How much to savings and spends

[iwantsunshine1]

How much do you put in savings a month and how much do you have for spends? We put £1000 a month savings and have £450 spends (not including food or fuel) but find each month we go over and end up taking from our savings. On paper £450 should be more than enough but it soon goes!

Your OP suggests that your monthly income is £1,450, of which £1,000 goes to savings and £450 gets spent. Is that correct?
What's your set up? So, does this income come from one salary? And how many people does this income cover?

When you say £450 is for 'spend', what do you mean? What exactly does the £450 get spent on?
You say it excludes food and fuel. How much do food and fuel cost per month? You haven't said anything about housing costs. What does housing cost per month?

How much do you 'take' from your £1,000 ear-marked savings for spending?
If you're having to do this every month, then clearly its over-ambitious to try and save £1,450.

No sorry monthly is coming is close to 4K so all bills, fuel and food are already paid for. The £450 get spent on days out, things for the kids, takeaways etc.
That's what I'm thinking, that I need to reduce the savings and increase the spends but I really want to try and not spend over the £450. Just don't know if I'm being silly thinking we can make do with £450 a month

Surely it’s how long is a piece of string?! If that were my budget, I’d probably add more to the ‘fun’ pot unless I had any serious savings goals.

Personally, after bills etc we have circa 3.5k left. Every month I’ll budget for the fun things we have planned/spends for holidays etc and then proportion out savings from that. Depending on what we’re doing, that could be as little as £500 or as much as 2.5k! For us I find this is the right balance between needless spending (if it’s in my current account it seems to fly out!) and feeling the pinch.

Thanks for clarifying.

Have you heard of the 50, 30, 20 rule?

Basically, 50% of your income should go on essentials, 30% of spends, and 20% into savings.

You're in that kind of region already so I wouldn't say you're doing badly or particularly need to reduce your spending.
But, I think its sensible to aim for £1K saved each month (so 25% of your income). If you wanted to keep this up, you could look at fewer or cheaper treats. At the minute, you're spending about £112 per week on 'spends'.
But I think its important to balance saving for the future with enjoying the here and now.

Break it down further op. Eg 450 divide that up per week about 112 a week.
How much of that shld go to weeked fun including take away?

Have seperate fund for clothes and classes /kids

Save seperate for holiday and Christmas.
We have a set weekend budget which would cover a take away or activity.
Food money is also seperate

£450 fun money per month for one month seems low on a monthly income of £4K - are you saving for anything specific?

I do the 50/30/20 thing a PP has mentioned.

I think you could try further breaking it down. I break mine down into: pets, clothes, gifts, holidays, meals out, contact lenses, kids’ clothes, pocket money, school uniform, music lessons, dentist, optometrist, personal care, fitness, and miscellaneous. If there’s anything left in each category, it rolls over into the next month (particularly with holidays, gifts, school uniform, dentist, optometrist, etc).