Living comfortably

[Welshy545]

I know it's all relative but how much would you say you need left over each month in order to live comfortably. After all bills, food and petrol is paid?

Sorry should add for 2 adults and one young child

Relative is the key word... I reckon 2.5-3k would be enough to do nice things (e.g. date nights, family days out etc), go on holiday, get a nice car, afford house maintenance/upgrades, personal spending money and enough to build up an emergency pot.

Short term you don't need anything left over.

For the long term - £200 a month for clothes/haircuts/days out.

Looking ahead if possible I would want to put something away for emergencies - maybe £50 a month?

jojo - Indeed it is all relative, but £3k a month on the things you describe doesn't constitute ''living comfortably''

But again, congratulations on being so wealthy.

I think it depends on your definition of comfortable. Mine would actually be the same as jojos - all bills paid, reliable car, a holiday, ability to go out for a meal / day out now and then, not having to scrimp too much on food and clothes (but equally not being able to blow whatever we like and still having to stick to a budget) and a decent emergency pot. 3.5-4K I’d say but then we currently have a childcare bill which dwarves our mortgage.

It’s perfectly possible to be comfortable on less, and we have been for years, but in terms of our current circumstances in the house we live in now 3.5-4K is comfortable and less would be tight, as it was when we moved and DD started nursery. If we had smaller bills then yes of course less could constitute living comfortably. But people will answer based on their own current circumstances.

What do you mean by living comfortably? I'm assuming the essentials already paid for includes decent housing, a car, proper food, utilities etc.

So how much for extras? Clothes, nights out, holidays, eating out, books, swimming lessons, haircuts, the gym, alcohol.....

Having been in the position of having nothing to spare at all I'm grateful I can afford my gym pass, to grab food on the go, eat out occasionally and even a holiday this year. I would say that was around £200 per month for just me, taking kids and partner into account would change that figure.

I've got simple tastes though, don't care about clothes, am happy to get a basic cut at village hairdresser for £15 every few weeks, don't drink, have a PAYG phone I put £10 on most months. Others would easily spend that on a couple of items of clothing.

Oh misunderstood though. I meant 3.5-4K per month to cover everything, not left over! That would definitely be more than comfortable! I’d say about £750 for that to cover a yearly holiday, Xmas, spending on days out, clothes and building a savings pot

The definition of 'left over' is key. The OP says 'after all bills, food and petrol is paid'.

Does that include all annual and irregular expenses? Things like insurances, car maintenance, replacement, MOT etc, any vets bills, household maintenance, Christmas, holidays etc etc can cost hundreds of pounds a month or more, so need to be accounted for if you're thinking about what money you have left over to spend on things like clothes for adults, meals out, days out etc.

We are finally debt free after paying off debt for 12 years. Save £250/mth into a short term account for Christmas, holidays, mot etc. And £100/mth into a long term account which we hope not to touch for a long while. We feel very comfortable with that.

It depends so much on housing, if you are paying £750 a month (quite typical here) it's very different to to £1500 needed elsewhere. But people earn less here

I'm staggered by JoJo comments and others.
I think most people can manage on less. Comfortably. Less than you think.

We manage just fine: I buy what food I want, when I want: my Dh is on a completely normal good standard wage, nothing huge, and I work 3 days.

I'd say I live comfortably, eat out once a week, holiday once a year etc and mostly I'm in the thankful position of now having to worry about money. I'm single, live on my own in a northern city, and after all bills/housing costs etc have £750pm 'left over' money

Family of 5 here. Honestly, to feel truly comfortable, I'd like 3.5-4k also, for everything, not after bills.
We have nowhere near that and we tick over fine but I'm constantly worrying about where the big unexpected bills are coming from, and having that feeling gone would be great. That said, as we are I know we're lucky compared to many.

Roughly (sometimes changes but not by much)just over £4000 per month in.
We run two decent cars (just paid mine off)we have a lovely house with a big big garden that we've renovated over the 15 years we've lived here.
2 dc and 1 adult dc soon to be moving out.

For the last five years we have holidayed in the uk due to financing renovations and normal life etc but now able to have a holiday abroad each year a couple of long weekends away in our own and a few family day trips etc.

After bills petrol food budget and savings plus £200 pm into an account to cover birthdays Xmas mot tyres etc etc we have about £1100 a month left over however a few expensive repairs and replacing big items means we are watching the ins and outs.

Without the extras that we've had crop up recently we normally enjoy eating out and the odd takeaway every now and then,a family breakfast out,dc hobbies,and if we fancy something really nice for a treat tea or bottle of wine we generally buy it but that's not too often.

We have been on the other side and we're for many years so I'm always very cautious when it comes to spending and check all out online accounts daily

We are comfortable. We have a nice house, two fairly reliable but not new cars, have a few day trips out etc. Income after tax and deductions etc about £2k per month. South East so not cheap although we aren't trying to race up the housing ladder so have a relatively small mortgage. And I have young children so foreign holidays or meals out = more hassle than they are worth. I don't have to count every penny and can buy small treats occasionally for myself and family therefore I am comfortable. I think other people have very different definitions of comfortable though.

I'd say 3-4K left over , basically one of our post tax earnings. So it's like we need a third person's income.

I'd save most of that though because I don't have expensive taste

I think 2k after bills for holidays, meals out, school trips (my daughter’s just been to Spain with the school it cost £750 😲) pets, I love my animals 😊

Wow, I feel like we live comfortably and our entire household income is less than some of these figures Though there are only 2 of us at the moment and we live in a fairly cheap area.

We have £2800 coming in after tax. £1400 is spent on all essentials (including food, petrol, all insurances, TV licence, car maintenance, mortgage, council tax, dentist, optician, pot for christmas & birthday presents etc). We put another £900 into long term savings (which does include a contingency fund for very large unexpected bills, like if we need a new boiler) and then have £500 left which is for meals out, hobbies, smaller unexpected bills and towards an annual holiday.

As others have said though, it really depends on what you consider "essential", for example everything car related is "essential" for us as we need one each due to where we live.

Sorry, having another read of the above I should probably consider our savings as some of the leftover money - in which case we have £1400 left. We are exremely disciplined though and once it's gone into the savings account on the 1st of the month then it's "gone" and can't usually be touched!

£1500, if that includes holidays, Christmas etc

We are a family of 5, and I would say we are comfortable. After bills, savings, and charity contributions, we have about 3k/month disposable income left over. About half of that goes into a short term savings pot for things like long haul holidays and house upgrades, and the other half we use on things like days out, restaurants, clothes, extracurriculars, birthday and Christmas gifts, etc. We aren’t spendy people I don’t think (no designer clothes or fancy cars—just one 7 year old Ford which we bought outright—we fly budget airlines, we happily Eurocamp in the summer, the children are in state school, and I shop at Aldi and Lidl), but nevertheless I would say we do live comfortably. We never worry about being able to afford necessities. We take the children on several holidays abroad every year and we ski every winter. We eat well. We have a big house in a nice area where the children attend a fantastic school, and for the most part we can buy what we like when we really want something. I love a bargain, but we don’t HAVE economize to in order to make ends meet.

I reckon we could still be comfortable on a lot less to be honest.