Disposable income of £782 per month??

[Speedystonez]

Hi

I have just been reading an article online which suggested that the average person in the UK has £782 left and disposable income after paying all of their essential living costs. Surely that can’t be right?

I believe IFS usually defines it as being after taxes (so income, NI and council tax) but before pensions etc, so it's usually quite a high figure.

I think there are just too many factors to consider to say if it seems right or not .

Does it mean after absolutely everything you need for the month ? So if you blew that amount on one day , you would be absolutely fine for the rest of the month ? That doesn’t seem like it would be common .

Does it mean each person in a couple or together ?

I would say , after bills are accounted for and shopping then we probably have that , even more . We are both paid weekly so I would say there is £200/300 between us - could be more could be less depending on what bills come out or what wages we have ( I work less in the school holidays , don’t get paid over Xmas bank hols etc ) . I would say never less than £150 between us . However , that goes really easily - there are always extra groceries , petrol , my commuting ( or I can guarantee there will be some bill we have forgotten , usually a small one like Netflix or Spotify ! ) . So if we counted every little thing then it would be way less ! We aren’t ever able to save , we have a lot of debt that we try to chip away at , the only luxuries we really have is a takeaway at the weekend or maybe a costa and some ice creams if we go to the park . We have some days out too but we have annual passes - so I guess you could say that’s a luxury and something to class as use of disposable income. We don’t go on holidays etc .