How much disposable income?

[tadpole73]

Trying to establish if my expectations are too high.......

After all bills, fuel and food, how much or % of your total income do you have left over each month to spend on holidays, going out, clothes, buying things for home, savings, repairs etc as a family or single parent?

$9000(AUD) me and DD.

I'd really recommend having a play with YNAB (you need a budget). Free trial for 34 days.

Put your income at the top then categorise all spending. 'Give every dollar a job'. It works in £ too. It's helpful to spread out infrequent expenses like car tax/house insurance.

Disposable income is such a moving target. We have expensive pets which we see as essential. Definitely not to other people though! Tithing is another category which some people see as more important than anything else.

Interestingly i was better off when I left my ex! Good luck!

We currently have around 700 which we're using to pay off debt at an accelerated rate, but we currently fork over 700pm for child care which is quite painful x

Around 300 a month after everything has come out, that's as a single parent of two.

Thank you for your replies everyone x

After all bills, food, diesel, kids clubs, Christmas saving, we have around £200pm genuinely disposable income between 5 of us (DH, me, and DC 3, 6 and 8) for haircuts, days out, clothes etc. It is emphatically not enough - fine short term but not long term as clothes wear out and we can't afford holidays etc. Looking forward to DC3 starting preschool in Sept and me hopefully earning more (self employed).

I give myself £50 a week 'pocket money' with £100 a month for extras. so £300 a month, in theory (always ends up more). That's for spends for just myself as the kids expenses come out of a separate pot.

DH I have no idea, he really does have a magic money tree tucked away somewhere as he is phenomenally good with money and always seems to have more than me despite being paid a lot less! (we pool some of our money for joint expenses but the remainder is our own)

Hope you can make progress with the suggestions OP

Thank you Adorabell and all xx

after everything 1k a month

About £2500.

After rent, bills, direct debits, running the cars (both owned outright but more than 11 years old, that's all the standard monthly costs but not eg MOTs), overdraft fees, food, nappies etc we have about £400 between the 2 of us, but that is in addition to money that we put into savings which comes out by direct debit. It doesn't include childcare which we will have to find come January, not looking forward to that. That's on 2 good salaries (£33k & £36k). I honestly don't know how people manage on less - I only need the car to need new brakes or a trip to the dentist and that's literally all our money gone for the month

After everything I have about £300 to last me. DH has just over £500. That's for us, 4 kids and the cat.

Oh that's also after paying credit cards and loans - I have a loan I'm paying back for £210 a month and a credit card I make minimum payments on and top up when I can, DP pays about £300 a month off his credit card

Before we move country and jobs, including all bills, and anticipated bills (so car insurance, dentist etc. saving to replace big things like car (5 years old when bought, kept for 8 years before un-economical) - we were break even.

Now, in another country, we're €500/month (dentist cheaper, cars more expensive, but repairs cheaper and mileage much lower, all insurance a lot cheaper, clothing and heating cheaper, no council tax, income tax comparable etc)

Good luck with your decision OP. It's not easy. My only slightly depressing caveat to your figures would be to remember that Maintenance isn't a dead Cert. Would you manage without ?. Sadly even the most 'reasonable' ex can decide to fuck around with money once you've actually left him. This comes in many forms and some even resort to leaving their jobs to frustrate deductions being made to their income.
Then there is the self employed brigade . Some genuinely self employed but still declaring well below their actual income for tax and CM purposes. It's quite unbelievable to what lengths some, seemingly normal (mostly) men will go through in order not to give 'you' money. (Especially if you left them) . They don't seem to grasp that the ones being punished are the children.

Hopefully your ex will be decent. Just don't make any decisions that could be disastrous if you need to spend months/years pursuing him through the CMS.

We have 400 each pm for ourselves after all bills inc phone, fuel, childcare and food are paid. Dc have 50 each (3 and 1 so i spend it on groups, days out etc). I manage to save some, dp seems to get through more....

Absolutely nothing at the moment, maybe 50-100 for me, DH and two small DC. Both on decent salaries but childcare costs (£1850 p/m) are criminal! Waiting for some free hours to kick in next month...

I've never done these sums before so they have been Intresting.

After mortgage, gas, water, electricity, community charge, house and mobile phones and food we are left with circa £1.400 a month. Petrol is a small amount (£60 a month at most) and I don't pay for food at work.

Single parent, 3 teen kids.

Wow INeedToEat that's a nice predicament as a single parent

Probably about £500 between us after absolutely everything has been paid for. God knows where it goes??

I just worked it out and it's around £1400pcm after bills, food, childcare, petrol, lessons, haircuts and contact lenses.

I have no idea where it goes though, it just does.

2 adults and 2 young-ish DC

I guess you're trying to get a general idea, but don't forget you can control the amount of certain bills yourself which would give you more/less disposable income. We've had a large fall in income, so have had to cut back drastically - we've saved approx £100 on insurances by tweaking them, £5 pm on fuel by transferring and hopefully more with less use in winter, cut back on food £100 pm and we've just started using the car for essential journeys (mainly DH to work, I'm trying to do food shopping on foot) only so hopefully approx £10 pm there.

After absolutely everything inc bills food and petrol we are left with £1500. Two adults, 2 teens, 2 cats. I would say with this amount we are comfortable rather than well off. We can afford an annual holiday and to have some savings. If someone needs a new coat you can go and get one without worrying kind of thing. I have no idea how people can afford to live in this country.