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?

Could give some money to charity, if its burning a hole in your pocket.

Uh oh, these threads never go well...

If your DH is worried, why don't you budget some of that 1.5k for savings each month? Sounds loads to spend on non essentials to me.

🙄 however will you manage!

Gosh you poor thing.

Its roughly the same amount that I have BEFORE any bills. And I have 2 teens to feed and clothe

HOW MUCH???!!! Bloody hell, OP - I don't even have that much coming in a month, let alone it being 'disposable' after bills!

It’s more than we have as a family of 5 and we live comfortably. Even manage holidays and weekends away.

I’m not sure op. It’s going to be hard to afford regular exotic holidays and designer clothes on that.
If you don’t need to travel or buy luxury items regularly then I think you can make do.

I think a lot of people will wonder how you have high paid jobs, if you really have the low level of critical thinking and empathy that your post indicates.

This.

Here we are were £500 disposable a month feeling like millionaires getting excited about finally being able to treat our parents when we go out with them. 😕

@ BarbaraofSeville Yes, you get my point obviously. It's not that much when you take out all the 'non-essential' things that you can live without, but most people have (Birthday presents, bikes, toys, clothes etc..) I am pretty savvy though with buying all these things though and always buy clothes in the sales for the next season. Plus we don't care for expensive tech etc.. and usually get everything expensive second hand.

But ok..I've offended many people and apologize once more. It was not my intention. Wanted to show this to DH actually to calm his nerves about the situation. And to clarify, we have very very low expenses at the moment. Not huge salaries..

You couldn't afford holidays before and you had more than £18k spare a year?

That's roughly our family income for 2 adults 2 kids a dog and a cat. Funnily enough I think you'll be fine. I wouldn't say we go without anything.

That’s a fuckton of money!

@Sanitisethat

£500 per week after bills, food and living costs is plenty. That’s £125 per person in a family of four, every week. You will be absolutely, comfortably, luxuriantly fine.

Where do you live that only has 3 weeks in a month?

£1500 by 4 weeks a month is more like £375 a week.

@titchy

After all fixed bills we still need to pay for possible hobbies, clothes, petrol (we have the option to not use the car too much if need be), occasionally eating out, holidays (we haven't had one for years), toys, birthdays, new bikes as kids grow etc etc..

Your mistake is not thinking about most of those things as part of your fixed bills. You need to work out how much you need to spend each year on petrol, birthdays, Christmas, kids clothes and clubs, plus whatever else you would happily go without food in order to pay for (this will vary from person to person - music lessons and scout camps was mine), plus saving towards replacement bikes, washing machine, broken boiler.

Then what's left is your genuine spare cash.

This.

You also need to put money into your savings, if you have used then all up.

I don’t understand why you’ve had no holidays if you have so much spare income and used to have more ?

@ivfbeenbusy

Someone got absolutely chewed out on here a few weeks ago when they were complaining they "only" had £1500 a month disposable income

Amongst other things she was accused of being smug and totally oblivious

Most people have £0 disposable income once food etc is paid for........

I was thinking this sounded very familiar.

OP what if I have a million disposable a month, does that make you feel you don't have enough?

What if I have £0 disposable a month. Does that make you feel better?

Not nice is it.

Your mistake here was posting in AIBU not Money Matters - we have slightly different perspectives on those boards. But yes you can make £1.5k work.

@DumplingsAndStew

£18k a year 'spare' cash, and asking if its enough to play with?.

Get a grip.

Read the fucking thread. This ISNT OP's disposable income at all - which she later clarified.

How much do you save a month?

You are asking if your huge disposable income is enough to live on. Seriously goady and quite rude actually.

That is beyond enough! Try to think how people with 4 kids live on 10% of that a month and that probably isn't even disposable for some people ! Maybe 1% of your 1,500 is disposable for some family's. Be greatful you have money left over after alll your expenses are covered. Your dh needs get into reality abit. Anythin is better then nothing an your anything is a lot x

Honestly op I urge you to put some figures on this thread- it’s bizarre to me. How much do you spend on bdays etc?
You don’t need to buy second hand on such money

Yes, we used to have more income, but much bigger outgoings in a big city. Quite stressed out and unhappy. We never had time off and used to treat ourselves to retail therapy, takeaway coffees and eating out. Now we have a fraction of the costs we used to have, but also salaries have fallen. I guess DH is used to going and buying whatever he likes whenever he likes and we didn't really budget. Now we are, and although the money coming in is a lot less, I am a lot happier. DH is panicking, as I already mentioned..
For example last week I had to fix the car which cost us loads and ate up most of our 'disposable' budget, but Ithink it's ok..

How nice to have such a problem! Have you ever watched Rich House, Poor House? Then you'd see what a low disposable income is!
You have enough to save some, go on holidays and have blow out birthdays and Christmas.
It depends on your shopping habits though - do you regularly buy new clothes etc?