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.

Nothing until I'm debt free, after that, should have about £2k a month spare, but a lot of that will probably go into overpaying the mortgage.

It’s the holiday threads that blow my mind, my friendship group consists of a surgeon, barrister, even a tech entrepreneur (very rich) as well as teachers, accountants etc & not one of them has an annual holiday spend of 20-30k.

Discretionary income is very definition based. Food bills - I choose to buy nice cheese, and to occasionally drink some wine, and that we have salmon if we want it. Mainly I buy fairly frugally though. As such food bills must be around 40% higher than if they had limited treats and probably 80% more than if it was a food shop if I was totally brassic and was on onion and lentil type rations for most dishes. So then, what % of that do you deem discretionary?

I think I end up with the 40% extra being discretionary in my brain, but that's very judgement based.

The same then applies to things like pension: savings, not at the minimum level, so do I count them gross? Or act as if I don't pay them and then add back the additional net to my salary and give discretionary as my notional net salary less essential costs,,? Or deem saving for the future an essential bill.

And then cars. Running one is expensive. I have to save up - if I want a new to me car I run from 30k miles to 100k miles then I'm probably looking at a 6k car every decade. That's £50 a month. Is that a bill (like if I had a lease car) or is neither a bill because both are optional?

It's very interesting to me to see how others view discretionary spending and how they prioritise, and while it won't be gained from here, I think an understanding of where your income sits in relation to your peers can be good at making people who are actually very well off go "gosh, I thought I was struggling, but actually I'm just prioritising a lot of items now, rather than prioritising saving".

Sorry, that turned into a total essay.

If you are a family of four and have to go in the school holidays i can see how £20k would soon add up. That's really two weeks in a villa in the south of France, a week ski-ing and something like Centre Parks or Eurodisney for a cpl f days.

Depending how many days my DH has worked the previous month (self employed)
Usually £3k left over after bills & shopping.

We've just had the house renovated and went on a few holidays this year so have spent far too much of our savings.

Our plan is to build the savings account back up so not go too mad at Christmas time. We're hosting though and obviously that can be expensive.

We've decided not to bother over paying the mortgage as the interest rate is so low and we already have a good percentage of equity (I think around 50%). We'd rather having savings accessible in case my husband has no work for a while.

I think i’m just tight OhTheRoses plus i’m lucky that my parents bought a farmhouse in the then unfashionable Languedoc 25 years ago

Like others have said so much depends on lifestage and individual definitions of disposable/discretionary. Pension contributions make a difference as do student loans. I see life insurance as necessary spending. Others would see it as discretionary. My mobile phone cost is a fixed bill but I spend more than I should really for an upgraded phone. Similarly my mortgage (an essential cost) is massive but there was a choice there and we are building equity. It wouldn’t give a true reflection to talk about out disposable income when we’ve taken certain decisions re our non discretionary income. Some of these decisions totally distort these sorts of threads.

My discretionary income is probably similar to someone earning a lot less due to having high fixed costs but it only tells one part of the story and I’d never pretend to be in the same financial situation as a lower earner because I’ve had choices around my fixed costs. I remember a thread on here with someone pleading poverty on around £200k because of the high costs of their private school fees. They just didn’t get they were in a massively fortunate position and their high costs were as a result of choices rather than essential expenses.

None at all for the next year, I've got to get a new boiler.

I personally find these threads fascinating (even if the OP makes my eyes roll!) can't talk about this stuff in RL, I just wish everyone would give a breakdown of all their ingoings and outgoings for true context 😂

£24.00 but that goes on my daughter's judo club. I get paid on Thursday and have 51p left and my car is on its light for fuel.

😯 No chance.

These threads always go the same way.

3 months ago I had £7k a month, then DH left and suddenly I am in a situation where I earn £1100 a month plus DLA for DS2. My mortgage is £1200! Luckily DH is paying that for now until we sort stuff out.

So at the moment it's nothing, but if my calculators and budgets are correct I should have around £200 a month 'spare', which will take some getting used to.

MadnessIsay I know, we did the same about 13 years ago and I know what we let for in the school holidays.

I don’t understand why people are complaining ... just let others contribute and be nosey in peace. The title is very clear so why would you open the thread if you know these types of conversations offend you??

Well I knew it would be a controversial topic but glad some people are as nosy as me. I find it really interesting and in no way was I stealth bragging

For context, we have 2 school age DC are half way through our mortgage and so our costs are quite high. Neither DC goes to private school. We live in a very high cost area.

Out of the £1,500 we pay for food and petrol which comes to about £1,000 ppm. Out of the £1,300 about £500 is for bills, £450 for holidays and the rest for Christmas and birthdays.

The mortgage doesn't form part of our 'disposable' income and is paid before the £2,800 is divvied up.

Sorry if I upset anyone, it really wasn't the intention.

Thanks for coming back OP its a bit clearer now what is included

I think money is such a personal thing that’s why people get upset. I’m happy to put down my entire wages and what I pay for stuff if people did want to see. I find it totally interesting. No one knows me on here. And I don’t have anything to hide. And to be frank I don’t care what other people say about what I spend my money on. If it could help people or like me others find it interesting that’s fine.

It really varies

As with a broken car , a broken roof etc that’s stunted my savings this year

Enough to live but we are not having a high life either

Our breakdown is;

Income roughly: £6,800 after taxes
Mortgage, bills, shopping, insurances & household stuff: £3,000
Left over: £3,800 for savings, holidays, clothes, gifts, days/nights out etc.
We aim to try and save £2k a month.

Would never tell anyone this in real life. Anonymous forums are so good for honestly.

Didn't finish that sentence. Honestly talking about things that are 'taboo' in real life

There's never anything left however our earnings change - more gets allocated to hols, birthdays, tech and extra curriculars or diy I guess. But we have got better at putting savings away at beginning of month (saving for future uni maintenance contributions as will have two at uni at same time).

kaytee that's interesting. You have a similar take home to us, however our mortgage is around £3,000 pcm and so that takes half of it!

Income £10,000 after tax
Live in a small house so mortgage and bills low.

Roughly £9000 left after mortgage and bills.

Spend approx £1000 per month on holidays, that’s our thing.

Spend about £600 per month on food.

Save the rest but eat out and buy nice things within reason. Don’t spend loads. Like to buy less nice things than more cheap things.

IRL no one knows our income. Quite nice to put it on a forum in a weird way as it is so taboo as above poster stated.