1,5k disposable income a month is enough

[Myglorioushairdo]

AIBU to think that a disposable income of £1,500 a month is enough for a family of four? That is after all living costs, fixed monthly bills and food/household essentials.
DH and I were a bit unfortunate and made a major life change just before the pandemic, and this is what our household income has now been boiled down to.

DH is majorly stressed out and says its not enough, I say it's OK for now. We are able control all the other costs with careful planning and even save a bit! We don't live in a big city and our kids are still primary school age. What do you think?

@BiddyPop good points thank you! Like I've said before, I worded my OP wrong. It's not disposable income as such. It's money left over after absolute essentials. I guess it has felt like disposable after having such hard four months during lockdown with no income at all.

I think DH's stress is heightened by the fact his sector is in deep trouble due to covid and he kind of needs to reinvent himself..and not knowing what to do now..

In all fairness as long as bills are paid, everyone has food in their tummies then even having a £1 left over means you're still winning.

I work 30 hour a week and don't even take that amount home. I know people have different outgoings and hobbies and ways of living but these posts make me feel sad about what I can provide for DS on my £200 a month disposable income

t's not disposable income as such. It's money left over after absolute essentials

That is the definition of disposable income - money left over after essentials.

@BarbaraofSeville How on earth does she manage when her berry bushes are not producing? - I freeze them

OK, part of my thoughts were not relevant, but having read your later posts, I think you should still sit down with DH (AFTER you have done a budget sheet covering everything you think you will spend in a year, and the income you expect to earn, and showing that this at least balances or that you should be able to get some savings back again). Go through it and show him that he doesn't need to panic - possibly worry yes, but just to keep control over things and it will be ok.

And ask what he really misses of the old life that could be replicated - like if he used to love his nice frothy coffees, is it worth getting a decent travel mug, milk frother and a coffee machine or a plunger and good ground coffee, so he can make his own at home?

Or looking for good recipes for some of his favourite takeaway meals, getting the right spices/ingredients, and making takeaway feasts at home instead? (Leftovers could be frozen for easy dinners at other times - so doing a full-on curry feast of 2 or even 3 different sauces and HM naans is not a waste).

And let him get his worries out. Acknowledge them, it is a big change. And THEN reassure him that it is ok. There is a plan. Are there other things he thinks would help? But remind him that just as the income has dropped, the costs have dropped too (if you have any comparisons to old costs and income, that could be really helpful!!).

It’s chicken feed, you poor loves
It’s a fortune, stop boasting

Take your pick of the above statements. When someone answers your question their answer will tell you more about their finances than yours. If your DH is worried perhaps he’s hiding a massive coke habit, who knows? Certainly not anyone here.

It would be far more useful to ask questions about how people have saved money if their finances reduced. Or what did people discover were the upsides to having to budget more carefully. Or a million other questions about reduced finances. That way you benefit from the collective wisdom here which would surely be more comforting for your DH to read. Asking “am I poor” or “am I in a bad position financially” is impossible to answer and generally goes badly.

I conclude that my OP was worded wrong. Money left over after all essential fixed bills is not 'disposable income' when we need to cover all non-essentials too like petrol, toys, clothes etc.. In fact our true disposable income is fairly low when all these things have been paid for.

Toys and clothes are not essentials unless your children are growing fast and even then you can find things on Ebay or charity shops.

Petrol/ fuel is essential unless you stay at home all day.

I think you need to either show us the real outgoings, or sit and go through the process yourself by setting up a spread sheet of what IS essential.

Essential for us includes

Utility bills
council tax
car tax, insurance, fuel
house insurance
food

On top of that we have private health cover, hair and dental appts, and small amounts for gifts for birthdays and Christmas for friends and family.

If you have no savings you also need to factor in things that might need sorting like car repairs or essential house repairs like your central heating breaking down, or white goods going bust.

Have you actually done the maths for all of this?

@DoTheMaccaroni

Jesus Christ. I’ve just been sat here sobbing because I’m worried about our money and how we have hardly anything at all left each month. Came on here to distract myself.

1,500 is absolutely plenty Feels like a stealth brag!

I'm with you on this. One well-meaning friend said to me a few months ago 'most households are only a broken down washing machine away from poverty'. THAT'S NOT FUCKING POVERTY, that's just cashflow being a bit tight. I didn't have a washing machine for over a year when mine broke, because I couldn't afford to get it fixed! FFS, some people really do need a sense of perspective.

It's not being poorer than others that makes me feel shit, it's the absolute unrelenting grind of it being everyday life. There's never a chance to save any money, there's no nest egg, no security. If something goes wrong, we're fucked. for you, because neither of us can afford to buy them right now.

I have the impression that you as a couple have not really ever sat down and budgeted.

We went through this recently as we are both semi-retired and our income has changed a lot.

In the lead up to down sizing our work, we spend a lot of time doing a spread sheet with everything we spent money on.

We worked out our minimum needs and then our 'comfortable needs' , did some stats around the average weekly food bill, etc etc. for a year.

Just sit down together and do some honest thinking and work out the maths.

It sounds like an extraordinary amount to me after ‘essentials’. However, I include things like car maintenance in essentials.

You need to go back through your banks statements in the last year and see how much you spent on things like car maintenance, new appliance after another broke (not a new one cos you fancied a different colour). Divide that by 12 and that’s the amount you have to transfer to an ‘annual or unexpected expenses’ account each month.

Things like hobbies are ‘nice to haves’ I’m afraid.

@BiddyPop
Oh yes let’s pander to the poor man and his frothy coffees and takeaways!
He’s not 6, he’s a grown adult, who despite having a good earning job(until recently) seems incapable of grasping a budget.

Wel you’ve realised OP that your didn’t word your post properly and what actually comes under disposable income for you.

I would say the biggest thing is you and your DH are adjusting to new lives in a new area which includes having a lower income (but also lower outgoings). It’s not surprising if you both were used to certain things or had a lifestyle where you didn’t have to think about purchases too much but now the numbers coming in are different and it’s given your DH a shock. Add to that having zero income and using up all savings, that safety cushion has gone so naturally one wonders and about expenses.

You’ve had good advice here about going through your expenses with your husband so I’m sure you will be fine.

@YouokHun

It’s chicken feed, you poor loves It’s a fortune, stop boasting

Take your pick of the above statements. When someone answers your question their answer will tell you more about their finances than yours. If your DH is worried perhaps he’s hiding a massive coke habit, who knows? Certainly not anyone here.

It would be far more useful to ask questions about how people have saved money if their finances reduced. Or what did people discover were the upsides to having to budget more carefully. Or a million other questions about reduced finances. That way you benefit from the collective wisdom here which would surely be more comforting for your DH to read. Asking “am I poor” or “am I in a bad position financially” is impossible to answer and generally goes badly.

exactly that

Some of the comments are still a disgrace. If people were spending the energy wasted on hatred and being abusive to others on something productive, their own situation would improve greatly.

In some ways seeing these threads makes me glad my entire income is a grand a month. I actually think I am happier than people who apparently are worried about what they are going to do with their spare grand and a half.

These threads are becoming more and more common, like the one recently about the woman who thought it was an essential to spend £600 on blinds.

I don’t know what is causing this. Lifestyle bloggers?

i think everyone is being really harsh.....a massive change in circumstances is pretty scary.

also, a £2,500 family budget is not necessarily all that much for a family of 4 - the average UK salary is £35k *2 - thats £70k which is obviously a lot more than £2,5k per month.

OP -it will be enough but you will need to budget

I actually think I am happier than people who apparently are worried about what they are going to do with their spare grand and a half.

you are spectacularly missing the point.

People are worried about a REDUCED income. Any normal human being would be.

Plus the little fact that the OP has corrected many time that this amount is not "spare" but part of the strictly essential budget.

I hate these ‘is xyz enough to live on’ posts.

Only you know your income and expenditure.

In a time where jobs are lost and people are barely surviving these kinds of posts are particularly goading.

There will be people on mn who won’t eat today to feed their kids and you’re worried that more than a minimum wage take home pay as excess is enough. Give yourself a fucking shake.

@SBTLove I'm not pandering to "the poor man" - I'm thinking about ways in which he might be able to adapt to his new lifestyle in a cost-conscious way. And still have some of the things he enjoyed - even if differently. A milk frother can be bought for under £15, plunger the same, nice ground coffee if ordered direct can be relatively inexpensive, but instead of say 5 coffees costing £15 per week (at least), week 1 buys the frother, week 2 buys the plunger, week 3 buys the milk and coffee needed for a month, and then you have a few weeks with money for savings.

Yes, there's a need to budget and change, but sometimes having a small but important thing to you that you can still have/do/enjoy, makes a big difference to your ability to make that change and stick to it and be positive about it.

It's actually about being supportive to your spouse, not pandering to them.

So coffee may have been a bad example, but I just thought it was a reasonable way to illustrate the concept behind my point.

@BiddyPop
Go back and read the manner you wrote in, it’s as if you’re talking about making a young child understand change.

‘People are worried about a REDUCED income. Any normal human being would be.’

No. If your income was already much higher than you need, it isn’t concerning to have your income reduced to another income that is higher than you need.

I am also not convinced by many of these essentials. The OP doesn’t need to own a car.

None of this is a criticism of the OP. It is her husband who seems concerned about it all, not her.

I don’t buy this “everyone is on a diff budget” crap. Sorry but you just need to live in the real world to know the cost of living.
I don’t have that much less than OP, I’m neither minted nor broke, I don’t buy Gucci but I don’t buy second hand, I shop at Aldi but eat salmon....can we grasp reality.
If OP had said she was worried about lack of savings I would have greater understood

In order to reduce your husband's concerns, do you think it would be worth divvying that money into pots?

So every month e.g. £100 goes into the car repairs pot, £X into the car insurance pot, £30 into the Christmas pot, £30/50 or whatever into the Birthday pot, £100 into the house repairs pot etc? And then those things won't eat a whole month of "disposable" income when they come in because they're already accounted for.

Once savings etc are back up and running you might be able to cut the "pots" down -. I just have a short term savings pot that everything like car repairs, house fixing, Christmas comes out of.

That's about what we have after all bills including food, kids activities and fuel and yes it feels plenty. I divide it up into different pots otherwise I would squander it away on nothing, we have a holiday fund, Christmas fund, leisure fund, car emergencies, Contingency- basically I don't like unexpected costs so try to preempt them each month rather than have a month with high expenses and then a flush month, and then we each take a chunk each to spend on ourselves. As our earnings have increased we increase those funds. Holiday fund is the biggest chunk as my biggest priority, it gives us 1 good holiday abroad a year, weekend trips come out of leisure, as do birthdays and clothes. I have a spreadsheet, I'm very anal. I have to admit we aren't good at long term savings beyond what we want to do in a year, that's what we need to improve (but we do have a mortgage, excellent pensions and insurance coverage).

I don't understand how functioning adults can't grasp that £1500 fun money is enough? Give your DH's head a wobble and enjoy life, safe in the knowledge you have £1500 more left over than most people in the UK.