Am I a Scrooge?

[Giraffapuses]

Hi - long time reader first time poster!

I am proposing my partner and I have spending money of £300 per month each so that we can save aggressively for a house. This is from a total monthly income of £5,500. My partner thinks this takes the fun out of life. Am I being unreasonable?

We are in our early 30s and don't yet own a home. After all bills we are left with about £1,300 per month. So I am aiming to save about £750 per month. We have no children.

We have limited savings. About £5,000.

We have £300 each pocket money, but that is for us to spend on ourselves, pay for our own phones etc. Cafe trips and family outings come out of a joint fund. £300 is enough if you are not buying food and petrol out of it too.

Can you look at some other income support for your families, £500 a month to them seems a lot out of your pot. Do they own their homes? Or are they in another country?

How rigid does the £300 a month limit have to be? Would you be comfortable to double that one month if you wanted a holiday, for example, or are you very much wedded to that sum?

Definitely not being a Scrooge at all.

However, I would say 2 things - firstly, you crack on and save as much as you can. Your partner will start to see how much you're saving and hopefully be inspired by it. That's what happened with me - I did it alone to pay off my credit card debt and my husband joined in after a couple of months. If I were you I'd say do what you want, but we can't buy a house until you've matched my savings.

Secondly, the way I saved by far the most money was by going on the no spend principle. At the beginning of the month I write down all my essential expenses (bills, groceries etc). I try to keep the variables like groceries as low as possible by meal planning. Then I look at the month ahead and write a list of approved spends, which I keep as low as possible. So for example: a birthday present for my dad, a pack of socks for my son, X amount for friends leaving drinks - whatever. Then I make a decision not to spend anything not on the list.

I found when I gave myself a budget of say £300, by the end of the month I will have either not kept track and gone over or I will think - oh I still have £50 left, what shall I spend it on? And spend it on something I don't need. So sticking to the list of approved spends works best for me.

Between my husband and I we have paid off £9k of debt and saved £3.5k on top of paying out a few hundred for home improvements since January 2020 and our take home salaries are a little less than yours a month (obviously don't know how our outgoings compare but to give you an idea).

Good luck!

We've just done very similar to you. We have a higher income, but also have a child, so have "family fun money" as well as "individual fun money" to budget.

We've saved aggressively and just bought our first house after doing this for just under 2yrs.

We have definitely been without luxuries - no holidays, no new clothes (for adults), no new technology etc. It has taken the fun out of life a little bit! But it was only for such a short period of time, and we were both in agreement. Also we have a toddler, so life has naturally curtailed a bit anyway.

I wouldn't have lived the same way for 5 years as I was prepared to for 2, so I think you need to have a clear savings goal in mind, and a goal for when you're going to buy. But you need to be in agreement - you can't decide for both of you.

But the OP isn't proposing that they don't have any fun or luxuries, just limited to £300 per person per month. Plus whatever discretionary spending is included in their normal bills, because there's a lot unaccounted for on top of the things mentioned in this thread, which already include a large discretionary element (gifts to parents and expensive counselling sessions, neither of which are absolutely essential, as in they wouldn't be affordable if their income wasn't so high).

I'd say that £300 is too much when you are trying to save for a deposit. Most months aim to spend as little as possible, more like £20 a week max. Obviously some months you may need to go closer to £300 but you really should try to avoid this so you can save quicker. You do both need to be onboard though.

Hi thanks for the different perspectives. Few people asked how we burn through four grand a month. Below are the big monthly cost drivers:
Food £400
House stuff (e.g Council tax, bills etc) £350
Streaming £75
Car loan and insurance etc £270
Debt repayments £200

This plus the other costs (counselling, parents, rent) pushes us toward about £4k a month expenditure.

Money for parents is a necessity as they are in receipt of benefits which is less than the cost of living.

General thrust of discussion seems to be. He needs to get on board with the house buying as a priority.

I'm on benefits and wouldn't dream of taking money from my children, even though they all own their own homes, already.

Are your Parents connected to the need for counselling? Have you come from another culture were there's a lot of FOG?

You need to work out an amount that suits both of you. Or resentment will kick in.

I'm on benefits and wouldn't dream of taking money from my children, even though they all own their own homes, already.

Unless you’re the OP’s mother and have had a suddenly change of heart, that really isn’t relevant.

You should get rid of the debts first - again as I said above your mortgage lender will look at your outgoing as well as your salary and it will affect how much you can borrow.

Are you sure those figures for food and bills are accurate? Does the food include ALL food and drink - takeaways, restaurants (lockdown notwithstanding), wine, beer etc? Genuinely not criticising you at all, but that spending on groceries isn't what I'd normally expect with households with that kind of income and among whom reducing 'fun' money to £600 a month is considered austere.

Also, £350 sounds very low for council tax, water, gas, electricity, TV licence, broadband, mobile phones, house insurance, other insurances etc.

Does the car money include tax, MoTs (if car(s) old enough), repairs, petrol/diesel?

Not trying to doubt you whatsoever, I just know from experience that it's very easy to estimate, round down or forget to include quite substantial extras in your calculations.

Also, when are your debts due to be repaid? If these are costing you interest, might it be a good idea to try and clear these ASAP first and then automatically have an extra £200 to put into your savings every month that you aren't used to having anyway?