What is your daily budget?

[Bobbiebigbum]

If I have worked it out correctly, after all bills, mortgage etc, aia have about £40 per day to spend on food, petrol and clothes etc. I have 2 dcs and am a single mum. Just wondering what your daily budget is?

£50 a week for us spare. U have more than enough. That's nearly 1000 per month spare!?

@2020hello I'm actually wondering if I've done my calculations correctly as it seems a lot and I'm always overdrawn at the end of the month..

It’s not spare if you’re including food in that

Perhaps you'd be better adding your food and fuel to your fixed outgoings and seeing whatever is left as spare. Food and fuel are essentials really. That's how I set my budget up and find it much easier

Yes true but I want to meal plan more so this allows me to know the rough daily budget!

Just been unemployed for 6 months.

Pared to the bone, we (me & ds) spent £300 a month after bills which was £175 food & toiletries, £40 petrol and the rest for unexpected costs - I had a tyre blow out, needed to call out a plumber etc.

You'll be fine

Have you included car tax, service, mot. RAC? Tv licence. Contents insurance. Phone & broadband. Water bill? Dentist? Hair cuts?

You need an emergency fund for if the washing machine or fridge dies.

@Mintjulia everything you mentioned except MOT and haircuts.

budget planner

Use this budget planner to help work out your income and expenditure.

@Standrewsschool thank you. I'm realising there a quite a few things I have left out!

I think it is really, really hard to work out a 'daily' budget for shopping.

How much toilet roll do you use? Coffee ? Washing up liquid ? ketchup ? etc etc.

You need to think about monthly, or at least weekly.

I agree that breaking it down to a daily budget that is a combination of essentials and discretionary spending is probably unhelpful, especially as you say you want to meal plan more, which probably means buying in food for a few days or longer so the ups and downs in spending day to day will be large.

Some days you will eat cheaper food and others it might be more expensive. If you make a roast and use the leftovers the next day, which day's budget does that food come out of? Is a takeaway, that is usually far more expensive than home cooked food coming out of the 'meals' budget or the 'treats' budget? Do you shop day to day, week to week, or do you shop for the store cupboard, and buy in bulk when you get paid, or see a special offer?

You probably need to go through what you're spending right now and look to see where you can cut costs. The MSE budget planner linked to above will signpost you to reducing the cost of things like gas, electric, broadband, pay TV, mobile phones, insurance etc. If you always pay full price for these things and have never shopped around, you can probably make a good saving.

With food, think about not wasting any, shopping at Lidl or Aldi if you can, or if you choose one of the more expensive supermarkets, buying as much as you can on offer - stock up on non perishables so you never pay full price for things that are always on offer, or try own brands.

Also think about what a meal costs to make and include some cheaper meals in your repertoire if you need to cut down. Small changes can massively reduce what you spend on groceries, eg frozen fish instead of fresh, normal broccoli instead of tenderstem, Asian branded spices instead of Schwartz jars, bigger packs of toilet roll, instead of buying a 4 pack each week, only buying cleaning products and toiletries when on offer, you get the idea.

If you manage to cut your costs, you should naturally build up savings funds, which can be used for annual and irregular expenses (car MOT, Christmas, insurance) plus less frequent costs like car repairs, washing machine repairs.

I have zero idea op. I used to be a budget queen but then had ds, work full time and never have time to think.
Also toddlers seem to cost a fortune!
Only thing I do is put a set amount away on pay day and not touch it unless an emergency. It builds up quite quickly.

To me any daily budget would be after bills, food, fuel and savings.

I work out a monthly budget and then if needed divide whatever is ‘spare’ (after bills, food, fuel, savings) into weekly.

Do you mean how much is left over so that by the end of the month there is nothing left?

I don’t look at how much I can spend, yet how little I can spend and how much I can save.

So just because there is more money, I doth then decide I can spend more per day. That would mean I’d want more left for savings at the end of each month.

Am certainly interested in spend-free days and low spend months. Accumulated savings mean being able to replace a boiler without resorting to monthly plans or being able to buy a car outright and those bought without mi they payment plans, mean there’s actually more on a monthly or daily basis left, if you want to look at it like that.

If I suddenly had an increase of £300 per month, I wouldn’t see it as £10 extra to spend per day. I’d probably see it as £250 more off the mortgage per month and perhaps an extra £50 for monthly spending or for the holiday fund or whatever.

I spend about £30-40 a week in the supermarket, but that includes toiletries, some skincare, and wine as well as food and cleaning stuff.

Accounting for everything, haircuts, car and house insurance, and setting a bit for things like tyres, replacing the odd household item etc, my outgoings are only £70 a month less than my income.

Which means I can't afford to retire, as my pension income will be £200 less than my current income. I'm going to have to sell up and move somewhere cheaper/do equity release/buy a BTL property or some combination thereof.

I should start a thread on it really, but I can't clarify things enough in my head atm.

My bills are 2500
Save £1000
Spend 800

That's monthly.

I transfer 200 a week to our spending money account. Which takes care of petrol about 40 a week and food shopping which is around 70 a week, then its takeaways, bits of makeup, treats for kids etc trying hard to be frugal and save money rather than flitting it away. Kids activities are paid by direct debit and come under Bill's.

Wow@LakieLady how do you spend so little. Per week in the supermarket? I spend that amount per day! And that's me trying to budget.

[quote Bobbiebigbum]Wow@LakieLady how do you spend so little. Per week in the supermarket? I spend that amount per day! And that's me trying to budget.[/quote]
That's a rather insensitive comment given that Lakie has said she doesn't have very much spare money. If you don't have it, you can't spend it. Without getting into debt that is. And debt, especially on a low income, can quickly spiral out of control.

OP it sounds like you have quite a bit of spare money, and while you may feel no pressing urgency to restrict what you spend, it's rarely a good idea to spend all the money you have, and if you do, it's likely to bite you in the arse sooner or later.

If you don't have sufficient pension savings, you won't be able to retire when you want to, or will suffer an unpalatable reduction in lifestyle when you do.

Getting into debt and having to borrow for larger purchases costs money so should be avoided where possible. If you can afford to save for a car etc, you should.

If you lose your income due to illness or job loss, having savings makes life a lot easier.

Although it sounds like Lakie is single and child free, or perhaps a mother of older DC who have left home, so is spending a normal amount each week to feed one person.

£30-40 a day in the supermarket suggests that there is a lot of scope to cut back if you really want to, probably by hundreds of pounds a month.

I have had four adults here for three meals a day since March 2020. £30 per day has been pushing it to be honest if toiletries, cleaning stuff and beer are included. They go back to uni this week.

It's interesting to look back actually to when they were born and there was an incremental increase with nappies, wipes, then formula and the odd jar, etc, then small toddler sized meals all the way up to a teenage boy who grew about 8" in one twelve month period.

When they were both away for autumn term the bills more than halved. Everything is doubled: loo rolls, washing powder, etc. I cannot actually believe the amount of loo roll we get through with everyone at home all the time

Oh and dh and I are very happy with meals like lambs liver and bacon, or omelette or soup with bread and some left over cold meat of which there is never enough to feed 4!

Would never see any reason to work it out to a daily amount tbh but I budget £700 per month for food and fuel costs. Usually go over it.

Food is the one area we really need to get a grip and start shopping more sensibly rather than being lazy and going daily. I know how well meal plans work but cba doing the actual big shop needed.

I think it's really unusual to give yourself a daily budget unless it's for personal discretionary spending like takeaway coffee. Try looking at it monthly or whatever your paycycle is?

Take a look at zero budgeting (you will probably have a large miscellaneous budget for the first few months until you work out your true spending) and setting up sinking funds (pots) for Christmas/Birthdays and annual purchases like insurance.

www.fool.co.uk/mywallethero/savings/learn/how-zero-based-budgeting-can-transform-your-personal-finances/

Also look at getting yourself a £1000 emergency fund to stop you going overdrawn when something breaks, and then a 3-6 month emergency fund for income protection.

flowchart.ukpersonal.finance/