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 :)

About £1000 on paper but it never ever works out that way!

So admire people who treat saving as a bill. I’m having to overpay my mortgage instead of saving because I just don’t have that self discipline.

Around 1.5/2k a month dh has about 3k I think. It depends on your job everyone will be different, tbh me and dh hit it lucky with the jobs we have, both run our own businesses (though I co own mine so would be a lot more money if I didn’t)

I have a different perspective.

I dont count saving as a "bill". nor set myself "spending money".

I find "stuff" annoying. I like a simple life. Ot feels wasteful for me to buy lots of anything and create a lot of waste, and waste money in he process.
Gadgets don't interest me, I have the basic items I need for work and communication. I could not get worked up over a new iphone.
Most of my clothes are from charity shops, I repair them when they start to wear out or get damaged-most of my furniture is second hand.
I bought my trusty old car 4 years ago for £800 , still going strong.
I have no interest in fancy shoes or handbags, dislike synthetic fragrances.
If I need a new winter coat or top then it's a visit to my local charity shop.
I like a minimalist home, cosy but without clutter.
The upside of his is that I earn more money than I need.
It requires no effort refuse to be sucked into the buying frenzy for me.

God there are some boring, joyless people on here.

To the people that have a lot left over each month but daren’t spend hardly any of it due to guilt that it should be saved for ‘the future.’ Seriously, when is ‘the future?’ I totally get/ agree with having savings/ a safety net but seriously, after you’ve got that (and I think probably £10k- 20k is enough for most people) surely life is for living NOW?! The ‘future’ may never happen, you could be dead next week.

In answer to the OP, about £800. DH probably about 3k

Why do most of you have different spare money to your husbands?

My spare money is different to DH’s

I have enough for myself to pay my bills and petrol plus bots the kids need - school lunches, social pocket money etc

I save regularly, as does he.

He earns more, pays the mortgage and most bills and I don’t begrudge him his extra money - usually spent on visiting his dad in another country, or gold trips etc.

I have weekends away with friend too, just not as often or as extravagant.

Some people just aren’t materialistic!

To the people that have a lot left over each month but daren’t spend hardly any of it due to guilt

I don't think anyone is saying that.

God there are some boring, joyless people on here

There are many ways to find joy in life.
Spending money on stuff I don't need brings me no joy.

I have plenty joy in life, most of it found in very simple things.

Attaching joy to spending is not always a healthy thing to do - the desire to have things or to seek experiences doesn't always fulfill the need for happiness.

It is interesting that you think people who don't find joy in spending money have little joy at all in their lives.
Nothing could be further from the truth.

Agree with Speakout, we save quite a lot of income for our pensions, hoping to have a three or four month US trip when we retire. I don’t think we have a ‘joyless’ lifestyle, I enjoy the feeling of knowing we paid off the mortgage in our 40s, that we will be able to help our DS with a contribution to a house deposit when the time comes. I feel secure in knowing that if we need a new boiler we can buy it without scrimping and saving. We do spend on ‘big’ purchases, about to have a new bedroom carpet, and I certainly don’t penny pinch by only buying Aldi bargains each week but to me, frivolous spending would be endless going out to expensive restaurants/ clubs, buying lots of new clothes (I love the thrill of charity shop buying). Enjoyment (for me) doesn’t come from endless spending.

After all the bills you listed, most people don't have much left, I have perhaps £200 of which I save £100, I also save £100 for the annual bills as part of my essentials

DP and I pay (no kids) the same amount into the joint account each month. It pays for everything that's "joint": food, utilties, anything we need for the house, car expenses, holidays, meals out. That account has a surplus of £400-500 a month, which we're saving for major house repairs and a new kitchen.

I'm left with about £500 a month for myself, DP a bit more.

We're mortgage free, and live pretty frugally though (eg have cheap holidays and don't spend much on clothes etc) . We're on pretty low salaries.

As a household we have around £1500 a month spare. Neither of us earn stupid salaries but we live in a very cheap area and have minimal necessary outgoings.

Our mortgage is just £300 a month and household bills come to less than £300. I spend maybe another £150 on my car as does DH (fuel and insurance costs) and then we have pets which probably cost another £100 or so.

Everything else that's left is spare money.

*the above figure should say £2500, apologies.

However to add to that, DP is self-employed so we do have to put money aside for the quieter months, and for things like replacing tools etc.

Why do most of you have different spare money to your husbands?

In my case, because I opted to reduce my hours. And I like to have money that is my "own", so that if I fancy blowing a few hundred on something frivolous I don't have to justify it, or the £60 or so a month that I spend on books. Consequently, the money isn't all thrown into one pot - we each have some that is individual money as well as joint.

Between me and DP we have about £1800 left over each month but £800 goes into savings, £600 into holiday pot and £400 (£200 each) on general spending money such as clothes, cinema or eating out. We don’t have kids and our mortgage is very low (£400 pm and due to be paid off by the time we’re 40). We also only have one car. Both earn around £35k each.

I'd love it if I had anything like that much spare! About £50 a month, if I'm having a good financial month.

We have between 300 & 400 a month each spare a month.. I don't think it's quite enough after we've done stuff like days out with DD, buying her whatever new thing she needs, personal grooming, birthdays etc.

That is the amount we have when we're not saving for something, if we're saving for holiday or home improvements then the 'fun' money is less.

Incoming- approx 3500
Out set outgoings per month are
Electricity- 50
Insurances (Life and house) - 70
Phones x2 - 70
Childcare For 2 - 200 (term time only)
So that’s 390 altogether

The rest is ours to save accordingly for annual outgoings
Car tax
Car insurance
Property tax

And then take out
Food
Fuel
Savings.

To the people that have a lot left over each month but daren’t spend hardly any of it due to guilt that it should be saved for ‘the future.’ Seriously, when is ‘the future?’ I totally get/ agree with having savings/ a safety net but seriously, after you’ve got that (and I think probably £10k- 20k is enough for most people) surely life is for living NOW?! The ‘future’ may never happen, you could be dead next week.

The future includes retirement for me, I need a lot lot more savings than 20k.

I think 'sad' is needing to spend loads of money on crap in order to have a good life. Spending all of our money wouldn't make me happier, I have everything I want and spend what I want but save the rest. Buying flashy cars, a bigger house, designer clothes won't make life better.

Obviously there is a difference to people just scraping by and it's a fortunate position but I'd rather have long term security rather than piss it up the wall.

We like to have 1 or 2 luxury holidays per year but other than that we don’t spend much money as we’re both happy pottering around at home We occasionally do things like go out for lunch or to the cinema now and again. I partied myself half to death by living in Ibiza with friends when I was younger etc so I don’t feel like I’ve missed out on a fun social life. If I meet up with friends now then it’s usually just at Starbucks or something.
I don’t have a gym membership as just use free workout videos on YouTube at home, or I go for a long walk.

Crikey that's a lot! We have £250 a month we put away and that's to cover car MOT, service, any emergencies, christmas, birthdays etc. We spend less than £50 a month on days out etc for DSD. How on earth is £400 a month not enough?

We have £600 each and no kids I always blow it too... we do go out a lot though as are mid 20s.

Crickey £400 a month includes food and petrol for me

None - in fact we go to our overdraft limit each month. That's without any entertainment expenses - we literally never go out. Thankfully, this should change as I just got a full time job.

About £500 between us but I’ve just upped my hours so from Jan it’ll be more like £800. Once I stop paying childcare at the same level in 18 months it’ll be £1400.

At that point though we’ll remortgage and reduce our term significantly - ideally we’d be mortgage free in 15 years which would give us 10 years of significant savings.