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?

Have you included travel to work and all car costs in “all bills”? Including a contingency for repairs?

How much free money do you have now? Is it a massive drop?

What if the washing machine explodes or something like that? Do either of you need smart work clothes?

@bertrandrussel, no car repairs etc aren't included, we would have 6k in savings for these types of emergencys.
I have a work uniform which is supplied, but yes dh wears suits to work.

£500 per month for discretionary spending is plenty but you would be leaving yourselves in a vulnerable position if one of you lost your job or someone became ill.

I would say that was enough, i would have nowhere near that much after food, diesel and bills...but theni only go out about 3 times a year!!

Sounds like plenty to me but the only way you’ll know if it’s OK for you is if you budget it out properly, including all annual and non-monthly stuff.

Money saving expert has a good template for this.

I depends on your lifestyle TBH. We dropped to £900 a month after everything and my husband really moans its not enough and that he is poor because he cannot spend freely, but I am fine and we save £200 a month for emergencies. I think £500 would be restricting and you would both have to be frugal to have a cheap holiday or do housing repairs.

It depends on what you are used to I suppose?? Have you already accounted “money for savings” or do you need to keep some of that 500 for emergencies and holiday savings etc??

£500x12 months = £6k a year. Say half goes on repairs etc you'll still save £3k a year. It's completely doable.

@mothertobe789 also is the house bigger?? Be aware that if it is then so will your electricity bills, council tax etc.is it closer or further from work?? Will travel costs stay the same or increase? Have you based you outgoings on those too or current outgoings but just higher mortgage payments. Sometimes where you live and park the car effects car insurance and life insurance can be effected too at times so don’t take it that EVERYTHING will stay the same.

@youngandfree yes the house is bigger, our council tax will be about £100 more than we are just now. I've calculated based on higher council tax and electricity etc. We will be moving further away from where we work but back to where I am originally from to be closer to my family since we have now got a baby, it is a more expensive area than we live just now.

I'm sure it's do able but don't think it would be much fun. I have a similar budget at the moment and it's pretty tight. Something always seems to pop up that takes a chunk of it leaving me watching the pennies for the rest of the month.

@mothertobe789 I assume you are on mat leave? Will you be going back to work? Only you know what you do everyday?coffee? Playgroups etc. will you need childcare if you are going back to work? How will that effect everything?

What about childcare?

These threads always annoy me, of course £500 disposable income for 2 adults and a baby is plenty, you're hardly penniless with £6k in savings! Do you read any other threads on how people are surviving wage to wage? Feeding families of 4/6 on £50pw? Off you go with your middle class worries 🙄

@Bookworm4 a worry is a worry! It may seem middle class to you but to me it looks like she is trying to be sensible about life decisions unlike some ppl who dive straight in without thinking!!(and there’s A LOT of those on here) see current thread on the lack of school days —childcare— in April

I would say it is definitely doable but only because you already have savings. I think that will dwindle as things crop up and you mentioned that you aren't planning on adding to it with the new budget. Are things going to change at some point so you can save again and allow for price rises? We have £400 each but we save £200 a month which covers a cheap holiday and big bills like car repairs etc. It's a new tighter budget for us too and my DH is struggling with it.

I wouldn't say so it's a choice of how you want to live at that level I'd be questioning every penny and it'd be very stressful

Cost of housing may be fixed for now but cost of living is likely to increase post Brexit and you'd be very vulnerable to that.

Do you intend to go back to work at end of Mat leave? What about childcare costs if so?

Ffs Are you kidding? We gave 50 left over after mortgage food and bills.

@bookworm4 we are not middle class, we are very much working class and work hard for what we have, I am trying to be realistic.

@youngandfree...thank you! I will be going back to work and have included childcare costs. I have money aside to get us to the end of my mat leave that i saved prior to having my baby.

Should also add I work for the nhs and am at the bottom of my band just now, so i will get £1000 per annum increase on my salary for the next 6 year's until I get to the top of my pay band. Dh is similar and is due increments over the next few years.

We have about 200 per month (between family of 4). Any "surprises", and of course they're not really surprised because things lime car trouble/white goods packing in/school trips etc are inevitable, but us very hard.

£500 is obviously much better than that but you'll still have to budget very carefully.

I'd say we live a really nice, comfortable life, but we definitely pay attention to money- no big nights out or daily coffees! We've two DC, one at school.
We are YNABers, so I know my budget well- we put by 250 per month for infrequent expenses (repairs, annual insurance bill, dentist, trips, replacing technology, things like that), 100 for kids sundries (clubs, school trips, odd bits of clothing, haircuts etc), 150 each for spending money (those coffees, clothes, haircuts, and any other bits), and put by 175 for Christmas, birthday parties and treats, and any other presents through the year. We don't have holidays as such as we have lots of family which needs visiting.
So that's 825 on the stuff your 500 covers. We could trim it a bit, for sure,

Sorry, posted too soon! I was going to say- look at what you spend now and see what you'd need to cut to come on at 500. You definitely need to allow for infrequent expenses, so it's not 250 spending money each.

Some people would be glad to ONLY have that after EVERYTHING is paid. Yabvvu ( I know this is not Aibu). But you are. Hmmm

@Orchidflower1 I really don’t see how she is being unreasonable here?? It might be a lot to some and nothing to others. Why is only ppl on low or no income with no hope can worry about money?? We are all entitled to worry when changing our circumstances!