How much disposable income is enough?

[Cairnsybot]

How much is a reasonable amount of disposable income, ie after bills are paid?
My partner and i are splitting and i am looking at flats to buy on my own. In the price range im looking at, i would be left with 300-400 a month to use for food, petrol and socializing. Does this sound like a realistic amount?
Just wondering if i should start putting in some overtime!

Totally depends on your lifestyle. If you prioritise nice holidays and dinners out, then I'd say you need a lot more. If you live in London I'd also anticipate needing more as there's so much going on and things to do.

See it as approximately £100 a week- is that enough for your lifestyle?

Actually I misread and didn't realise that included food and petrol!!! Personally I would say no, not in the long term anyway.

Enough for me. Depends how much petrol you use/need to get to & from work etc.

Disposable income to me is what is left after food and other essentials are paid for. Disposable income is for either saving or spending on the good stuff like wine or cinema.

My motto is make hay while the sun shines, so if you have the chance of overtime, take it and save it to create a savings buffer for when the sun isn't shining.

Would love that amount a month. Defo enough to live off

That would barely scrape food and petrol for us. What about clothes, holidays etc?

I'd say yes to overtime or be ready to get imaginative with the food budget.

We have about £700-£800 per month left after all bills,food,petrol etc.
As we earn pretty much the same it's about £400 each.
The only thing out of the personal spends are £50 a month into an account to cover birthdays and uniforms clothes for two dc and I pay £30 into their savings each.
We have allocated money for savings from the joint account
My car finance also comes out of the joint account.
Sounds a lot on paper but in reality it soon goes

For me that wouldn’t be enough. For DH it would be plenty. I think it totally depends on your lifestyle and how careful you are with money

Entirely depends on your expectations and whether it is the truely disposable income or would need to include things like car repairs or white goods replacement.

When you say 'food petrol and socialising' is that everything you have left after normal bills, or have you included annual and irregular expenses too?

Also depends what sort of socialising you expect (and shopping/beauty treatments etc).

If it's just for food, petrol and socialising and you don't expect big nights out all the time, you should be fine, but if it's to cover absolutely everything except mortgage/rent and regular bills or you expect to spend more than the very basics on clothes, hair, make up, nails, accessories, nights out etc, it won't be enough.

No that’s not enough. You need to work out how much each month for everything

Food
Fuel
Mobile phone
Broadband
Tv licence
Car insurance
Car tax
Birthdays
Christmas
Breakdown cover
Annual holidays
Socialising
Kids school trips
Clothes
Uniforms
Shoes
Car service
Emergencies

The list is bloody endless and that’s without any normal bills. I used to use envelopes and put money in each month to check her the above so I didn’t get any unexpected bills

I don't think it's enough if food and petrol have to come out of it as well

One of the things I noticed financially between being single after being in a partnership is that every single bill needs to come out of your money, so there's no room for a bit of leeway or support. Get as much as a buffer as you can, and make an initial budget that you review every month until you're sure you've thought of everything. If OT is regularly available maybe you could use that to save, so you can still socialise etc.