Could you live off £500 per month?

[mothertobe789]

We are currently looking to move house, have found a home we love but it is more than we were thinking about paying. After all bills, including food and petrol we would only be left with around £500 per month between us to cover social life and clothes etc, so £250 each really. We will have around £6k in savings for emergencys, but don't want to touch that unless we really need to. Do you think this is doable?

Many people live off a lot less than that so yes, you can.

Do you have DC?

£500 after food and all bills is absolutely loads of course it's doable. However, as always in these threads there will be people who claim £500 is nothing and you'll have no life, and other people who don't have £5 a month for socialising. Ultimately no one can answer this question for you.

Would you need to save for holidays from that £250 each, and add to your savings or have you already taken that into account?

If they need to come out of your £250 each id suggest you might be stretching yourselves a bit thin, but of course it depends on if your financial situation might imrpove in the next 12-18months. Or how much you normally spend on holidays / put into savings etc.

£250 a month each, AFTER all bills/food/essentials?

Yeah.. That's plenty!

After bills food and petrol we're lucky if we have £50 a month left over so I'd say yes, would definitely be able to live on £500

Do you have dc? Sounds like plenty to me

Yes completely doable

And yes, people do get by on MUCH less than that but your OP suggests you currently have more than that each monhly so will need some adjusting to...

After food and bills - yep

Easily. I don’t have that much left over each money and I cope.
How much would you have to curtail your social life on that amount?

Fucking hell.

Sorry I know that's not helpful...but, fucking hell. On what planet would that not be ebough.?

Or rather enough

Yes we have one child, she is only 2 months old so doesn't cost alot jsut now but that will of course change as she gets older. And no I haven't included holidays or savings or birthday/Xmas presents. I know it sounds like alot but we all know how fast money disappears.

It's easily doable if you keep an eye on what you spend. Keep a spending diary for a week, write down everything, you'll see where any wasteful spending is going.

Easily. After all bills, food and petrol there's not much left to spend on .

Would recommend an app like YNAB to help you budget every single cost. £500 should definitely be do-able.

One thing to consider is if interest rates go up this would eat in to the £500.

that is a lot of money per month

If that's after food fuel and all household expenses then yes. Easily.

Bucking the trend, no - absolutely not. I know a lot of people do, but if you’ve not been used to it, £250 a month each will be really hard.

That's a lot of spare cash, should be entirely doable if you budget etc...

So 6k/ year for a holiday, Christmas, socialising and clothes. Yeah, of course you could make it work.

It's not 6k a year??

Yes it is...

Dp, our 4yr old and I live on £900 a month before bills/food etc so after we take off basic necessities we're left with about £200 per month between all 3 of us.
You're loaded .