Where does your disposal income go?

[notanotheraibu]

What do you like to spend your fun money on?

Bags, beauty, travel, clothes, shoes, sport, home improvement or anything else?

I don't spend much on beauty but would love to have a monthly massage and nail appointment. Not fussed on brows or Botox.

I also place more value on travel after the last couple of years and intend to save more to enable a bit more travel.

Clothes, shoes and bags are bought but usually second hand.

I have been squirreling my disposable income away into a separate holiday account for when we feel able to travel again. I have managed a few city trips (within train distance) withn the Dcs but am hoping we can get a proper holiday in the sun this year.

Otherwise I have also separated out some funds into a savings account that will be used for building work that needs desperately to be done.

That's it though really.

Savings, hair, holiday account

We no longer have any. I used to get my nails done. Had to stop that.

Someone will be along shortly to complain this is tone deaf…

But before they do ours goes on dinner out, we like to try as many restaurants as possible, travel, horses and dogs!

Makeup (mix of department store and budget, but I wear a full face everyday and have tons of backups) and eating out and nice food. Long haul flight every year to see my family..

Clothes are general sale dresses for £35 from shops like joules and Boden or second hand/ancient jumpers. I have 1 good coat which I wear daily (£135 from Michael Kors).
My bag is several hundred £ but I use the same bag everyday for years on end (with a clutch for formal occasions), hence why it's a convertible backpack from senreve so I guess it's cheaper than having lots of handbags? Shoes follow the same concept but I have several pairs of shoes due to needing backups and for various occasions! I am not going to dye my hair anymore (but am in my 20s so not essential I suppose).

I am not really interested in spending money on other things.

Hair, nails, odd piece of clothing, odd bag (always save up as I like really nice bags), updates for houses / garden (slowly perfecting each room), holidays. Would also like to add monthly massage, must find someone local and good.

Oh and I have an extremely spoilt hamster but that costs a few £ at most per month at most! Though I recently spent £90 on holiday boarding plus a Uber to get him there cos it was hailing!

Holidays.

I rarely buy new clothes and if I do then I tend to go for the sale rail.

I'm not hugely into make up or beauty treatments.

For myself just my brows and hair ( latter every other month)- the rest all on activities for my children, ie. farm / soft play/ fun fairs etc.

Blimey you are brave op. This is MN so despite 90% of posters earning £100k+ most are also having to choose whether to heat or eat.
I’m not admitting that I have any fun money or I will be berated for not using it to support others.

I feel like I don’t have any! But I do spend on some discretionary things I guess - took some pictures for framing recently, bought a jumper from the charity shop, buy 2nd hand books I want to read online… that sort of thing. I spend nothing on beauty stuff though!

Savings, travel, eating out. In that order. I rarely buy clothes, don’t wear make up, cheap haircut every 6 months.

I spend barely a penny on clothes, makeup and toiletries - I maybe buy 4 items a year. I get a basic haircut once every 8 weeks and don't have any other beauty treatments.
I'm not mad for travel and holidays.
But I spend hundreds and hundreds of pounds a month on the house and garden. At the moment it's the garden and buying timber for various projects out there, mature plants, masses of compost, garden cushions and so on. Next I want to decorate the spare room so I'll be buying paint, wallpaper, a new wardrobe etc.
It gives me so much pleasure to have a lovely home so I think it's money well spent.

We live a pretty simple life. I'm not into nails or clothes etc. Most of it gets saved. We recently spent a chunk of the savings on some building work and changing the layout of the downstairs of our house. I absolutely love it.

I crochet so buy nice yarn and other bits and bobs associated with that but that doesn't cost a lot.

@ImplementingTheDennisSystem

I spend barely a penny on clothes, makeup and toiletries - I maybe buy 4 items a year. I get a basic haircut once every 8 weeks and don't have any other beauty treatments. I'm not mad for travel and holidays. But I spend hundreds and hundreds of pounds a month on the house and garden. At the moment it's the garden and buying timber for various projects out there, mature plants, masses of compost, garden cushions and so on. Next I want to decorate the spare room so I'll be buying paint, wallpaper, a new wardrobe etc. It gives me so much pleasure to have a lovely home so I think it's money well spent.

I want to be more like this as I agree the value you get considering all the time spent at home is worth it.

I don't have much style or create though so that puts me off.

Not clothes, have a splurge once in a blue moon.

Plants, the garden, more plants…pots, compost, trees. It’s a tiny very full garden.

The house last couple of years as new to us and renovating.

Good food to eat in and eating out.

Gardening bits.

Nails, pub, meals out, holidays. We are fortunate that money isn't tight and the pandemic has been excellent for Dp's business- I'm very aware this is unusual. We are older though so 1/3 income goes into retirement savings, I know what it's like to cut coupons and look for yellow stickered food.

I don’t spend anything on myself really. I can’t stand browsing the shops any more, don’t know why, so I just order what I need from Next on line.

Pets, gym membership (which I use a lot), clothes, vodka, eating out, holidays

@Fairyliz Mumsnet has lots of people who advocate having a house with garden (as big as possible) even if that means you commute 1.5 hours and regardless of income level. And mamy seem to be NC with their MIL. If you need 2 cars, pay hundreds of pounds in rail fares, need to pay additional childcare, maybe that will cut down on disposable income.

My household income is the top 9-15% in the country.. in terms of take home pay (after tax and pensions) according to IFS..but I would have zero disposable income if i chose to buy a house outside London over a flat in London..the mortgage would be roughly the same but I would be spending over £1k a month outside london on a car and 2 X commuting fares of £400 each so would have to live like a pauper. In London, we have no car and a round trip to work is £7.20 at peak time.

Various non essential items for the house and garden, our most recent buy was some nice wooden plant tables for strawberries and I also buy various bits for the house. We go out in the caravan a lot, haven't ventured abroad since covid started but hope to do that again soon, though all the airport chaos is putting me off a bit for now

Kid, everything goes on my kid and takeouts because of my kid 😬. Tbh I don’t seem to have time to spend disposable income it mostly just goes in savings.

Savings

I used to spend it all on DS and into savings with the rest, but lately I have realised I am worth a treat too and shouldn't feel guilty for it. My favourite thing to do is catch up with friends and we try and meet once a month as a group so I put some aside for that, I've been buying more clothes as slowly replacing my worn out ones with a capsule wardrobe.