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Original poster

What exactly constitutes disposable income?

44 replies

fizzbuzz · 27/05/2008 10:25

After mortgage?
After bills and mortgage?
After bills mortgage and food?
Is it how much you have left to spend on yourself when everything is taKen out?

According to Observer yesterday, the average disposable income is £500 per week

Mine isn't . How much is it really?

OP posts:

MrsTittleMouse · 27/05/2008 10:29

Nah! Surely not. That would be £26K a year, which is more than the average income!

I would count it as the "fun" money, i.e. alcohol, eating out, socialising, holidays, birthdays, Christmas, newspapers and magazines, haircuts. Well, you get the idea.

Original poster

fizzbuzz · 27/05/2008 10:32

£500 per week for fun?! I wish.......

OP posts:

firsttimemama · 27/05/2008 10:35

It's what's left after all the necessary expenses are taken out ie. Mortgage, bills, food, petrol, travel costs, and realistically you should also include a basic hair cut at the lowest price. What left is disposable - if you want an expensive haircut you have to pay for it out of your disposable.

Cappuccino · 27/05/2008 10:37

that can't be right, £500 a week

they mean 'take-home pay' after tax, surely

Flamesparro · 27/05/2008 10:37

Yup, what they said.

Mine is about £100 a month at most (including what I set to one side for birthday etc)

Original poster

fizzbuzz · 27/05/2008 10:45

I suspect they meant take home pay, as they were talking about salary of 26000. It just sounded a lot...then I wondered what the avearge disposable income was in this country, epecially with current never ending price rises....and is it per person, or per household??

I swear mine is about 30p

OP posts:

MrsTittleMouse · 27/05/2008 12:29

Can't be take-home pay either though, surely? Because a good third of most people's goes on tax and NI. Suppose I should read the article, eh?

noddyholder · 27/05/2008 12:35

Disposable is after essential bills i think.Money that yuou could still manage without. I was also reading that the definition of working class is that you couldn't afford to take more than 3 months off work without pay without getting into financial difficulties.

MrsTittleMouse · 27/05/2008 12:38

That's the definition of working class? I'm sure that there are lots of people with "good" backgrounds in "good" jobs that are mortgaged up to the hilt with maxed out credit cards in this financial environment. They're all moaning to the media about how hard they've been hit by the credit crunch.

noddyholder · 27/05/2008 12:55

i know you should be able to survive for 3 months with no income of any description so many yummies are in fact working class

Saymyname · 27/05/2008 12:59

So, by that definition, someone who is middle class is basically someone who has three months salary in savings?

MrsTittleMouse · 27/05/2008 13:00

LOL!
We could survive for longer than that if we lived off our deposit for a house, does that make us aristocracy?

Original poster

fizzbuzz · 27/05/2008 13:01

I've read that very few people are in that position, although 3 months is the amount you are meant to have put away.

I used to have that....then I had dd. Now I have none. Do I become working class because dd stole all my savings?

OP posts:

Rachmumoftwo · 27/05/2008 13:13

The average of £500 a week must include footballers and stockbrokers, etc., who bring the average right up. None of us really has that amount of disposable income do we? Mine is in the minus figures this month.

Original poster

fizzbuzz · 27/05/2008 13:19

So is middleclassness due to amount you can save?

I thought it was education. Lots of ex students in paper yesterday, saying they have no money as student loans have gone up by retail price index, and thier salaries (I think they were teachers) are not even going up at rate of inflation. They couldn't save anything..

Does anyone on here have £500 a month to spend on goodies. I think they must have got that wrong somehow? Where is Morningpaper? Isn't she connected to The Observer somehow?

OP posts:

Sidge · 27/05/2008 13:22

£500 a month disposable income???

Ours is more like 500p.

LaDiDaDi · 27/05/2008 13:23

I think that I have spent around £200 this month on whatwould be classed as disposable income type stuff and I have really treated myself as I got some expenses back from work.

If I spent £500/week we would be in debt very quickly!

SaintGeorgeasaurus · 27/05/2008 13:29

Not seen the Observer article, but if the figures are from the Office for National Statistics then they refer to 2006 and are for the London Region.

Regional comparisons

Quattrocento · 27/05/2008 13:32

Here's the observer article

www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/may/25/voluntarysector.britishidentity

you'll see it is talking about disposable household income of £500 a week - which sounds possible to me

Original poster

fizzbuzz · 27/05/2008 13:36

Oh....I didn't read it properly... .

I can read, but 22mo dd was trying to grab the paper all the time, although our household disposable is nowhere near £500 pw

OP posts:

SpinsterinScotland · 27/05/2008 13:47

It says that the average household disposable income is £500 a week.

Really? Interesting.

That sounds like the statistic I was told that 80% of graduates walk right into a job paying £30k+pa.

Bollocks in other words.

Let's take a straw poll here on MN of what our weekly dispoable income is and unless Posh spice is currently logged in I doubt we will get to half of that!

Original poster

fizzbuzz · 27/05/2008 13:48

OP posts:

solo · 27/05/2008 13:49

I must be lower class then - even when I'm at work full time, I don't have £50 a week disposible income! will be about 5pence when I go back with all the cm costs and rising everything!

cazboldy · 27/05/2008 13:50

don't ask me - I don't have one

MrsTittleMouse · 27/05/2008 13:52

Still doesn't sound plausible to me. Maybe because it's based in London, but not otherwise. Even if you have 2 earners both on the average wage they would have one earner's gross salary for the non-essentials. So the other salary would have to pay for both lots of tax, mortgage/rent, council tax, childcare and bills (and possibly food). Which doesn't add up in my book.

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