Disposable income

[pinkpotatoez]

How much do you have for yourself/ to save after all bills are paid for the month & what are your circumstances (single parent, shared bills..) ? Working on budgeting and wondered how much other people spend on outings, activities & other general things you may enjoy, especially with the costs of everything at the minute.

I think asking other people this is irrelevant because it depends on how much you have coming in and your individual circumstances. I could tell you I have £1000 a month to spare (I don’t) but that may not be relevant to you

Budgeting only works when you use your own data. By calculating your incomings and your outgoings you will then know what you have left that can be divided into various activities and savings.

Not much

Iswym about not being relevant to my situation, I think what i mean is how much of your disposable income do you save and how has it changed since the costs have gone up.

Nothing because the kids have it all.

To be fair there is nothing we would rather spend money on.

Married, both worked until recently, DH is currently taking a break.

I’ve got about £5,000 for me, he was the much higher earners and had around £21,000.

I spend about 8% of our disposal income on me just me.

I have around 20% to do what I want with.

But saving isn't the same as outings etc. We have had times where there has been literally nothing after bills and food. Nothing for TV (not even B/W licence), phone (landline only in those days), clothes ... just nothing. Sometimes, that was only for a short time. Sometimes longer. And there have been times where we could afford a TV, phone, even running a car and maybe some outings.

Things are easier now - much easier. We sweep what we don't spend into a savings account and that pays for holidays etc. It helps that we don't spend a lot on day to day treats - we don't buy takeaways, coffees, clothes for fun etc. If I was going back in time, I would spend less on the little stuff and more on things like holidays, home improvements etc. Over the years, we have wasted so much on 'stuff'.

After all bills I have about £1600 left over. We put about £1000-£1200 into savings for holidays/Christmas/house repairs and the rest will get spent on clothes, days out and fun stuff.

Disposable income is income after tax, discretionary is after bills

I don’t save because there’s nothing left.

It really depends on your circumstances, stage of life and priorities. Also what you count as 'savings'.

Some people count every penny they don't spend in a particular month as 'savings'. Others account for every last irregular/unexpected expense such as holidays, Christmas, insurance, broken cars, pets and washing machines etc etc before they regard money as truely disposable.

Some people's basic costs (the percentage of their income they spend on housing, food and bills) are a large part of their income, either by necessity or choice and they have little left for outings, activities and other general things so the percentage is small.

Some people have debts that they need to be repaying, some want to overpay their mortgage, some want to save for a mortgage deposit so need to prioritise that and likely spend less on other things.

Others might have plenty of disposable income but spend a lot of it on day to day non essentials so as well as your outings and activities, lots of food and drink out of the house, and clothes, accessories and grooming etc, so they still save little.

Etc etc.

You need to review your incomings and outgoings and arrange them in the way that fits best for you.

Have a look at:

www.moneysavingexpert.com/family/money-help/

and

ukpersonal.finance/flowchart/

Even the amount of disposable income saved varies - some people live for today and spend all their money, others save most or all of their disposable. Both ways can have their downsides.

Obviously it's not great to spend all your money on fun stuff and then not be able to afford to replace the washing machine when it breaks in 6 months time, but equally there's no point working and living like a monk then dying as a millionaire. Somewhere in the middle would be what to aim for.

People will cope in different ways with increasing costs depending on where they were before and where they are now. Has their disposable income been wiped out, or just reduced. Or have they managed to mitigate the impact by increasing their income?

You can't ask other people without declaring your own?

I agree with dudsville....if youre not sure how to budget this might help Budgeting For Beginners .....theres a free downloadable buget sheet on there....

everything bar taxes are variable with a degree of personal choice, we have no choice about paying for shelter, heating food and clothes but what these are can vary so much. from the cheapest studio flat in least desirable area and yellow stickered food upward.

A family of 4 could manage albeit very minimally with 1 bed flat and a sofa bed in the rough area of town equally they could be in 4 bed detached house in the nicest area of town if the latter complains of no or little discretionary spends it is due to opting for more than adequate housing etc and they have options to cut costs, if the family squeezed into the 1 bed complain of no discretionary money it is almost certainly due to borderline poverty as there is nothing left to cut they have no options but do without maybe even essentials, in reality most familes of 4 are in 2-3 bed flats or houses

our net income after taxes per household is lower than UK average but because we are older and are mortgage and debt free we may have more discretionary spends than someone with higher income

I have £700-900 (depends on the month), and it needs to cover rainy day fund, holiday savings, birthdays, hairdresser, clothes, make up, vet bills, dentist etc.

I'm a single mum after bills, food and travel for work have been taken care of I have about £500 a month left over. I'm currently paying £200 a month in solicitor fees but they will soon be finished with but I will continue to save the £200 as I've been managing fine and I would like to rebuild my savings back up.

Married 2 dc
no mortgage, no debt, no car payments, v little childcare costs.

leftover to save/spend 1.5-2k per month

nothing has really changed for us as our pay increased as well as cost of living.

£1000 a month leftover. married with 2DC

But we save £500 a month

So actually £1500....

We don't save a specific amount, but if we have money left over at the end of the month, and are sure we don't need it for a large bill next month, we put it into a savings account - the savings account is then used for household repairs/emergencies.

Very little left but I am on a low income (disability benefits). I have a small amount of savings for the first time in ages as I put the Cost of Living payments I received into a separate account (& haven't touched them so far!). I would have something left if I didn't have debts, I am slowly chipping away at them.

I tell you what was depressing. I worked out that, just to pay our bills, DH and I have to work 7.5 months a year 😮 That doesn’t even include food, fuel and general sundries. I’d estimate that once that’s includes it probably takes until about the middle of November until everything is paid off. How awful 🤷‍♀️

tax freedom day is a thing from your gross salary you work until at least end of april( typically 6th May for average worker) for the government income tax and national insurance
it is probably only money earned in December that is discretionary at best

most shops reckon that after costs only money in decemebr is actually profit