How much do you spend each week?

[ramanw]

So after all bills, food, essentials are purchased, how much do you spend/allow yourself to spend each week?

I am terrible with money so have recently started giving my partner a chunk of money at the beginning of each month and then getting him to send me a certain amount each week.

I tried living off £40 a week but it turns out that I can spend that within a few days. I spend it on things like coffees, food with friends, snacks and I also might need to buy something for the children. I'm going to up my weekly amount to around £60 but wondering if even that is enough!

How much would you say you spend each week?

Doesn't that defeat the object?

Or is there no object ?

I mean if you are trying to be better - say avoid overspending or start saving you don't just increase your allowance if you spend it - you chose what not to buy

Much less than £40 btw

Less than £40 most weeks. I don't have coffees out as often as I used to.

After all necessaries, £30pcm saved for things DD needs through the year (clothes, shoes etc.), then £40pcm for fun. Eg cinema once a month is £10 for the two of us, a cafe once a month as a treat to me is about £5-£10 depending on whether it’s lunch out or just a cuppa and a snack. I occasionally treat myself to a non library book, but cheaply online (much as I love actual bookshops I am mobility impaired and borderline skint). I could be a bit better off but am using some of my equity to do a loft conversion in our current house as really need the space. Means a mortgage that is higher so less money for fun or savings, but will overall improve everyday life to be worth it. I hope!

About £50 after bills and food last month.

if your not talking about food or fuel at most mon-Fri £20 buying lunch and little snack things. Surely if you set a budget you work to the budget and cut things out, and not increase the budget to do every you want to do??

My DP and I withdraw £100 cash each as disposable income for the month. That is to pay for coffee, drinks out & anything we need for ourselves. We can go over this limit but don't do so very often.

Are you you talking about money spent on activities only, or does it include other stuff that you buy?

I probably spend about £50 per week on average on going out and socialising. This includes things like meals, drinks, coffee out, cinema, theatre etc.

In addition to this, I also spend around £30 - £40 per week on hobbies/classes

Then there is also separate money that I spend on clothes/products etc

DH, teenage DD and I get £80 a month each for clothes, outings, food out etc. We all have basics we need and packed lunch type food at home so this is for extras.

£100pw on average for clothes, eating out, coffees and haircuts.

Probably about £20 a week on coffee but I have a habit and this is acceptable to me.

Would hate to tot up everything else but at a wild guess

£100 socialising/ going out ( usually drinks with friends )
£50 skincare/ makeup
£50 clothes
£50 random crap

I'm shit with money

I don’t have kids. I buy one meal in work and make my own the rest of the working week. I don’t buy snacks etc. Some weeks I’d barely spend £20.

Other weeks I may have lunch out or a coffee with a friend etc or go out for a meal or drinks. I work shifts so it really does vary what I have planned. Also depends what you have to buy with this. Like toiletries or clothes etc?

Or is it just cash to spend on bits like coffee etc. £60 is a lot for that!

Money for luxury spends ? Probably around £80 /£100 a week, wine, takeaways , lunches out , I do need to reign this in though , we can afford it but I need to not spend so much on crap

Nothing.

I bought mascara last month.

Nothing so far this month.

I'd got a bit disgusted with over consumption, and the amount of money I was frittering away so I just stopped.

I have my water bottle and I take lunch. Hot drinks and fruit are free at work.

After all bills and essentials are paid and bought, I've about £1700 a month for myself.

Even after hobbies and going out with friends, there is always plenty of money left over at the end of the month so I just save it. My child moved out last year so its amazing to have all this money just sloshing about.

Oh god, I hate these threads 😞

I spend what I spend. What I do not do is waste money on eating out, or coffee, and suchlike. The overconsumption, and constant push for people to over consume is disgraceful. just cut back!

I don't claim to be struggling, but I am trying to spend more intentionally. So rather than get a coffee/cake out twice or thrice a week- which I used to do- I put that money towards something I really want, like theatre or the cinema every two months. Ditto small spends like makeup or snacks which add up.

Monzo has really helped me to see where the money was going and save it for better things that I actually remember.

Thanks all!

@midgemadgemodge I guess I didn't explain it very well but basically I am shit with money. I probably have around £300 left over each month and I will spend that in the space of a week because I've clearly got some sort of spending issue!

To stop me spending it all in one go, I now transfer this to him and I am trying to find a realistic amount that I can spend each week. Ideally I'd still like to have a life and I don't want to have to cut back on the little things that make me enjoy life (coffees, eating out, clothes). Say I set around £60 for myself each week then anything left over can go towards savings.

I was just curious as to what others spend.

The £40 a week goes so quickly. Probably £15 a week on coffees, maybe a couple of chocolate bars or snacks around £5, lunch with friend £10-£15, then the kids might need new socks, school clothes etc or realise I've run out of toilet roll or something and then the full £40 is gone. Then I will have to ask my partner for more money.

I would rather set a realistic amount that I can live off each week, still have a nice time but not struggle.

We don’t have a fixed amount. Some weeks, barely a thing other the odd bar of chocolate. Other weeks we could end up doing lots of socialising or clothes shopping and spend hundreds. I just keep an eye on the bank balance and if it’s starting to look low, reign things in until payday (when bills and savings all get moved out straight away after we’re paid so we can see how much we actually have left).

We use my
money as spending money. It comes on a lump sum. But I have it sent to another account. Every Friday I transfer £250. This is just for spending that week and it doesn’t include bills or weekly food or petrol.

wether we spent it all depends on so many things. If it’s a physio week for my son that’s £50 gone straight away. If we need top ups for food it comes out of that and not the normal food budget.

my husband I will often go out for a coffee or cake etc.
At the moment we are saving up to do a lot in the garden in a few months. So we are not really spending anything. So I just keep it in my wages account.

it helped massively by only moving across a certain amount for the week instead of having it all sat there. I ran out very quickly. Now if I want something big I save it over a few weeks.

It all depends on how much you have in the first place surely as everyone spends within their means (or should anyway). I spend at least £100 a week, usually more, in the main because I have that to spend. A lot of that is unnecessary like taking kids for a coffee or buying things I probably don't need but have convinced myself I do. I don't think I have a spend problem as I also save, pay bills etc so your frivolity is only an issue if if is preventing you spending on necessities.

Our mortage just increased from 1130 to 1480 and I lost my disability benefits (150 a month - not in UK - but hope to dispute successfully) so my budget became pretty tight.

Monthly budget after bills and petrol is 700. That includes food (2 adults) and all my personal spendings. If I'm careful the food budget is 400 per month, but I'll try to get it to 350. Cat foot and litter about 25 per month. I also smoke and I like my rum & coke, so that's another 100 if I watch what I consume. That leaves about 175 per month so ~40 per week for other spendings.

In one month I may buy a lot of clothes, but they are mostly second hand so quite cheap. I rarely socialize and work in the office 1-2 days per week, but I always have packed lunch with me. So my spendings on eating out and takeaways are small or 0. We live in a village that has no shops, first supermarkets are 15 minutes by car. So I mostly go to the shops when I'm in the office and/or one day at the weekend. I rarely shop online.

What helped me is that I divide my monthly outgoings per days. So if the month has 30 days, my daily spend money is 23,33. I mostly do food shopping once a week and maybe one top-up midweek. I am monitoring the status of my bank account many times per week and I calculate whether I am in budget or have spent more/less that is "allowed" considering how many days I have still to go.

Before the mortage increase when the money ran out, I just used my other bank card (I know, that's not budgeting but I had far more disposable income before buying the house and increasing euribor). But from this month I don't have that luxury, so I have to be tighter with budget execution.

@ramanw

How about having a read of the low spend February thread? There's a lot of us basically trying to spend as little as possible on non-essential items. You define non essential to your own specific circumstances i.e I'd say toilet roll is part of your essential spends so wouldn't count that as part of your £40, but having other folk having a similar mindset might be motivating?

For me, I'd get used to taking a flask or mug of your own coffee even half the time to cut back but agree, totally up to you!

Good luck. 🙂

New clothes for the kids and toilet roll should be coming out of a different pot really, not your ‘personal spends’.
I spend £8 per week on a Pilates class. Sometimes £30 on going for lunch/dinner with friends, but not every week. The odd coffee. Make up rarely. On average about £30 a week.
Eating out with DH/the kids wouldn’t come out of my ‘personal’ money.