Self-imposed allowance

[Hopel]

My husband and I are having a rejig of our finances and putting our salaries in a joint account to pay for everything for our family of 4, whilst keeping a set amount for ourselves each month. We both work full time.
How much would you say it’s reasonable to keep for myself? I’d spend it on clothes (but I’m not a big shopper), make up, coffees with friends and maybe one night out a month.

I put 40 aside every monthly for the myself.

Your budget might be bigger.

I don't need or want to for anything.

I don't buy new clothes regularly.

Most money goes to children, holiday etc.

The money I have in my purse for spends is £50 a week. This is for things like hair cuts. Or lunch out. Etc.

I keep £200 per month for clothes, makeup, meals out etc but I'm on my own here. Haven't had the money discussion for when I move (I always had a joint account when I was married so not sure of the norm)

We do this. We each keep £150 per month, which covers clothes, haircuts, coffees, nights out etc. It's about right for us.

That depends how much money you have.

The sort of things that you mention are the lowest priority, so it's a case of whatever you have left after paying all your regular bills, food and travel to work etc, DC costs like clothes, childcare, activities, savings for annual and irregular expenses like Christmas, insurance, holidays, broken cars, pets and white goods etc.

So work out what all the above adds up to, work out what's left and split it 50/50 with your DH.

If there's nothing left, you need to look at how you can increase your income, or reduce your other costs to free some spare money up.

Have a look at:

www.moneysavingexpert.com/family/money-help/

We keep £250 a month each for personal pocket money which can spend on what we like

Surly you pay bills, put some away for savings and then split whatever is left? Some people will be left with £10 and other £1000.

Well it's not quite as simple as that surely? You might be each left with £1000 but it might not be a great idea to have that much pocket money a month? I'd be capable of spending it all mind

I think it's a good idea to have an allowance of guilt free spending money, same for each person to spend as they like, once everything else has been accounted for. Stops arguments imo

I have £500 for me and £250 for the children

Well obviously there's a point somewhere between £10 and £1000 where you decide that it would be better to save more of the excess than spend it, but just because money has been earmarked as 'spending money' doesn't automatically translate into 'being spent'?

You'd have to be a bit dim to think 'I've got £500 left so I must spend it before the end of the month', you'd just let it build up into your spending account and maybe spend it next month, or move it into savings, or whatever.

The OP asked what is reasonable for 'adult pocket money' but gave no clue as to what was affordable to her family, which is why I and a few others said that she had to work it out based on her income and other expenditure.

Once you've got to the stage where you have more than, say, a couple of hundred pounds spending money per adult, you probably need to start thinking about what a good use of that money is - do you want to have nicer clothes, more expensive haircuts, more drinks or meals out etc, or do you want to saver the money for a holiday, a car, or even towards retirement savings or mortgage overpayments, which is a decision for the individual and there are huge variations in what different people want to do.

Really depends on your disposable income and how much you need for the things you mentioned.

I would make a list of the prices of the make-up and clothes you buy, also the cost of your hairdresser visits etc. See if that’s affordable and work from there.

When DH and I got married we had £15 each per month for any/everything other than the bills and mortgage payments. That was not pleasant.

We do £500 per month each on a combined income of 85000.

We budget for £400 a month each.

I spend £100 on nails and lashes, and we eat out quit a lot.

We have £200 each but that is for personal spending and not haircuts or family meals. That's on a combined income of £120k so doesn't seem a lot but we have high childcare costs and are overpaying our mortgage so it's not a priority.

Depending on the month, we have £200-400 a month each as our own money, out of this comes hair, eyebrows, clothes, days out with DD, breakfast/lunches at work as needed, basically everything that isn't a bill, food shopping or petrol.

Should have said, that's a combined income of 75k and a child in full time nursery, we also put £300 into savings for holiday a month.

I have £300 per month which is for clothes, hair, beauty treatments, coffees, lunches out but not normally nights out as I use money from our joint account for those. I find this amount more than enough.
£50 hair
£50 (averaged out) botox/fillers
£10 to £80 clothes
The rest on bits and pieces such as make up or meeting friends for coffee perhaps a bigger thing such as dental hygienist.
I do lots of socialising with friends but it’s all cheap stuff such as cinema (I have a cineworld card which is paid for from joint account) or coffees/cheap lunches. I have a spa membership which is paid from joint account.

Around £300 a month each, mostly. We don't take equal amounts though, we each keep the same percentage. Some months that means he has more and some months I do. I'm self-employed so months where I bust my ass working, you better believe I'm having more spends

Doesn't it depend on costs?
My DH has his hair cut very month but it is £10
I have mine done 5-6 times a year but it is £90
I rarely eat out during the day- work from home or get fed by clients
He travels and has to but lunch most days

We just share everything from the joint account.

Fine to share everything from the joint account if you both spend similar amounts of money and neither are spending the mortgage money on £90 haircuts or lunch out most days.

However many people want or need to separate essential and discretionary expenditure and like to have a degree of privacy with their spending from their partner, so they don't spend the mortgage money on their own personal indulgences or have the 'you spend how much on your hair, lunch etc' argument.

Thanks for all the responses. I’ve found it really interesting. I’m thinking for our combined salaries £150-200 pm each is reasonable. I just need some guilt free spending money!