How much disposable income do you have

[dylanjt]

Nosey question after a discussion with friends! I'm a single mum of two and after rent, other bills and food, I have £300 left a month. To one friend, this was plenty! To my other friend, this was peanuts! I'm pretty thrifty and manage fine on this and we are happy. We eat out as a treat once a month, eat home the rest of the time and take packed lunches out with us whenever possible. I'm always searching for free things to do. I buy all our clothes off Vinted and love finding a bargain. Same with toys. Ebay is good for toys too. Any money that is left from my disposable income at the end of the month goes in to my savings which usually goes towards Christmas. So, how much disposable income do you have and are you ok with that amount?

£300 after all bills (food and all) has gone out is absolutely fine. Enough to put into savings and enough to do something nice or eat out a couple times a month.

We used to have £10 left over for the entire month after bills. We eventually sold our house for profit, paid off all our debts then brought a bigger house ready for our second baby to come.

Since then we’ve both had pay increases too and now we have about £1200 left over as disposable income.

After bills , food and petrol we have £1750. This will go down to £1500 when we have to pay a bit more on our mortgage later this year.
This comes out of my wages as his pays for the rest. I separate it out into how many weeks in that and move that amount over weekly so we don’t run out of money by the end of the month.

Mostly though the £500 goes into buying anything new we need or doing something to the house. So normal spending money is about £1000 but the £500 is there if needed.

Thanks for the responses :)

If I'm completely honest, I have no idea. It differs each month as we have certain healthcare and childcare bills that come out every few months. But I'd guess I have about £800 and my partner a similar amount.

But it's often used to pay for one-off items like a car bill, or a holiday, or a new electrical etc. I buy most clothing second hand and am pretty thrifty in some ways.

I only save £300 a month which I'm very grateful to be able to save but should really save more.

In my last job, I had much less disposable income. I've since had two payrises.

Having just checked, I've got about £660 after regular outgoings, mostly due to having cheap accomodation. I save about half of this. I'm on quite a low income at the moment, but I might expect to have more income in a year or two— I'll try not to immediately up my spending in accordance.

I have about £600 personally, DH is a director/shareholder so only takes out what he needs for tax purposes.

That’s after saving £200

We don't have a mortgage anymore so we're quite lucky. We have around £2-2.5k left over each month. We go on holiday regularly and save some of it for future home improvements.

Disposable money as in spending money £400 x both of us so £800.
Total money after essential bills about £2000 however that figure includes things like general savings, savings for annual spends like ground rent, car insurance, flights to see family, a monthly amount towards Christmas, holidays etc so it isn’t all ‘disposable’.
It’s high to some and not to others. We have a lot of higher costs like flights to family etc and expensive nursery and housing costs so we need a bigger personal safety net. If one of us lost our job we couldn’t claim housing benefit as we own.

I'm saving like mad to go back to self employment. So none, really.

i have about £300 to play with.

Post pensions we have $4000-$6000. Pre pensions about $8000-9000. Aim to save $4k on top of the pension contributions but ends up being less if it’s a month we have to pay tuition in.

About £4500 before savings.

Take home around £2600 pm

Put £1600 in the household pot (covers all bills, mortgage, nursery, groceries etc)

So £1000 from which I try to save £500

None! My basic rate of pay doesn’t even cover my outgoings anymore, my rent is at least half of my wage if not more and I’m paying below market value, I need at least 6 overtime shifts a month to break even. Last month I couldn’t get any overtime, this month is the same and next month I’ve only managed to secure 4 extra shifts so I’m currently accruing credit card debt to survive, having 8 weeks of school holidays does not help either (single parent, ds dad not in the picture and I get no maintenence).

On the months I do well for overtime I can come out with anything from £50 - £300 disposable income but you can pretty much guarantee as soon as I accrue more than £500 in savings something will bloody well happen to wipe me straight back out.

I’d settle for just earning enough to cover all of my out goings without having to do overtime. And before anyone says anything, based on the few good months I get a year I’m deemed to earn too much to qualify for help and I’m on above national minimum wage and higher than average wage for the field I work in. I’ve been looking for a new job but almost everything pays less than what I’m on. I’ve been looking at second jobs but struggling to find anything that fits in with my current full time schedule. If you have £300 you are pretty fortunate.

About £900 between me and DH. Half of that goes to savings, it just depends if something extra needs paying that month.

Hmm I'm overdrawn each month atm so in the minus 😂 sometimes just about break even. Lots of overtime haha just all our bills have gone up and rent.. wages have not 😅

Lots (£2k, £3k, more?) but it just goes into savings, we don't see it as 'disposable' iyswim. We do spend quite freely on a day to day basis but we're not big spenders and don't covet luxury goods or holidays so it would be hard to spend it.

We do have an expensive hobby which is more of a lifestyle thing and will spend on whatever the dc want but they rarely want anything either.

DC are highly SN and may never be independent, so as far as we're concerned we can never have enough savings.

After all bills & food is paid I have between £300-£500 left, no kids. Depends on overtime for the month. This month I just had £540 left but next month I'll have £320. My DF has around the same sometimes less. Both in min wage jobs with a lot of debt we are trying to pay off atm.

Once all bills, food, children related expenses, travel costs and money put into savings (for Xmas etc), I theoretically have around £120 a month for myself. I feel really fortunate to have this much as we've been in the just breaking even and accruing lots of debt position in the past. I'm not sure how much DH has leftover but I would guess around a similar amount or a bit more.

We are slowly paying back debt (no interest as it went to debt collection as I totally buried my head in the sand with the stress of it all) my credit rating is in shambles, slowly trying to rebuild this.

Our rent is ridiculous but unfortunately we can't get anything cheaper due to our poor credit ratings and tbh there's so much competition we are unlikely to really save much money after moving costs and then travel costs after moving. Despite the fact I hate living where we are, it's a perfect location for our children and current jobs in terms of travelling.

About 2k after everything

About 3K

Well I feel poor af!

I have £1000 per month just to spend on myself. It’s not for any bills, I spend it on going out with my friends, clothes, haircuts, any treatments I have and I normally do a solo trip each year for around four days abroad.
I am very happy with this and as a go on away on holiday a lot I have one week per four/five/six weeks where I don’t spend anything.

I have more disposable income than the average person earns in a month.

life was very different when I was younger and just starting out.