Surely this should be enough??!

[Spectacledone]

Morning,

I’m worried about our finances and the amount of money that we seem to be getting through. We both have good jobs and a good joint income. I’ve been through all of our outgoings and after all bills plus £500 for food shopping, we should be left with £2700 between us as ‘spare’ money…. But it all just goes. I know our spending needs to be controlled. Clothes shopping, holidays and weekends away/days out are a big problem. We’re getting to the end of the month with less than nothing left!!

I think that £2700 is a lot of spare money and that we should be able to manage well on this. Dh thinks that it’s “not that much” between us and that “it is what it is”.

AIBU to think that this is massive overspending??

I allow myself £100 pw for "spends": parking, coffee, magazine, collection at work, extra bread/milk/salad, cpl glasses of wine/and or dinner with the girls, it also stretches to the odd bit of make-up, etc. When it's gone, it's gone. I don't have to watch pennies but using cash for those little things helps. I also take a flask and my lunch to work - without doing that, I'd spend much more.

Is this thread genuine? If so, to post on here asking where almost £3K of your disposable income goes feels crass and insensitive.

What does the £2700 include? Are you just a couple of do you have children? On paper £2700 seems a lot. But I found once I fact in savings for holidays, new cars, house renovations, there's not a lot left. Kids clubs are expensive too, but it's the large items such as cars, holidays and house that cost the most.

That's an insane amount of 'spare' money. You won't get much sympathy here - but you can easily save at least half that.

That's a lot of "spare" money. I wonder whether you aren't counting everything into your non-discretionary spending- would recommend using a spreadsheet like the MSE budget one to try to pick up absolutely everything.

Once you've done that, spend a few months tracking everything to work out where the extra is going.

PMSL at your husband saying "it is what it is". Very helpful!

Great idea

Direct debit of a certain amount into a savings account on pay day so no matter what happens you have x!

edited to add- it is a huge amount- huge!

I agree with what a lot of posters have put - you need to look back at your last three months, add up what you’ve spent line by line. Then look forward - what do you want savings for, do you have enough already, do you pay enough in to pensions to meet your future requirements, what do you need to cut in order to meet those savings goals?

We similarly have a sizeable income which disappears. I know we could spend a lot less, we don’t want to. We have savings and pensions which get topped up first.

I find most months about £500 of irregular spending crops up - the lawnmower died last month, I needed new tyres and an AC top up for the car this month. We don’t have to buy the cheapest option, and can afford to sort these things as they crop up. Then add on the fact that we like takeaways and grabbing lunch out, and picking up a toy or magazine for the kids most weeks. It all adds up a lot quicker than you might expect if you don’t go through each item. But then we can’t be surprised at having no money left over!

A good idea is to completely lock off a joint account that both of your wages go into. Have that as the bills/food shopping account and where all the bill direct debits come out of, and don't let each other use the bank cards for it for any other spending.

Then at the end of the month, whatever's left after bills and food, such as the £2700 that you suggested, move like £1500 into a savings account, and then give yourself the remaining £1200 (£600 each) as "pocket money". The pocket money has to be sent to your own individual banks, so then any spending that isn't for bills or food shopping has to come out of your own individual money.

As a married couple and especially since having kids, DH and I have always had to work to meticulous household budgets.
this means planning all of our spending, over each 12 month period - that includes what you spend regularly month to month but also the annual costs that most of us have (Christmas, birthdays, holidays) and splitting up your distribution for these over the 12 months.

I’m forever astonished when people pop up on MN having seemingly never had to even think about budgeting their spending, let alone actually got to grips with exactly where their money goes or heaven forbid had to cut back on or forego anything they desire in the moment.

I am not poor, but nor am I rich enough to be able to blithely go through life being utterly unaware of “where my money goes”.
how the other half live indeed.

this is good advice.

I would use a prepay debit card like Revolut for each of your monthly personal spend budgets.

Given that the OP has posted in 'Money Matters' I really don't think it is. Out of interest what kinds of topics do you think this section of MN should cover?

My guaranteed income for month is £1500 ( no mortgage/rent) single occupancy and I still manage to save £300 per month in high interest regular savings account. Have car. Holidays come from savings. Have odd jobs that bring in income and I automatically save the earnings!

Do you have children? @ElinoristhenewEnid

@Brainded 2 grown up dcs living independently. I live on my own (widowed)

@ElinoristhenewEnid, yeah I think it’s a lot easier to live on little and save when there are no dc at home and no one else to depend on as such.Maybe I’m wrong though…

It does feel like overspending- one thing that immediately sprang to mind tho is the 500 for food shopping- could you be underestimating that.

It's even easier still to not have a mortgage or rent to pay!