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 :)

I'm curious. In my lifetime I've been dirt poor (like now, mainly due to unexpected illness a little while back) and reasonably well off, but never to the extent of having £6K at the end of the month.

Wwhat on earth do those of you do for a living to have over £1K left over each EVERY MONTH AFTER you've paid the mortgage, Internet, electricity, water, council tax, mobile phone bills, Netflix or whatever, TV licence, car repairs, food, toiletries, cosmetics, dental costs, optician's bills, vet's bills and the rest? Or are you just in vitally important jobs where you get whopping bonuses all the time? I'm genuinely curious.

This thread is depressing.

@cannycat20

I definitely do not have a huge paying job, and the only bonus I ever got was a £50 voucher
But I live frugally and I don’t drive/own a car. WFH so no commuting costs/lunches etc. DC grown up, no pets.
So I take home around £2500 per month.
£650 a month rent (HA)
Around £200 for CT and utilities.
I don’t have an expensive mobile phone contract or anything like that. So £50 a month covers phone/internet/Netflix etc.
Food and toiletries £200 p/m
Then £100 or so for any other expenses that come up. Or if I want to go out for a meal or drinks.
Which leaves me £1300. I rarely buy new clothes, have everything I want/need for the house mostly. Because my place is HA I don’t have to pay out for big things, like if the boiler breaks (even if they did make me go 8 months without heating and hot water before `i got a new one!).

I have about £500 and DH has about £300, but we don’t have kids yet !

These threads always give incredibly varied replies, not just differences in salaries but what people consider essential items and luxury, plus variations in fixed costs.

It's just me, DD21 and cat. Until last month I had about £2.5k spare each month, but was working far too many hours, very stressed and no time to enjoy life. I'm starting a Christmas temp job tomorrow on NMW and still think I'll have about £500 spare. I could be wrong ....

@Meruem Thanks for the reply; if you don't have to run a car or pay travel expenses then that accounts for some of it. I guess it also means you're much less likely to get sucked into any "going out with colleagues" events. Even the cheapest car, like the one we have, still requires road tax, repairs, MoTs, new tyres intermittently etc.

How on earth do you keep your utilities so low? Our electricity alone is £100 a month, and we're in a tiny little flat.

I still think that's a very generous amount to have left over at the end of the month, but if you've been in your profession a while, your rent is low for the area, and kids are all grown up, no pets etc, then I understand how you can get to that. Eventually. I still don't understand how someone can have £5-6K a month left over though unless they own their home outright, get money from Buy to Let, holiday homes or similar, or work in an incredibly well-paid profession (and outside the City, banking and some lines of business, there aren't that many professions that pay that well any more - or am I missing something?)

@cannycat20 I’m a teacher (part time) and dh is in engineering but as you can we have extremely low outgoings. No mortgage, no Netflix, internet or tv licence. We also live in a country with no water rates or council tax.

I'm confused if you have thousands 'spare' shouldn't most of that go into savings rather than to throw away on silly things? Maybe I'm just boring.

About £800 after all bills so I allocated £300 for spending/going out and the rest is split between mortgage overpayments and savings. No idea how much disposable income DH has though.

I have both gas and electric meters but I guess being alone I don't use much of either. So I only do 2 wash loads a week for example. I probably don't use my heating as much as some people I think. I don't get super cold and I have a heated throw which I'll often use in the evening if it's chilly rather than put the heating on. Makes me sound like a right miser! I'm really not but seems a bit silly to heat the whole house and I get really hot in the night (menopause) so I don't actually want the whole house warm.

Like you though i can't imagine having 5 or 6k left over! You have to be very well paid to have that amount.

£1150 a month after everything is paid?! That’s loads! We have nothing like that, plus we still have 2 kids at home.

2.5k a month not that high!! I'm a single mum on less than 1k..so god knows what you think is a good wage

This is planet mumsnet where a disproportionate number of posters either earn Monopoly money salaries or bullshit that they do...exemplified by the thread the other day that said MPs, who earn 3x the national average wage, are on a low wage and not enough to support a family. Just roll your eyes and take it with a pinch of salt ;)

We have about £1500 after bills and savings. But we use that to pay for petrol and food.

I think my wage is decent but I wouldn't class myself as a "high" earner. It's 40k a year which is what say a teacher or social worker (with a few years experience) would earn. I'm also in London so that makes a difference. I'd call a high earner someone on 50k plus. Or I would be a high earner (comparitively speaking) if I lived somewhere where the average wages were much lower.

Around 4K+ after everything including food/toiletries etc. We have a haulage business.

We have £££ left after all bills expenses. We don’t save it though. We easily spend £1000+ a month eating out alone. If the shit hit the fan I could cut thousands from our outgoings. Kids activities alone are £600 a month. Cleaner is £800 a month, PT sessions are £500 a month. I could go on. Ridiculous really but we can afford it at the moment. I’m frugal, DH isn’t.

@Doodar Do you mind me asking if you live outside the UK or in some very wealthy parts of central London (or some other cities) if £800 a month for a cleaner and £600 for children's activities are frugal. Where I live there are plenty of healthcare and hospitality trade and delivery staff who barely earn that amount in a month, and that's working all the hours God sends.

Those of you who run businesses, I kind of get where you are, particularly haulage, which I understand can be very profitable, especially if they've been going for a while.

And those of you with no council tax or water rates, there's only one part of the UK I can think of where that currently applies, and yes, the cost of living is a lot lower there in general, so again, I kind of understand that.

@57Varieties, your post is one that makes me wish there was a "Like" button. Planet mumsnet is right! (Off to get the salt now.)

How much cleaning do you need? How filthy is your home?

Ha, nc fail

I have about 150 spare each month

We are in our 50s and early retirees with grown up children so just 2 of us.

We have fixed pensions and after bills, food, fuel, gifts, house and car expenses we are left with £1200. No mortgage and we have investments and savings so we save £500 towards holidays, £300 for eating out, entertainment and £400 divided between us for personal money so £200 each. That covers clothes, hair, hobbies, personal stuff like makeup etc etc.

If your £400 each also covers eating out then that sounds fine to me. Our gym membership is included in our bills so doesn't come out of personal money. I find £200 is fine and also covers me for trips out with friends etc and books, music etc.

Before we gave up work we would divide our disposable income in 3 and spend a third, save a third for holidays, home improvements etc and a third would go on investing in our ISAs, pension or overpay the mortgage. As in most things finding the balance which works for you is fine. I would feel uncomfortable frittering £400 a month though but there is nothing to stop you saving part of your £400 or overpay your pension.

Nothing!

We have about £300 for meals out, cinema etc but we have no savings at all.

That’s more than we have left after our direct debits, and is for food clothes Extras and transport for a family of 6!