To ask how much disposable income you need for a reasonably good lifestyle?

[surreygirl1987]

Apart from the essentials such as mortgage, council task, food, petrol etc, how much money do you have for 'fun' each year? I mean things like holidays, day trips, eating out, takeaways, theatre, cinema, kids' parties, and basically anything non-essential? Looking at my budget spreadsheet but have no idea what a realistic amount is. (I've counted all bills, gym and Netflix as essentials btw!). Thanks!

As you have a decent income, it sounds like you need to give a bit more thought to your ‘life plan’ rather than picking a random number out of the air for ‘fun money’.

What age do you plan to retire and on what level of income? Is that achievable on what you are currently saving into pensions?

Do you definitely want to send kids to private schools? Do you want to fund their University costs if they wish to go or help them out in other ways?

Do you plan to move up the property ladder, or extend/refurbish your house at some point?

You can do this yourself or pay a financial planner (a specialist independent financial advisor, not a big standard one) to help you work this out. You don’t want to wake up in twenty or thirty years and find you have frittered your money away and can’t do what you want with your lives due to lack of planning.

If you have never had a foreign holiday, how do you know you want to have multiple each year?

Lots.

Yawn. Another thread with a wealthy household stealth boasting

I have loads of money but want other people to tell me how to spend it is such a weird question.

Yes, very weird!

Perhaps it's a journalist looking for our thoughts

Family of 5, all inclusive to somewhere like Turkey, Spain etc was between £5 - £6k.

That's how much we spent per holiday, not much more as AI.

Probably £1500 a month on non essentials, 2 adults but have adult children whose wallets tend to be superglued shut

OK well, for a child over 5 I would include:

Childcare, but the cost will probably be less than what you pay now!

£40-50 per month on regular activities/lessons at least (swimming/beavers/music etc). That budget should be enough for 2, maybe 3.

£200 to host a party, £100 at least for presents for parties they will go to.

£100 per year to buy a good bike once every 2-3 years (secondhand good brand).

Theatre trips can be v expensive. West End prices end up being about £60 per ticket.

£150 for 1-2 family trips to eg Legoland.

Holiday - massively depends. £3k upwards for a family to have a week abroad in the school holidays.

How much do you have spare after all costs?

I reckon about £1k per month, if you are planning holidays as well perhaps £1.5k per month. There are things like replacing appliances that have broken etc which can eat into your disposable income.

Hi OP.
the rule of good money management is saving first and then do the math for disposal income.
I appreciate why you’re asking though, so we’re around 3-5k per month. Daughter in private school. We get lots of good holidays out of that and have a really expensive vintage car (that we spent a lot on last year to totally restore).
We don’t really look at what we spend. We’re incredibly lucky.
Investment wise we put also loads away every month, at the 1st of the month.
it isn’t as binary as mortgage vs disposable income, you should look at spreading your money across investment etc (I think the housing market is going to go down so personally I wouldn’t overpay)
Second thing to consider is what your appetite to risk is.

I would want it to but I think it's very unlikely for most people. It's great but shouldn't be a bar iyswim.

Thing is @surreygirl1987 it depends on your interests. If I had lots of spare cash and kids who could fly, I'd want our holidays to be a mixture of culture and relax, and as much of the world as we could. We'd do a lot more theatre and eating out. We'd focus heavily on experiences over stuff - I don't get the love of labels and designer stuff. But that's just my working class perspective.

Stop focusing on what the middle class people do and focus on what's important to you. Price up the three holidays abroad you want a year and divide it by 10. Put that into the holiday fund every month. So the same for the other stuff YOU want to do

Agreed, after essential living expenses and savings, £3k+ spare opens the doors to a pretty decent lifestyle if you regularly want to go places and do stuff.

Get a reward credit card. Put all your fun spending on that and you can see exactly how much you spend on it a month. Pay off in full and enjoy the extra rewards.

I'd love to know what jobs you and your DH do that you earn so much but are claiming you have 'no idea' how much to budget for meals out, holidays, 'fun' etc. are you totally naïve?

We are almost at the two children in school stage and the thing I would say is that there isn't much difference between a private day nursery and 30hrs funding and wraparound plus school holiday clubs. I was hoping our childcare costs would reduce a lot and they actually haven't so much.

The other thing I was going to suggest is the money saving expert budget spreadsheet - it's really good at running through absolutely everything. There are so many things we wouldn't have put in a spreadsheet without being prompted.

Holidays are tricky - a lot of people just seem to go AI resort, that's not for us. We are trying to minimise flying so we do a lot of Eurostar, change in Paris or Brussels for a train to another European city, preferably on the coast, and self cater. If you wait for a Eurostar sale, that's not bad, but if you want to fly to a 5* AI in the Maldives obviously that will cost more.

Yes. I smell a rat.

Or a journalist looking to write an article on the topic?

www.moneyhelper.org.uk/en/everyday-money/budgeting/use-our-budget-planner.html

OP, you might find a budget planner like this useful. Have a think about how much you want to spend on going out, clothes etc and add it all in. Do a bit of research on the sort of holidays you might enjoy and how much they cost and add that in too. Other people’s spending isn’t really going to help you.

Roughly:
holidays £500 pcm
personal spends for me / dh: £600pcm
family spends: £1k pcm (including food)
xmas savings: £100pcm
general household saving: £50pcm (dip into for things like new decorative bits, saving up for washing machine).
kids activities: £300pcm

Long term savings, mortgage and bills are on top of the above.

I don't understand why you need to ask this. How much fun money I have and what I do with it has no relevance to you.

Look at your bank statements to see what you spend and where and where you feel you need less/more.

BTW. Did your essentials list include savings?

Would save at least half the extra money as a minimum, there is no need for lifestyle creep, just spend the extra intentionally don't fritter it away in costa and nando's.

Thanks. That's helpful, as a ballpark.

*Roughly:
holidays £500 pcm
personal spends for me / dh: £600pcm
family spends: £1k pcm (including food)
xmas savings: £100pcm
general household saving: £50pcm (dip into for things like new decorative bits, saving up for washing machine).
kids activities: £300pcm

Long term savings, mortgage and bills are on top of the above*

Thanks very much- that is genuinely so useful! Based on this thread (the useful answers at least!) I think I was very much underestimating how much I should put by for general enjoyment. Kids are expensive!

Look at your bank statements to see what you spend and where and where you feel you need less/more.

Currently? Mortgage and childcare. Thank god the latter will change soon (£36k per year!)

I don't think people are trying to be awkward when they struggle to answer.

3k a month would be pretty much our entire income and I'm pretty happy with our quality of life.

But you have said you want to eat out frequently, have several theatre trips each year and go on several foreign holidays.

A foreign holiday in the school hols (and I assume you mean a decent all inclusive resort or skiing as you balked at Skegness I think it was) will cost 1k each person so 4k per hol. Do that 3 times and that's 12 k each year or 1k a month in foreign holidays.

We barely eat out at all but can spend £100 a month having the odd chippy tea or McDonald's at 20 odd quid so I assume if you want to eat out frequently that would easily be £500 a month plus.

Add some British breaks, theatre trips, swimming, dancing/ballet, stage school, music lessons, theme parks and yes could be 3k.

You don't have to do much of that though if you would rather spend 1k and save 2k for your kids university/house deposit etc. That would be one foreign holiday, 1 theatre trip, eating out on occasion and keeping a handle on extra curricular activities.

People on high incomes can live frugally and save if they choose to, or splurge and enjoy it in the now - it's up to you.

Worth bearing in mind that as a high earner you will be expected to contribute to your kids costs if they go to uni and factor that in.