Anyone able to help with my budget please?

[GoldOnyx]

Hi, anyone mind looking over my budget and help me work out where I can make some savings please? Thanks!

Monthly income: £2,200

Monthly outgoings:

Rent = £890
Food = £160
Transport = £100
Phone = £50
Union membership = £20
Dental/optician = £160
= £1,387.50

Language lessons = £140 (aiming to take a language exam and then travel to South America in mid-2026, so won’t be taking these lessons forever)
Music lessons = £139
= £279

Newspaper subscription = £15
Netflix subscription = £6
Amazon Prime = £9
Gym = £30
= £64

Eating out/nights out = £300
Leg wax and eyebrows = £30

Pedicure = £40
= £370

Savings:
ISA = £100

You haven't included:
Building/contents insurance
Other insurances/life cover
Water/sewerage
Gas
Electric
Council tax
Christmas/birthday presents
Pet expenses (if you have them)
School expenses (if you have children)
Vehicle expenses (MOT, servicing, tyres fuel)
TV licence
Broadband

Income: Do you receive any benefits?

Outgoings:
£50 on a phone is a lot. See if you can negotiate a cheaper tariff/go SIM only
£300 on meals. Eat in more often/invite friends around to yours.
Do you need a newspaper subscription? News is available in so many other free formats.
Personal grooming: (I personally would shave my legs and paint my own nails if money was tight)
Gym: walking and cycling are free.

Language lessons = £140 (aiming to take a language exam and then travel to South America in mid-2026, so won’t be taking these lessons forever)
Music lessons = £139
= £279

Newspaper subscription £15
Eating out/nights out - cut in half £150

Saving £344a month

Learn language on you tube or online

Some things you can get a cheaper version of x

If money is tight then you could do away with -

Music lessons
Newspaper
Halving nights out/ eating out
Leg wax & pedicures.

Thats £370 saved straight off.

Initial thought is your rent is almost half of your take home which is high but probably unavoidable given rental rates. Next thought is a few of your items are not necessary, more of a luxury spend eg 40 per month on a pedi? I would see if you can live without 3 of these. Not sure what country you are in but dental / optician seems very high at 160 per month? Lastly, what's the intention for learning Spanish after your trip? 140 per month seems reasonable if learning the language is a long term goal but if it is just for your trip, it seems excessive and I say this as someone paying for Spanish classes too but for a long term result / move

This plus cheaper phone contract. Also do you get use out of Prime and Netflix. If you don't have money available to buy things do you need to pay £9 a month for free delivery and a quite limited TV service.

I assume your rent includes bills?

You've not mentioned clothes. Do you buy these? Also are the savings building up or do they get spent?

Nothing included for council tax or utilities, - does someone else pay these or included in rent?

Choose between pedicure or waxing each month. Or better still learn to do your own pedicure and find a cheaper at home way to do legs/eyebrows.

I bet you spend more on food than £160 one way or another. Same for nights out. If your travel isn't a fixed £100 a month (eg a season ticket) I bet you overspend there too.

Your music lessons and language course are quite a big expense between them - pick one or the other. Cut your budget for going out to £200.

Choose from your subscriptions - newspaper, Amazon or Netflix - not all 3. What you can do to save is subscribe to a different one each month just for that month (join and cancel on the same day so you don't forget!)

Gym is fine imo providing you use it regularly, if that's what you do to exercise that's important.

There's a lot of hidden expenses you haven't budgeted for - gifts, haircuts....

Basically I think you need to make choices about your non essential spending, at the moment you are doing everything and wondering how you can save money. Think about your £300 on music and language - if you say I want to save £150 of that, which one will you choose?

Where are your bills? If you’re tight on money there’s plenty to cut back on - do home workouts instead of gym, do your own beauty treatments. What is £160 dental / optician? That seems very high. £100 a month saving towards a trip to South America seems very low, assume yo must have savings already.

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Use this budget planner. It makes you think about all those extra costs - hair cuts, etc which all add up.

My initial thought was food seems cheap - £40 per week?

You spend alot on leisure activities - language, music, gym, eating out, pedicure , leg wax.

Thanks for your post MrsMoasty.

For the first group of expenses you’ve mentioned there, none of them apply to me apart from Christmas/birthday presents, so I need to set aside money for that. I don’t have any children or pets, I don’t have a car, all my utilities are all included in my rent (inc insurance, council tax, TV licence and Broadband) and I don’t receive any benefits.

I do need to get a cheaper deal on my phone, but unfortunately I’ve still got a year of my current contract left (I took out the contract in June 2023).

I don’t actually spend £300 on meals exactly - the £300 is more just money I’m setting aside each month for fun things to do that I want to do. In terms of the newspaper subscription, I actually like it so I’d miss it if I didn’t have it, and I use it daily.

Money isn’t tight at the moment, so I’m happy to put aside money each month for pedicures and eyebrow threading, as I don’t know how to do this myself and I don’t think it’s that expensive. Any money I don’t spend on this each month will just roll over into next month, so it’s not a fixed expense I have to pay.

Re the gym membership, I don’t think it’s very expensive and I enjoy it and also prefer it to walking/cycling (and don’t have a bike).

Re the language lessons and music lessons, I agree they’re my biggest expense. In terms of the language lessons, I studied languages at uni (French and Spanish), but focused more on French and let my Spanish go a bit. I’ve been taking lessons for about 4 years now to improve my Spanish and feel more confident in it.

I’d like to take a Spanish exam (the DELE, which is a life long qualification in Spanish) and am hoping to do that next summer - in 2025 - if possible. Once that’s done, I’ll stop the lessons. Truth be told though, I’m not really sure how to stop the lessons, as I do find them useful, but also I’m not really sure how to bring them to a close. I’m intending to stop them once I’ve taken the DELE exam, but I’m not sure how to actually communicate that to my Spanish teacher (I think,
because I’ve been doing them for so long). Any ideas on how I can explain that I’ll stop them once I’ve taken the exam? My intention then is to take a sabbatical and travel around South America for a bit and to basically use my knowledge of Spanish and Spanish level from the DELE qualification to make myself more employable (I speak good French already).

In terms of the music lessons, I started the piano a couple of years ago. I’ve been having face to face lessons since then and have taken my Grade 1. I’m lucky to have a fantastic teacher, but unfortunately she’s moving away as she’s got a new job abroad. She’s happy to continue teaching online, which I’m also happy to do, as I really like her manner and teaching style, but I don’t think online lessons will be as effective as face to face lessons. She is moving to a new lessons system where, instead of us paying her monthly for lessons and having a certain number of lessons over the academic year (as she works to the academic year), she is doing a new system where we can do more ad hoc lessons, so I won’t have the monthly expense I have now for the lessons. That will bring my monthly cost for the lessons down a bit.

I’ve got a piano at home (well, a keyboard piano) to practise on, which I bought not long after I started the lessons. I would like to continue with the piano if I can, as it’s something I’ve always wanted to learn. I’ve had a look at going with a different teacher in my area instead, but I’m not sure what their approach will be (although very open to a trial lesson with them), although I should say they are all generally much more expensive than my current teacher (who charges £35 per hour). I might see how it goes with my current teacher for our online lessons and then play it by ear.

Re the dentist and optician monthly expenses, I miscalculated that. I want to set aside money for 2 annual check ups and 2 annual hygienist appointments, and a new pair of glasses every 2 years or so. That comes to around £39 per month - not £160 per month as I originally thought!! And my spend on haircuts was rolled into my spend on pedicures and leg waxes.

Sorry, this turned into a bit of an essay!!

Yep I’ve got some savings already.

I think it looks fine unless you are saving for a deposit - cheaper phone is a good idea. I would try and save the extra £100 you are not spending on dentist/optician. Do you have a pension?

Thanks! Yep I’ve been paying into a work pension for a few years, and it’s defined benefit so pretty decent. Unfortunately I can’t change my phone contract atm as it still has a year left on it, but I’ll go for a much cheaper deal once the contract runs out. Stupidly, I’ve always gone for contract phones rather than buying a phone outright - as it’s always so expensive to buy a phone outright. I can see though that paying for a monthly contract is more expensive in the long run than buying a phone outright and then getting a cheap contract.

In terms of music have a look for your county music scheme. They often do cheap lessons and free group ensembles. E.g NMPAT. Lots of kids use them but I know adults who get lessons through them too. Amazing thing