To ask how much spare money you have per month?

[littlebee333]

Hi

I am re-budgeting for the new year and some other expenses which will come our way. There is just myself and my husband and a cat. Our children have grown up and left home

After our mortgage, all bills, food, petrol, car payments, plus money we will save for Xmas, birthdays/occasions, holidays, hair cuts, cleaning products, personal care products, Spotify, MOT & servicing, vet clubs and life insurance etc, we will have £350 a month to put aside for home improvements/maintenance and £400 each totally ‘spare’

Do you think this is a reasonable amount? I think my husband would prefer to have more and save less for home improvements. I think it’s enough. I think he feels we should have more as we get paid enough to have more, however, as above, I like to save for all the other expenses in ‘pots’ so there is no need to pull out for this separately

This will be to cover any eating out, cinema, nights out, gym membership, magazine and beauty box subscriptions, gaming, clothes/shoes and any bigger personal care items like make up or aftershave etc.

Is anyone in a similar family dynamic?

How much do you have per month totally spare? Really interested to hear how much others live on. Thanks :)

You'll get too many diverse answers to make any sense.

I have no money left after all the expenses you've listed. I don't buy any of the luxuries that your "spare" money is to be used for.

I think you have quite a lot of play money and I'd probably save a bit more...

Reasonable? I’d feel like Rockefeller with that much spare cash after I’d paid everything

We used to have £100 a week spare money after all bills, petrol and food but dh has a new job do waiting for his first payday to see if we can start to save abit each month. I would love to be able to do that so here's hoping!

Thanks for your responses. I haven’t factored in any savings. Just figure if we need something in an emergency, we can pinch it from one of the ‘pots’. We probably should save something. We do have work pensions and life insurance. It doesn’t seem to go anywhere for my husband. He burns through that in 1/2 weeks. I’m better at saving and budgeting but even I feel like it would be nice to have more at times. I think it’s enough though and wondered how we compared to others

Name change fail op?

I’m a single mum to be with £1400 a month “spare” but most of this gets saved (and my income is “only” 2.2k a month not that high my housing, bills etc is just very low) due to my impending mat leave. I’d think £400 each for “fun stuff” is more than sufficient tbh. I’d probably cut it down to £300 each and save the extra £200 towards a holiday or something.

I have about £70 a month spare after paying for bills, food and petrol. It's been a relatively recent thing (last 8 months) and really makes me think hard about what I spend it on. Stuff that i would have bought without a thought in Feb I now spend ages thinking about.
But it's my own fault (doubling down on paying off my debt) and it was my decisions in past years that mean I don't have lots of disposable income each month and if I hadn't got myself into loads of debt in my 20s I would have £620 spare a month now.

Savings should be considered as a "bill" and not "whatever is leftover".

My phone remembered my log in details from when I registered before today. We do save for holidays although it isn’t a massive amount. We have no debt other than car finance so quite lucky there although I’ve spent years paying debts so know what it’s like. Out of interest, what are your savings for exactly? Thanks

After I have paid everything, have put £100 into savings and £300 from my overtime into my holiday pot I have £200 a month as spare money a month.

As a couple we have £1000 but I’m on maternity. When I was working we’d have £1700

We have around £1,500 after bills paid and savings topped up.

After bills and savings we have £2200 ‘spare’

About £120.

Fuck all!

Wow, some of you have more "spare" than I have for everything - rent, bills, food, the lot!

We keep about £100 a month each for personal spending, which neither of us actually spend all/much of! We could keep back a lot more than this if we wanted for personal spending but I guess just don't have the desire to spend lots on ourselves - we don't really buy "stuff" - we save loads jointly. As pp said, perhaps you should consider savings as a "bill" of equal importance to your other bills.

Also you said your only debt is the car, but you also mention a mortgage - can you make overpayments there? And/or save in a separate pot to be able to pay that off asap.

None

£400 per month spare is loads. If you can afford it, saving for a rainy day is always worth it as you never know when you might get a big bill for home/car repairs.

P.s. to answer your question we probably have about £100 per month spare to spend on frivolous things like eating out or other treats for us and the kids. If it doesn't get spent it goes into savings. We don't specifically put other money in savings monthly but we have a decent buffer of about £5k. If that was all used up, we would go without the spending money to bring it back up.

I think £400 a month each after all those expenses is absolutely loads. But you're obviously reasonably wealthy so good on you. As to whether home improvements or other luxuries are more of a priority - that's not something anyone else can decide for you. It's something you and your OH need to decide together.

Surely it depends on how much you earn and what you have to pay out?

Once all bills are paid we have about £200 between us, which we struggle with!

But once my wife has finished her masters degree in 2 years, we have worked out we will have around £1500 spare every month

A stupid amount

6k a month left over after all bills etc

I have about £50 a week spare money but it's not really very spare as normally all spent on kids and it includes any days out and clothes / incidental expenses.