worth it?

@AlphaBravo if you were the higher earner then maybe your other half should stay home and you should go back to work. How will you never qualify for free hours? If you are low income you probably qualify for 2yr funding.

Income 6k after tax

cT 200
Food and fuel £600
Virgin £24
Mobiles £50
Service plan £20
Gas and electric £90
Life insurance £40
Car tax, insurance miscellaneuous etc £300
Child care bill £1800
Mortgafe £950
Car loan £285
0% finance £120
Credit card £150

We have about £1200 left over for anything else.

Just me and FH. Income about £4K between the 2 of us.

Rent, car, petrol, house bills and food we put £800 each into our joint account - £1600
Each pay about £10 for Spotify each and 7.99 for Netflix
19.99 for contact lenses
£21 for my phone and £25 for FH phone
We’re also saving for our wedding. We’re trying to save 1k a month between us and seem to be.

We also live in the middle of nowhere so there’s not lots of restaurants or activities we can do.

Not putting exact income in but it's six figures including rental and investment income. After essential outgoings we have several thousand a month left over which we reinvest as cash savings rates are not great. We do pay more tax than some people earn in a year and also charity donations monthly. Life is comfortable but we worked hard from nothing. No inheritance as both parents have no assets.

Between us we take home 3.6k a month.

2.2k goes to our joint account to cover all bills, mortgage, utilities etc. This also includes £500 pm to FIL as he lent us a house deposit.

Leftover is used to pay for food, clothing, fuel, cars, misc etc.

On a normal month I can theoretically save around £750pm. DH doesn't tend to save as he buys things for the house, such as grass seed, lights etc.

It's only us at the moment so we are okay for now. Not looking forward to the 1k childcare bill though... It's going to near cripple us and we are not on bad incomes at all.

This thread is interesting and has made me realise we have to pay a lot more council tax than many (nearly £190) but I suppose that there isn't much I can do apart from move house. We also spend a lot more on gas/electricity (£110 per month). How does everyone else keep it so low?

OP, I think you could spend less on a mobile. £40 seems like a huge amount to me. Is that because you are paying the cost of the phone off. We have cheap phones and then only spend £7.50 per month on calls etc. I can see why you like the gym but could you get a cheaper membership at a leisure centre.

Income is £3800 we are left with about £800 after all bills, food and petrol. Our most expensive outgoings are £1000 mortgage, £750 nursery bill, £175 council tax, £140 gas, elec, water, £150 car payment and food is about £ 350-£400 for family of 4. Lots of other bills, but those are the main ones. The only saving we could make is £55, that's if I gave up my gym membership and now tv subscription. Everything else is considered a necessity. It's expensive living here in South East, petrol and food especially has gone up a lot in last 6 months.

Heres what I do. (To begin with, £60 a month for gym is a ridiculous amount. Find a cheaper gym)
Add all your Direct debits up. Set up all your Direct Debits to go out the day after pay day.
Work out how much you have left. Divide by four. That is what you have left.
Do not pay for anything using a debit card. A bit here and a bit there doesnt seem like much, but I totalled up all my debit card transactions a while back and it was £206 in a month. On shit I couldnt even remember.
Withdraw a set monthly personal spend amount and divide by 4. (Save the rest) Put that cash somewhere safe and take out your weekly amount every sunday. Nows the hard part. Limit yourself to that per week. No card.
You will soon begin to value your money when you are handing over notes. You will realise that stuff is more expensive than you realised when you are not just using a piece of plastic to pay.
I am on 1300 a month with out goings similar to yours (minus gym) and I can still save £150-200 per month, by limiting myself to a £40 per week personal spend.

Income is £2600.

Bills (including mortgage and childcare) = £1400

Food and petrol = (approx.) £500

Savings = £400

Disposable = £300

Income £4500 after tax
£1000 mortgage
£250 council tax
£100 on water & Electric
£400 on car finance (2 cars)

Can’t be bothered to list all the others but we don’t have Sky or gym memberships. We put £500 in our savings account and then pretty much break even after that.

@Roomba I just sat on the kitchen floor and cried for 5 minutes before pulling myself together, because our toddler had got in the fridge and emptied the last of his milk all over the floor, and the food I'd saved for tomorrow's tea from cooking a bigger dinner.

Makes you realise why some women go on the game tbh 😕 I'm just so 'done' with being skint and terrified of getting the 6 month water bill or that my card will get declined for milk because the bank have taken charges for something. Urgh.

Our council tax is just over £200 a month, we live in a band E house. Seems like I am paying more than anyone else on this thread.

We have no mortgage but train fares are around £700 a month for the two of us to get to work. Now I've written that down I am really shocked!

£40 for a mobile seems like a lot. Maybe look at Giffgaff. I am on 02 and pay £13 but for the same sort of level of texts/data etc I pay £7.50 a month for my son's phone. I would move my own but am too lazy to fiddle about transferring my number.

@Satsumaeater

My council tax is £232 a month and I don’t live in a huge house!

Our council tax is £190 and we don't live in a big house either. Surprised how little some people pay on this thread.

Also a single parent.
income is around 3.3k.
Mortagage, bills, travel, come to around 2k.
I save at least 500, and I budget weekly spending (eating out/groceries/coffees) at around 800.

800 for the month I mean!

I really find these threads so distasteful. So yes, I think YABU op.

I really struggle. I own one pair of shoes. 2 pairs of jeans and a few tops. I generally don’t replace those items unless they rip or break. Kids have more clothes obviously but not as much as they used to have and that bothers me.
I have £1700pm

£620 rent
70 council tax
75 car insurance
15 car tax
35 Sky
10 phone
12 tv license
45 electric
40+ gas
36 breakfast club
60 after school activities
0 to Debts that I don’t pay 😩
35 petrol sometimes more
20 parking

Probably forgotten some. Food obviously. Paying off a holiday for next year. I seem to have nothing left each month. No money for myself ever. It’s depressing.

Oh yeah £100 pm to a loan too.