to ask how much disposable income you have every month?

[FunnysInLaJardin]

Following on from another thread, yes I know!

We have about £2,800 but save £1,300 which leaves just enough for the month for us to live comfortably. The saving go on long term bills, holidays and all Christmas and birthday gifts for the year.

I know we are fortunate, but every month live until the next pay packet.

I know people have far tighter budgets than us but am interested to know what folk generally live on.

£1.2K for two us. £800 for rent. £200 for bills. £200 for food, paying off debt and emergencies. We don't go out, I just go to work, come home again and do nothing at the weekends. Would LOVE to have enough for save 1K a month.

Micromanaged A question was asked and I answered. I’m not oblivious to the fact we don’t represent the median but is the point for everyone to reply saying they earn minimum wage?

Also love that you’ve selectively ignored our not insubstantial charity contributions and holidays.

The fact is different people have different circumstances- next year we’re buying a new place and our disposable income will be much much lower.

The reality is you can be saving £1300 a month and still be concerned about financial stability.
I spend a lot of time checking our budget for similar reasons. I grew up in a financially unstable household and financial security was a real priority for me.

After all bills, petrol, food etc i save £250 and live on £250 a month

I feel really sad now, I work for the NHS and earn what you save in a month

Room, OP said WE take home £2,800 so surely that's the equivalent of her and DH earning £1,400 net each which is practically the same as you earn. Or have I misunderstood?

@houseonthelake I thought she meant 2800 was after mortgage/ rent and bills?

£2000. About £1500 once food/petrol is accounted for.

We put £750 away and use £750 a month.

We are considering over paying on our marriage after Christmas too.

We’re lucky as we don’t have a massively high income (although higher than average) but our bills are low, relatively low debt and no childcare to pay which frees up a lot of our disposable income.

@huggybear

"Disposable income is the amount of net income a household or individual has available to invest, save, or spend after income taxes.

Discretionary income is the amount of income that a household or individual has to invest, save or spend after taxes and necessities are paid."

OP said disposable income, although it's entirely possible she mixed it up with discretionary!

After all bills/food/mortgage is paid I have £300 a month. I save £50 in my saving and save £10 a month in each child's savings account.
That leaves £220 for three children's clothes, uniforms, hair cuts, treats and activities.

I can't afford to go out or eat out.

We are considering over paying on our marriage after Christmas too.

How, with extra cuddles?

The £1300 isn't savings if its already assigned to something.

Exactly what IS the point of publishing what you earn, save and spend (how well-orf or otherwise one is)?

Maybe if i kicked my 2 kids out, i would have more money lol

I find these threads equally fascinating and batshit, because no one counts the same stuff as discretionary or disposable so it’s virtually meaningless.

I consider clothes, pension, long-term savings, and shorter term savings for Christmas and holidays and so on as “necessities” in the budget. So I feel like we don’t have much truly disposable income. But if I decided it only meant mortgage, household bills and food then I’d have loads.

Comparing apples and oranges doesn’t work.

I capped my spends after bills and savings at max 500. It grew from 200 pcm, but after each move up the ladder, I gave myself two months enjoying the extra, then capped it again to put the rest in savings.

I try not to just increase my lifestyle because I've increased my income.

Owing to a couple of unforeseen curveballs that life decided to throw at us, we're losing money every month at the moment, just on the essential outgoings. Our savings have very nearly been wiped out now. Hoping for some better fortune - fast! This thread has made me feel several kinds of crappy.

After paying every bill and the mortgage we have nil. I feel lucky to be able to pay for groceries and petrol every week/month. It’s pretty tight.

Oh and wowsertrousers if it helps, we went backwards (debt) about two years ago, and for the last two years, and are just back to having enough to pay for basics. Theres no spare cash here.

Our bills every month come to just over £1000. That includes mortgage. We have a few savings accounts. Christmas fund , car fund , sons activities that comes out of that.
We are left with about £1000. That then goes on food, petrol for two cars, stuff that pops up during the month.

I donthe money in this house and I prefer to spilt it into weekly amounts. Makes it easier to budget.
At the end of the month there is nothing left.

I don’t have a huge savings pot or general savings if things go wrong.

We save for Xmas as my sons birthday is Xmas eve so an expensive time for us. I save for the cars incase things go wrong ... we live in the middle of nowhere so need our cars. Our son does a few things outside of school .. scouting and now some stuff for his GCSEs pe sonwe have to pay for that.

We go out if we have not had to put petrol in both cars that week.

OP needs to explain what she means as it is not clear

We need to know what the £2800 is to answer properly,

In fact OP should come back and publish in detail her bills and spending so we know exactly what they are on about but I bet they won't

Nothing. Zilch. Nada. There is always too much month at the end of my money.
Does that make you feel better OP? Cos it makes me feel crap.

Hmm, this is interesting and exactly the conversation DH and I had ast the end of last month when we sat down to do our budget
We have a joint take home of £3,600 and our joint bulls come to £1900. So we should have loads. But we hadn’t taken into account petrol, birthdays, saving for holidays, house repairs, a pension for DH etc.

Now we’ve properly funded our individual monthly bills as well and taken into account some savings I have £100 discretionary income and he has about the same. And I know we’re lucky to have that much.

Hopefully, with a bit of hard budgeting we can pay off the last of our debits in a few months and there will be a bit more going into savings and a touch more for discretionary stuff like new clothes.

So after mortgage payments, utility bills,council tax and food bills you have £2800 disposable income choose to save over a grand and then have over a grand left over!! Not a braggy post at all!!

We have loads in comparison to our income but that is because there are only two of us, mortgage is paid, DS has long since left home and are bills are quite low. When DS was young and we had childcare to pay and were also obviously paying our mortgage we had a lot less, this is why these threads don't make a lot of sense as we have no idea what stage in life OP is.

Some really spiteful jealous people on this thread...

We have about £1k a month discretionary after saving £400/month. It's been a busy few months getting married/honeymoon etc so hopefully when things quieten down we can save more.