What are your money priorities?

[D20]

I’ve been reading a lot of different money saving and investing sources and it struck me how militant/vocal about what some people won’t spend money on or what they refuse to save money on.

I personally wouldn’t spend on cars, hair/nails/eyelash extensions, or overconsumption like lots of jellycat toys, matching fridge storage etc. (although I do watch this content with strange fascination)!

I do spend my money on my home, Netflix, kids education.

So, what are your personal priorities?

Did you find it easy or difficult to decide? I didn’t put down things like smoking/alcohol that I don’t do anyway.

I'm not sure what a Jellycat is, so I must be totally out of the loop, but undoubtedly wouldn't buy one!

Happy to spend money on good food for eating at home, nice clothes in natural fabrics and decent quality items for the house when they eventually need replacing. Other priorities are holidays and pension.

Don't spend money on eating out, pubs, alcohol, make up, nails, hair, gym. I'm happy to meet friends for a walk in the countryside or a coffee, I don't rate expensive socialising either.

I've never travelled business class but would consider it for a long haul trip and could be worth the cost for the extra personal space.

Important family priorities:
Activities and experiences, and days out/trips with dc
Travel
Good quality food
Overpaying on mortgage

Personal priorities:
Coffee
Good quality skincare

Not priorities:
Expensive stuff for dc (at 6 they don't care!)
Tech - as long as the phones ad laptops work, we're happy. Neither are interested in gadgets
House furnishings, though if I do buy something, it's good quality and thoroughly thought through
No seasonal crap like Xmas decorations or Halloween stuff etc

Don't have a car at all

I try to keep in balanced. I invest for the future, but I save up for what I want. Having a nice home is important to me, so I’m currently saving for home improvements.

Fun money tends to be spent on eating out and gigs.

Priorities:
A few uk holidays a year
Occasional gigs and cinema
Pension
Paying off mortgage
Saving for early retirement
Occasional house decorating/upkeep

Don't need:
Many clothes
Never have hair or nails done by anyone except myself
New books, use the library, can order in new books online
Never want a takeaway, we like cooking
Always buy second hand cars

Bills and savings are the top two priorities.
After that its fun money

However im not really a shopper, when I go out its usually hiking, cycling or climbing si that doesn't cost much.
My kids buy me all my hiking and mountaineering stuff because they don't know what else to get me.
I do travel a lot so I guess flights and accommodation would be my spending area.

Priorities:

Time! Number one by a long stretch. So anything that buys back my leisure time: cleaner, gardener, hiring workmen instead of doing DIY.

Included in the above has been keeping a smaller house and paying down the mortgage rather than moving somewhere bigger so I can retire earlier.

Then experiences next. Nice holidays (though I don’t love flying so usual short haul which limits cost), nice meals out, cinema, theatre, gigs. Books, but those are pretty cheap!

Low priorities: cars, beauty products and make-up, and unless my options were truly terrifying or my child was really struggling, I am not selfless enough to spend on private education. As someone who worked hard at a mediocre state comp and did very well, I firmly believe that kids from supportive families don’t need to have thousands of pounds spent on their education.

We prioritise experiences over stuff so holidays, going out, eating out etc We balance that with extra pensions savings and overpaying the mortgage.

We definitely spend too much money on food though and we do need to spend more on the house.

—Experiences, mainly: raves, festivals, holidays, day trips out of the city, eating out with friends.

-Exercise & fitness - spend a fortune on exercise classes.

-Self-care: skin care, healthy food, supplements, facials.

Things I don’t care about:

-Houses: I own a 2-bed flat and have no desire to upgrade to a house. I wouldn’t have enough stuff to fill a house.

-Cars - I don’t own one.

Priorities: making life easier and more enjoyable, so cleaner, holidays, activities with DC, convenience stuff like robot hoover, robot mower, other stuff that frees up time, and also good quality, wholesome food and my yoga and Pilates. Having money to give kids a head start with buying a home.

Personal priorities: self care, so prescription skincare, hair, dental, I like to have my nails done every three weeks, it makes me feel good about myself and that’s very much worth the money to me!

Not a priority: cars, boring, sensible family cars are fine for me; takeaways, generally find them not worth the money; house furnishings, happy with some IKEA stuff generally, designer clothes.

Priorities

Pensions
Overpaying mortgage
House maintenance
Gym
Good food
Hair
DC savings and money for them to enjoy life now

Non priorities

Car
Clothes
Holidays (this is not a choice though)

Oh it’s so interesting how things feature on different lists.

I’ve realised that hair isn’t one of my priorities because it’s in good nick. If it wasn’t I would definitely be spending more time and effort on it. I suppose I hadn’t recognised that as a financial privilege before.

DON’T spend money on…
any debt/loans where I have to pay interest
new clothes (bar underwear) -Vinted only
Beauty treatments
expensive make up
Beach holidays

SPENDY on…
expensive perfume
pet insurance
organic food and M&S/Waitrose food

To be honest I don't have a lot of spare cash at all, so my spending is fairly curtailed.

I am on a mission to add as much into my pension as possible at the moment, so that's a priority.

I minimal clothes - and much of what I buy is from Vinted. Very low maintenance in terms of nails, hair, make up etc. Drive a small, 10 year old car, so that's fairly cheap.

Holidays are the only thing I really care about. Only get abroad once every other year but I crave sun, sea and sand.

Priorities: Pension, paying down mortgage, saving for our kids, 1x holiday per year.

non priorities: cars - we drive 2 old cars that were paid for outright - would never finance cars or buy new. Eating out/takeaways - not that bothered so do this rarely. Expensive tech.

Priorities

Time- hence why only work PT, but pre DC used to work long hours in several jobs at a time so I’d have this luxury of spending more time with my DCs when I eventually had them.

Holidays- several a year, we spend a fortune on them but no regrets. It’s the only time DH fully relaxes and switches off from work and the family memories we make are priceless.

Bedrooms for each DC- it was always important that they each had their own private space as I valued this hugely all through childhood- even a tiny bedroom is fine though. If I wasn’t such an introvert I probably wouldn’t feel so strongly about it though.

Organic meat and dairy products mainly for animal welfare standards.

Clubs and activities for the kids- seems the only way to drag them away from their screens so worth it for that. We spend about £700 a month at present.

Non priorities:

An excessively large house- just seems ostentatious if the family isn’t large enough to fill it and wasteful to have lots of empty rooms to rattle around in. Makes perfect sense for the Radfords though!

Days out and meals out- just because we spend so much on the holidays, it’s hard to justify spending more the rest of the year. But on holiday we eat out nearly all the time and visit lots of interesting places so we just wait for the next holiday.

Cars- happy to drive an old banger into the ground, mine has a huge dent but I’m not bothered. It’s 14 years old and hopefully has many years left.

Pets- I know they would create lots of extra work for me despite DCs promises to the contrary and hearing horror stories from friends about sky high vet’s bills puts me off. If I lived alone I probably would though (would be far richer then anyway!).

Living in a beautiful area- our house is on the outskirts of a not so nice town. Very convenient to be near both our families though, great public transport and the DCs schools are all in easy walking distance. Sometimes I think it would be nice to live in a pretty village but the ££ is so high and we would lose the conveniences we have here.

Good food and wine, travel, nice car, home things.

Late to the party, but my money priorities:

• DC extracuricular activities - swimming lessons, music lessons, language lessons, dance lessons etc.
• DC books.
• Experiences - theatre, day trips to other cities, museums, galleries, trips to the beach etc.
• Coffee and wine (and gin).
• Holidays.
• Savings for the future - DC education, DC driving lessons etc.
• Supporting a handful of charities.
• Buying from local and/or family owned businesses, where possible.

Things that I don't prioritise but do spend money on:

• Hairdresser, make up, perfume, spa treatments.
• Clothes, shoes and accessories (mostly from Vinted).
• Going out for dinner, lunch, brunch.
• Tech - new phone and laptop every 6-10 years on average.
• Pension - I pay into a good pension so it gets paid into every month, but I don't prioritise it as such.
• Big house and expensive car - normal house and DH and I share a banger.
• Sky, Netflix, Disney etc.

Things that I haven't prioritised:

• Expensive bags and shoes (unfortunately) as I spend the money on holidays instead.
• Babysitter, cleaner, gardener, personal trainer or gym membership.
• No pets (at the moment).
• Some beauty treatments - eyebrows and lashes, nails, botox etc.

Gym membership at a lovely gym/club - then I go daily & get my moneys worth, but I see gym an investment in my body

good food

travel, whether it be long haul or ferry crossing, day trip by train or weekend away

i don’t spend money on branded items, takeaways, meals out, nails, hair trips are minimal once or twice a year. Never spent money on cars, they are 3 years old + and used sparingly.

subscriptions are another no no and my monthly direct debits for bills are minimal

I like upgrades. Flights, trains, boutique hotel over travelodge. Nice bags, shoes and clothes but fewer of them, sell everything I don’t wear anymore.

Never buy takeaway coffee or lunch out. Walk as much as possible, car only for long journeys. Would never get a pet of any kind. Rarely eat out as it’s so disappointing when we do.

paying double on our mortgage and maxing pensions before uni costs kick in.

37% housing, 7% DC uni savings, 7% stocks & shares ISA, 12% holiday savings, 2% pets, 3% cleaner, 3% clothes/shoes, 3% birthday/Christmas savings, 7% groceries, 3% meals/coffees out, 3% miscellaneous, 8% kids (activities, clothes, pocket money), 3% health/beauty/dentist/optometrist/etc, 2% transportation.

My pension contributions come out pre-tax (I contribute 12% and my employer matches 12%).

Priorities for this single parent with 2 DC in high school. I budget using YNAB and am pretty on top of my expenditure:

Mortgage & I try to overpay a little each month

• Pension - its still a bit shit but building slowly
• DC - clubs & school trips (I'm never going to take them skiing so I'm happy to pay for the school ski trip - thankfully we get over a year to pay it off)
• HotPod yoga membership - I go there every day
• Mounjaro - may it never end
• Sauna membership - cheap and a wonderful treat
• Family holiday - once a year with maybe a weekend away too.
• Dental hygenist - twice a year paid torture

Managed expenses - I spend on these but I watch the ££:

• Food - I can easily spend loads more, but by keeping an eye on things I spend less. Example- I usually shop at Aldi/Lidl but this month I've been mostly shopping at Tesco & Morrisons & the months spend is 20% higher than usual.
• Clothing - DC and I have a clothing budget.
• Hair - I go twice a year for a cut/colour. It used to be once a year so I am totally high maintance now.
• Eyebrows - usually 4 times a year? Not a great expense

Not bovvered:

• take away coffees - I rarely buy these
• restaurants - I'm more likely to eat at home and go out for cocktails
• I try and create a gap bewteen want/desire and any purchase - to give me time to know if I really want/need something.

I use YNAB too! 💙

It’s interesting how differently people approach spending. For me I don’t spend much on trendy stuff like designer bags, new phones, or beauty treatments. But I will spend on things that make life feel good day to day, like decent groceries, cozy home stuff, and the occasional trip. I also try to keep saving and investing steadily in the background. Took a bit of time to figure out what actually matters to me, but now it feels more natural.

Interesting..

we are currently having a talk? Debate ? In our house that’s ongoing

we have a 12 year old car . It’s getting older, but still not costing a lot , insurance is £28 a month ect.

dh is desperate for a new one (which would mean finance )

im stubbornly digging my heals in as : husband is a bus driver. 9/10 times he gets the bus / staff bus to work. Approximately once a fortnight he will take the car for ease . (7mile round trip)

I walk to work and back for my days , as it’s approximately 2k steps 🤣

eldest is at college and uses her free bus pass (thanks bus driver dad ) to get around.

she needs one lift a week to work as she starts before the bus. (6mile round trip)

youngest has karate once a week that he needs a lift (10 mile round trip) too (during the weekend he uses his bus pass to get about if needed)

about once a fortnight husband and I will go on some sort of outing.. if easy we will use bus , if further away we will take the car , and odd things like dental appointments I might need to drive to.

so our car is lucky if it does 100 miles a month. An expensive ornament really.

I have no desire to waste money on a more expensive drive way ornament… but husband says he’s embarrassed by it.

say we got a car that costed £500 on finance.. if we paid that off our mortgage we would be mortgage free in 8 years.

always said I would never go to work for a car.

If your DH wants to spend £500 a month making himself feel good about his car he does it out of his own personal spending money, allocated 50/50 with you after all household costs are paid including savings and overpaying your mortgage. If he doesn't have £500 a month personal spending money he can't afford a car, which I agree, would be an enormous luxury in your circumstances.

A 12 YO car is not 'embarrassing' and in fact, what's more embarrassing is caring so much about a car that's not really that old and probably has another 10-15 years life in it considering it's hardly used, costs very little and likely perfectly suitable for your circumstances. There are loads of 20-25 YO cars on the roads that look perfectly decent and not even old unless you look at the number plate.