To ask what your disposable income is?

[PumpkinSpicedLatte]

Just that really.
I know it depends where you live, your job etc. But my partner and I are doing ‘no spend new year’ to try and save money for buying the house we currently rent.
Got two four year olds (one each from previous marriages).
Both average wage salaries part time.
But it feels like some people save loads more than us.
Basically I am seeking some advice. Where do you do your food shops, what cheap kids activities do you do?
Share as little or as much as you’d like.

Post your income & outgoings and people can help. Without that it's futile.

Why can't one of you be full time?

We live below our means and aim to increase our savings next year. It will have to be a no spend year (other than absolute necessities) as we are already frugal. We currently shop at Aldi, Lidl and B&M. Clothes from Matalan and Primark. Only have takeaways for birthdays.
The fat to trim is incidentals from Amazon, tiktok shop and eBay.

Even minimum wage is usually higher than the cost per hour of wraparound, unless its a private school. You've said you are on average wages - what do you actually mean? Ime on here you get people thinking £25k is average when its barely above minimum wage.

Are you absolutely sure you wouldn't have more money if at least one of you worked full time?

I'm not going to go on about my disposable income, DH and i both earn loads so its completely irrelevant.

However when it comes to saving, we aren't that "spendy".

I don't waste money on anything like getting nails/lips/brows done. Inexpensive basic cut 3 times a year, any colour I/mum/sister do ourselves.

Kids music activities are often cheap via county run music services. Scouts & brownies are cheap.

We cook everything from scratch & cook big batches of pasta sauce etc to freeze.

I agree, the easiest way to have more money would be to work more.

Now? Unlimited.

When I was younger? Fuck all really. After paying the necessities including food, I had maybe £100 left over which I spent on wine 😂

About 5k but that's not really relevant to you! If you post an actual breakdown people may be able to help

I spend a third of my wages on bills, a third on savings and a third on spending. In reality the bills are a bit less than third and I usually spend less than a third so the extra goes into savings. I do feel lucky I can live like this as it hasn't always been the case. I've been in a position before where I couldn't save a thing and well over 80% of my wages were gone on bills before I'd even been paid.

£47 a month.

2 kids under 5. Work FT. Live in the 'north'. Both degree based work. Childcare literally kills us.

So my actual figures won’t help you, but there is the 50-30-20 rule which lots of people say is a good way of organising finances. The concept is that 50% of your income should go on “needs” so that’s your mortgage/rent/utilities/food etc, 30% on “wants” so that could be your meals out, trips, Netflix etc, 20% into savings.

Obviously your ability to do that though does depend on how much you earn and what your basic living costs are because things like rent/utilities are what they are really (unless you’re choosing to live somewhere too expensive for budget). DH & I both work full time and we bought a house we could comfortably afford rather than buying at the max we could have actually afforded, we do operate on the 50/30/30 pretty accurately, some months will less on wants & more into savings. BUT we are only able to do that because we both work full time with the salaries that we do and bought the house we could comfortably afford. If we both worked part time and stayed in this house we wouldn’t be able to follow 50/30/20 because our basic living expenses would eat up more than 50% which has a knock on impact on the other things.

Both average wage salaries part time.

There's your problem - of course you have less than others when you both work part time (although 2 of you working part time is better than one full time in many ways - as you get better tax breaks)

I’m not sure what you mean by disposable income? If you mean how much can I save then between £200-400 a month. My outgoings (bills/rent) take about 2 thirds of my monthly salary.

We have about t £1k left at the end of most months, if we had to we could save £2k a month but we also want to enjoy life whilst the kids are young so we include lots of kids clubs and ok holidays as well as other activities. Our debt is managable. When we had two in childcare we went about £250 a month further into debt, but that's nearly all paid off. Most of the increase has been down to switching jobs to gain salary and the reduction in child care. You may be able to save £100 here and there by changing where you shop, but it is likely you need to raise your income.

I've always thought disposable means what's left once everything else is accounted for. That isn't the way the ONS does it though. They take off the tax and the council tax and say what's left is the disposable. I guess after that, spending is discretionary: big house, small house, insurance or no insurance, etc.

To a PP re the 50-30-20 rule

Does the 20% include pension savings or is the 20% for savings entirely separate to pension contributions?

For me personally the 20% doesn’t include pension savings, we both pay into our pension scheme direct from payslip so that money never hits our bank account. We do the 50-30-20 with the actual money we get paid each month, so doesn’t include pension.

What does disposable mean in this context?

After all bills? Savings? Including / excluding food and travel?

There have been posts where an OP says they only have £100 but that’s after all bills and £1000 put in savings.

You need to ask the right question to get meaningful answers.

Both degree based work

This doesn’t mean anything though - plenty of hard important jobs that require a degree pay shit. Plenty of jobs don’t require a degree and pay good money.

We don't really run our finances in a "disposable," basis. We both take a salary that covers bills and DS savings, then top up from the business for whatever we're spending. If we withdraw a lot or if the money goes below a certain level, that prompts thoughts of spending less, or if the money available goes above a certain level we move it into savings or pensions. I don't think it works well to just have every penny you own available to spend at a moment's notice, we aren't on a tight budget but wouldn't save as much for retirement if we did that. I'd recommend doing something similar; move most money out so you've cut down to the bare minimum, then dip in only when it's really necessary.

Surely one of you can be full time. Wrap around are isn’t that expensive and if you have average salaries you’re above minimum wage and so childcare should be affordable especially with the tax free childcare offer. Most house holds have at least one full time earner and lots will have higher salaries than you.

By the way, have you actually checked the cost of wraparound, or considered doing opposite hours (e.g. one early starts while the other does late)? Ours works out at £5.50/ hour, so you couldn't lose out on minimum wage even.

Listen to Dave Ramsey. What’s your idea of part time? I only ask because I’m a farmer and my idea of part time is 30/35 hrs a week which I know is many peoples idea of full time. If you’re doing less than that you need to be working more. Much more. By having kids and split families before buying a house you will have to work that much harder and longer. Pre kids DH and I would pull 60-70 hrs a week. That’s how we afforded a house.

I'll be honest and say about £2k monthly with a combined annual income of about £85k. A fair bit of that gets saved.
But we live in a not too expensive area of the north west, have 1 child and both work full time.

We do eat out often and spend too much on takeaways. I try to buy my/daughter's clothes on Vinted and sell on there too, try not to buy lunch at work and do survey apps for extra pounds here and there.

Childcare costs will reduce when your kids are in school?

I'd take this valuable advice. Stay focussed on your own lane.

Your goal is to buy the house you're renting.

How much is it? How much do you earn? How much do you spend/save? When do you want to buy it? Is it the best buy house for your longer term goals?

From that point, you can work out your maths.

I echo what a pp said about Dave Ramsey. His advice is solid.

I read this originally as £47k a month and was immensely jealous!

I won’t give actual figures as Mumsnet can get a bit snippy. But from our joint salary (both full time), about 30% goes on the mortgage, 20% on all bills (utilities, travel, food shop, childcare, phones, internet, insurance etc). So our disposable is 50% of income.

We save about 15% of total income, but we are spending a fair bit right now as renovating a house. That figure ebbs and flows.