To wonder what's going wrong with our finances!?

[pondering12345]

In the process of moving to a joint account with DH, so using this opportunity to review our monthly finances:

Income
DH take home pay £2600
My take home pay (part time) £1075
Child benefit £145
Total income £3820

Expenses
DH car loan £270
My car loan £160
Mortgage £645
Water £60
Gas and electric £250
Home insurance £15
Broadband £25
Council tax £190
DH credit card £110 (we each use our own credit card for any purchases for ourselves and pay off the following month)
My credit card £100
My phone £35
DH phone £35
DH car tax £20
TV license £15
Zoo membership £20
Apple Music subscription £15
DH contact lenses £40
DH haircut £15
My haircut £20 (£60 every 3 months)
My nails £30
Window cleaner £15
DH petrol £100
My petrol £100
Food £450
Takeaways (one per week) £150
Kids hobbies & swimming £100
Date night £50
Disposable income £500
Total expenses £3535

This leaves less than £300 per month to put towards tonnes of other expenses - annual car insurance, gifts, Christmas, holidays, kids clothes, home and car maintenance etc.

Where are we going wrong here!? I don't feel like we live a particularly lavish lifestyle.

£100 spending money each, plus £500 disposable income, £65 on grooming, £120 on family entertainment, £150 take away, £50 on date night. Nearly 1k a month on non essentials. You are budgeting the wrong way wrong you need to work out the cost of essential and then look at what you can afford to spend in none essentials.

Well to me you just spend a lot! Weekly takeaways is a lot, the credit card spend for purchases for yourself that the doesn't include your hair cut or nails?! Are you spending £100 a month on clothes?! Date night £50 a month. I think this is pretty lavish isn't it? If you want more money left over you can easily not do these for a month or two.

Our combined income is higher than yours. Our expenditure is less than yours. And I think our lifestyle is pretty comfortable.

You could cut out absolutely loads of your expenses. Your food/takeaway/dining out costs are huge. And I wonder whether you've really included everything.

If I were you, I'd go through your bank and credit card statements for the last 12 months and itemise everything. Then set a reasonable budget that you can happily live off but which also includes savings.

A lot of those things are extras or luxuries. £500 spending money plus £220 credit card spends, which doesn't include kids clubs, nails, takeaways, date night, etc. That's really quite a lot!

Do you pay anything for TV? Eg Netflix, Prime, Disney etc?

You’ve got £965 disposable income, you just choose to spend some of it on a weekly takeaway, date night, nails, whatever you’ve bought on credit cards, zoo membership. Plus you have 2 reasonable cars (I assume) despite not doing high mileage.

It’s up to you how you prioritise your money, but I think you need to reframe your thinking from “why don’t we live a better lifestyle” to “that’s what we’ve chosen to spend our money on”. And re-prioritise if you want a holiday or something different.

Our monthly income is almost double yours and we have one take away a month and I do my own nails. £500 a month is a hell of a lot to spend on days out and trips to the pub too.

My observations would be: cheap mortgage, expensive car plans (any chance to reduce that by having an older car?) We are similar in that we don't feel like we have a lavish lifestyle at all despite earning okay. £40 for contact lenses a lot. Mine's £19 and they are the best contact lenses boots could offer me (2 weeklys). We're cancelling sky and reducing takeaways. I don't really understand your credit card logic tbh.

Everything seems like it’s on the never never loan and credit card train.

Zero savings, zero child savings, no overpayment of mortgage, credit cards must be racking up debt and interest.

Seems a very poor choice of spending.

You are wasting absolutely loads of money on things like contact lenses, zoo, subscription tv, very expensive phone contacts, two cars on credit, nails, date night, loads of take aways. I mean... It's not hard to see where your money is going!

You're too busy having a good time to budget!

Agree, absolutely loads of nice to haves on there, you can easily cut back!

You're spending a fortune on non-essential stuff. You could easily cut all of the following:

Zoo membership £20
Apple Music subscription £15
DH contact lenses £40
DH haircut £15
My haircut £20 (£60 every 3 months)
My nails £30
Window cleaner £15
Takeaways (one per week) £150
Date night £50

And that's almost £300 a month saved in an instant.

You're also spending a huge amount of money on car loans, phone contracts and credit card bills - it's more than your mortgage when you add it all up, and you've not even included your car insurance payments, MOT's or services in there.

Your lifestyle seems pretty lavish to me - regular nail appointments, two cars on finance, weekly takeaways, regular date nights and trips to the pub, a zoo membership costing £240 a year, £100 a month going on hobbies for the kids...

Once insurance and maintenance are added in, motoring must be costing you £1k/month! Do you seriously need two cars?

Er, you're spending your entire salary on stuff that a lot of people can't afford. How can you not be aware of this? 2 cars, nails, haircuts, SO much money on forms of food.. how can you not see what is obviously the problem?
Are you paying into pensions?
Rainy day funds for when the boiler breaks or one of you is ill etc?
Uni funds for kids?

You need to look at what the longer term plan is financially and stop frittering it away on optional shite. If you're unhappy with it. Which isn't necessarily the case - it's lots of fun spending your entire salary on having fun I bet!

You’re probably spending 20% of your take home pay on cars when you account for insurance, tax and petrol which seems really high - are they absolutely essential?

Also that’s a LOT of eating out / takeaway spending and I’d consider it lavish!

You need to break down what you actually buy with the disposable income and the credit card- and also your takeaway bill is high imo- on top of a date night.
i don’t think you’re used to being very careful with money. Strip it right back and see how little you could spend for 1 month.

How much do you contribute to your pensions? What are you going to live on when you retire?

I'm going to be honest OP- is it both of your expectations or mainly your partners expectations to have this level of spending- ? does he expect you looking 'dolled up' and nails and hair up to the mark etc, 2 cars??I'm asking because I know someone who sounds a lot like you and a lot of it is their partner being a bit of a 'show' merchant- 'look how well we do etc- ' despite being on very average income between them. The thing is on average incomes you can have a good life but not necessarily lots of spare cash- the spare cash life requires you being tight in other areas!! You can't really expect the exact same life of a dual income full time working couple with no kids if you work part time .

This.

What a complete waste of money.

You may feel like your lifestyle isn't very lavish, but in comparison to the majority of people it most certainly is. You spend a hefty chunk of your incomes on non essential items, If you wanted to you could massively cut back, but do you want to?

We spend £800 a month for all food (including takeaways and eating out), petrol, socialising and sometimes gifts for people. So that's a huge chunk right there.

Wow! You have a lovely lifestyle on that salary! Agree with pp there is masses you could cut back in there.
Could you try a meal subscription service instead of takeaway?
I would also count treats like nails and salon hair cuts as being deductible from your disposable income. Where is all that disposable money going now?
Also agree you should be allocating saving/investment money. You mention you get child benefit but there is no mention of any deductions for your childrens’ long term savings?
Why do you have any credit card debt when you have that much disposable income?
I’m a bit baffled as to how you think you are ‘short’ each month when you spend so much!

£150 on takeaway? That seems ridiculous. Also the £30 for nails

The meals with friends, could you change that to coffee?

You’re also spending nearly £1k a month on non essentials. That’s nearly all your salary. Do you actually need to be working? You’d save masses by just having one car.

Sorry to post twice - I’m just incredulous that there is such a lack of financial awareness. What sort of lifestyle do you expect on your salary?! It looks pretty cushty already

After essentials, savings, then a set each amount for luxuries/ hobbies.
£150 on takeaways is a fortune, £450 on food shopping seems a lot too. Cheap but reliable is all cars need to be.
Even if you stuck with all the luxuries and saved the £500 disposable income, you'd have £6000 after one year. After 10 you'd have £60000 and so on. Do you really want to dispose of that much money?
Once you get into saving it becomes a habit.
Otherwise you'll regret wasting all this money when you get older and want to work part time or something.

£600 pm on food seems like an awful lot (groceries + takeaway) and that's not even including the extra meals out and days night from fun money. We are a family of 4 and spend about £70 a week on food.