How much money do you need?

[Fox111]

Cost of living crisis makes everyone poor even those with a six figure salary.

So my question is what is your comfortable disposable income?
Take away mortgage/rent, transportation and childcare what figure would you be comfortable with after these deductions?

Well I’d like to be able to spend £100 a week on food and buy clothes and other necessities as required without thinking about it. So I’d guess £100-150 for that. Then put away £10 a week for Christmas and £10 a week for each birthday I don’t spend that much on birthdays extra could go on holidays or days out. So that’s at the higher estimate £280 a week

People with a 6 figure salary aren't poor. They're in the top 5% of earners.

HTH.

How does it make someone on six figures poor?

That's a tricky one, do you include savings?

OP was talking about disposable income though
If your outgoings are very high you can be skint despite having a large income

@Bennyontheloose
There are many people on Mumsnet with 6 figures living in London who complain they have nothing left at the end of the month.
@Puddingpieplum
No leave savings out of it.

You can be rich skint too
Lots of money tied up and very little for day to day living

Not having anything left at the end of the month isn't poor. 6 figures isn't poor full stop and how insensitive to think that as some people are actually poor.

I think as a family of 5 we need about £800 a week to live comfortably and not have to scrimp (including bills)

Better that than living on benefits poor though don't you think?

Ok I take my words back not poor but skint.

I’m not sure what you’re including or not including though. Do you mean pure discretionary spending that is not at all necessary? So money spent on stuff like nails, coffees or treats out, going to the theatre or cinema etc? If so then I’d need very little. I don’t spend much on this sort of thing for myself at all, probably not even £20 a week.

However do you include stuff like kids activities? Taking them swimming or to soft play? Gifts for birthday parties or towards Xmas etc? Some people would class something like childrens gymnastics lessons as an essential spend because it might go out as a direct debit and/or because they would never cut those activities out for their kids. But some people may see that as discretionary spending as it’s not a necessary bill like mortgage, gas, etc.

There will be very different answers depending on what you classify things as.

£200 on utilities
£250 on food
£200 on clothes shoes for me & ds
£200 on hobbies/outings
£200 on holidays
£100 subscriptions, comms, wear&tear
Plus £100 emergency fund

£1250 a month would be lovely.

You need to afford rent bills food meds toiletries clothing work related costs and then money for enjoyment other wise health goes down hill.

Average rent is 1.2k+ pm
Bills are 400pm? At a low estimate
Food is 350pm?
50 toiletries and meds
Clothing 50pm
50 travel/work
150 fun/ad hoc

• money for saving which really anything and everything helps.

>> 1200+400+350+50+50+50+150 +savings = 2250 pm, plus savings on top. Cost of car on top.
Cost of holidays on top. Cost of gifts on top.

Helps if you have a person (s) to split living costs.

2300pm is about 38k per year which is uk average salary I think.

But i think you'd want to be at 3000 for savings and necc car bits.
Which is 52000 k per year. Ish.

Disposable id say around 400pm would be comfy
But that means extra for holidays and savings and subscriptions ect.

Guess it depends on size of family, age of children etc.

At a rough estimate (per month
Food £500
gas/elec £300
christmas £100
birthdays £100 (presents and meal out/takeaway)
holidays £200
Dog £100
petrol £50
fun/ad hoc £150
car expenses (tax, mot, service etc) £30

£1550 so nearly £1600 per month or £400 per week

Also, got things like council tax, car insurance, house insurance, phone tariffs, broadband, etc on top of that, so probably nearer £2500 per month.(gulp!)

(I know holidays, Christmas aren’t essentials but I try to put some money away each month. Not sure whether you class these as savings)

Single person here with no children. Ideally I would want at least £3K to continue saving for a house deposit, do fun stuff and save for rainy days and holidays. My income varies so currently my disposable income is from £500 to £1.5K every month. I have a pretty simple life and rotate my subscriptions, rarely buy clothes and have no debt. My essential outgoings are only £700 month.

Are we including bills?

After paying my bills (not negotiable ones like council tax) I have £260pm left for food and anything else

If I had say £700 that would be amazing but I would need an income of £2400pm after tax for that

Nobody on a 6-figure salary is poor FFS.

Depends how many people you're paying for. £200 per week per adult?

Thinking purely about myself living a life of mini-luxury, I could: go out to eat a couple of times a week; pay for the gym and a new mobile phone; buy some clothes and makeup; meet friends for drinks; buy lunch instead of having to make from scratch; pay for a cleaner; pay for a new leasehold car; do some hobbies during the week; go to concerts, comedy, theatre shows occasional; have a weekend away every now and then; fix my teeth; regular hairdressers and nails appointments; have sky, Netflix and amazon prime; get some bits for the house; have a massage... it feels like lots of people do these things anyway.

But writing it all out maybe £200 per week isn't even enough!

What I've said doesn't include food and other bills, just pure luxuries.

£900 housing
£300 bills
£450 food
£200 petrol
No kids, don’t really do any activities or eat out much (maybe 6 times year), never eat takeaways. We need around £1800-1900 per month

Friends of ours have a large house and their utility bills are nearing £100k a year.

Is this real??? How big is their house?

Single parent, one child, mortgage etc. I allow £400 a month for 'fun' money, this is after every bill including food, petrol and also some savings.

I feel we live comfortably on that and very rarely do I go over.

Would like to save more but also want to live a little!