Budget?

[KittenCatt]

What is your typical monthly budget?

Mine is:

£300 - Investments
£277 - Rent
£200 - Disposable income
£100 - Food
£52 - Electric and water
£50 - Savings for DIY and furniture
£38.50 - Transport
£35 - Council Tax
£30 - Holiday Savings
£10 - Phone bill
£7.85 - Union membership
£7 - Spotify
£2.49 - Apple storage

Assuming you live alone in a small house in cheap area!

That's incredibly low for rent and utilities! Our water alone is more than your combined bill!

I'm assuming you don't have kids or live alone. Are the amounts you've put your share of the bills or the total amount?

And* live alone

£35 for council tax?! I want to move there!

Presume you live alone, as £100 a month on food is cheap. Rent is very cheap also.

Also, £300 a month in investments?

Actually, are these figures real, they do seem a bit all over the place.

Wow your outgoing are so low, we pay more than all that just for our mortgage!

I have a lot more categories than you! Does your disposable cover clothes, hair, toiletries, dentist, optician, life ins, nights out, hobbies, presents? Doesn't feel like it'll go far.

I have a huge spreadsheet with about 100 categories 😆. I'll try to post the standard stuff. I tracked our outgoings for a few months to get quite accurate amounts for variable spends.

Then there's loads of other stuff on there, largest cost is running the cars.

My partner and I rent a small one bedroom flat, which we pay below market value for. My partner also earns more than me, so we split rent, food and Spotify 50/50. Everything else is proportionate with our wages. I should have said that in the first place, sorry!

Things like insurance? Life? Home?
I assume you don't have a car?
I'm impressed your outgoings are so low!
In comparison my rent, c/tax and food alone come to £1700

I pay more in nursery fees than you do rent, and that's with the 30 hour funding. You must know your outgoings are exceptionally low

I have a sinking fund for Health costs. Clothes and toiletries, money for socialising come from my disposable income 😊

My budget is completely irrelevant to yours, I have two kids, a 4 bed in zone 4, why would it help you to know?

It's good to talk about money, it really helps some people either learn to budget or talk about their own difficult finances. I've always been happy to discuss openly since dh's friend committed suicide over money problems.

But others aren't, do they shouldn't feel pressured to.

Sharing a budget helps people see how you personally allocate funds, it's interesting to compare percentages irrespective of incomes. OP's budget shows they prioritise their savings /investments and has sparked discussions over how you can live so cheaply.

So you only pay a proportion of gas/electric, water, and council tax, but Spotify is split right down the middle at £7.50? That's rather weird to me.

It’s because we have a Spotify duo account.

Yes, but our bills are proportionate to our wages. It wouldn’t be fair to split everything 50/50 as I earn less than my partner…

Each to their own, but I never understand this stance when there's no kids involved. Unless it's been their choice to live in an expensive house, etc. which I assume it isn't if you only pay £277 rent and it's below market value.

I had no idea it was considered weird… I thought it was fair, with or without children…

And others will agree, I'm sure. Sorry, didn't mean to derail, or be rude. Just my opinion, which wasn't what you asked for.

OP, do you mean weekly?

No, it’s my monthly budget

From my own personal money -
Joint account = £1,050
Phone bill = £42
Travel to work = £100
Home renovations = £600
Credit card (paying off car and house renovations interest free) = £492.50
Petrol = £40
Prime = £7.99
Anything else I fancy = £350

Joint account
Mortgage = £1,332
BT = £67
Council tax = £215
Bulb = £184
Water = £47
Home insurance = £17
Life insurance = £21
Food Shopping = £200
Netflix = £11

Caveat, we both earn roughly the same (DP is self employed so it fluctuates) so split bills 50/50 and then anything else is considered joint money really although we keep it in our personal accounts. For example, my car has broken down and I don’t get paid until next week so DP will pay for it to be fixed and wouldn’t expect that money back. We also have no children.

So is that your personal spend, rather than household spend? Ie. Rent is actually 2x £277 = £554 etc.

Yes, that’s my personal budget

£360 a year doesn't take you very far at all for a holiday!