What do you spend the spare money on?

[Woolyheads]

So DC has started school. I no longer need to pay £900 nursery fees a month. Take off £200 that I need for breakfast and after school clubs.
That still leaves a flabbergasting £700 each and every month spare.
What did you do with it?

I've never had significant childcare costs (worked part time and my mum had my children a lot) but I put most of my excess cash into savings and pensions.

You could do a mixture of regular savers, where you can get interest rates around 3% or more at the moment, ISA / LISA (if under 40) and pensions.

If you do use regular savers make sure you then transfer the money somewhere else at the end of the term, it might that this is into an ISA / LISA.

Put some aside for holiday care?
Save for a new car?
Replace any clothes with holes?
Get weekend care and go on am almighty bender
Holiday
Extension
Lessons for you
Join a gym

With spare money most of it goes in to savings but we spend a lot on travel and holidays.
We try to have one long weekend city break in Europe a month a three to four week long haul and a few weeks in mainland Europe a year.

A lot of money is spent on gigs, anything from a few quid to about £150.
The kids are late teens and early 20s but we spend a lot on them e.g. Car and insurance, pay for their expensive sport and hotel bills also for their holidays. We pay for the girlfriends to go on holiday with them and also the 6 of us go for meals out a lot ( me , DP, BOYS + 2x gf)

notacooldad generous

I overpay the mortgage. It’s due to be cleared by the time I’m 38.

my spare money days have long gone but back then, I would put all extra money into the mortgage

skyatdawn
I remember my being really hard up and skint when I was 19 and struggling after leaving a violent relationship and asking my dad to lend me a tenner. my dad took me to one side and asked for it back. I emptied my pockets to show what I had for the week and he took it off me. I had genuinely forgot about it( because I had other things on my mind) my parents are wealthy and always have been- They have just given my boys £5,000 each for significant birthdays, they have bought my sister a house because her land lady is kicking her out

Maybe dad wanted to teach me a life lesson, I don't know but 30 years later I have never forgotten and didn't want to be that parent.
I love my family life, I love having them around and all the friends in the house, I want my kids to feel welcome and come to us if they need anhing.
The boys work hard, they are not on fantastic money but they never assume they can just have stuff from us, which I'm pleased about.

My mum is amazed that we have such a good relationship with the boys and is surprised that we get invited to hang out with them from time to time or they invite us on walks etc. I'm not surprised at all!

Actually I have no idea why I posted a rambly post about how I view family and money but it felt rather cathartic!
Sorry!!

Pay extra on mortgage or save it for something . You could separate into different accounts for the different things i.e. holidays , actual savings , new guttering fund whatever .

cooldad has nailed it.

wooly

• clear down any and all debts
• save for when hobbies become expensive
• make sure you do something FUN as a family very month
• save for University
• save for helping kids with houses
• go out for a nice meal every now and then

I would save it. Even if it was just £300 saved a month - that would add up massively!

If that was me and DH, I think we would split it between bank accounts for our children. So if they needed it for a school trip etc.

But we've always said to eachother that if we were in the position to save a decent amount of money, then we would save have what we could and pay for our children to do their driving at 17. Purely because neither of us Drive (DH is learning at 26) and I'm medically not able to. We want them to get that under their belt before they leave home.

We're in the same boat and have an extra £1000 a month! Plus I've just had a promotion. We are already massively overpaying the mortgage and have pensions, shares and cash savings. I'm increasing my pension payments, and we'll be rejigging the rest of our savings but some of it is going to be spent taking the children abroad for the first time. Oh, and I'm going to get new glasses and I've bought DH a ton of new clothes (He's a software engineer, to him being smart is wearing clothes with no holes).

notacooldad that's lovely I would definitely do the same if I could

We like holidays and life experiences. We don’t spend excessively but have at least 3 or 4 holidays a year. Just booked a week at Christmas in Somerset 👍

We also save and try to overpay on the mortgage 😊

We spend a lot on holidays (European / UK city breaks and winter/summer weeks) and eating out, often with DSs and their partners. Pretty much the same as @cooldad (minus the cars - mine don't drive). Our mortgage is paid off and our savings are healthy. We've lost a lot of friends our age (50) to cancer in the past couple of years, and it's changed our attitude to things. We very much work to live.

We are buying a house with a large mortgage!

My view of being a good parent is when kids want to come on family holidays after they start Uni

Ta1kinpeece, mine have left uni and they still come with us sometimes! And bring their partners.

If you've had to go without new things because of the high cost of nursery, maybe now is the time? Otherwise, save it for when you need it - new home extension, car, school fees if you ever decide to go private, further education etc. Remember also to allow for the fact that holidays cost a lot more in school holiday time if you've been going during term time up until now.

agent
WEll done.
You've clearly brought them up to be happy and value you.
That is my goal

Thank you, but I think it's more a case of them being skint and me offering to pay 😂

I’d probably invest £500 into pensions, paying down the mortgage etc

The other £200 I'd use to improve current lifestyle, eg outings, holidays etc.