Comfortable disposable income

[bettertheangelyouknow]

we live 40 mins outside of London.

Once my husband and I have paid all our bills, bought food and fuel, and saved a small amount, we have around £1,000 left per month. We have two small children. We struggle on this, days out are so expensive and there’s always unforeseen spend that crops up.

What would you say is a comfortable disposable income for a family of 4, 2 adults and 2 small children in the area we live in?

So this weekend for example, today DD did gymnastics (£10 per class), then we were invited to a friends, so we bought some nice cookies to take (£5)

Tomorrow DD has swimming lesson (£16) then afternoon we’ll go to the lake where me & DH swim (£20 for us both). They have a playground & woodland so we’ll make an afternoon of it. We’ll probably buy coffees / cakes so maybe £15.

We’ll eat all meals at home.

So that’s £67 on entertainment and I think this is a lovely weekend. For us at least!

(We also spent £100 on equipment DD needs for a hobby, but that’s a one off and the equipment should last a few years.)

My friend does all the big name attractions, Peppa World, LegoLand, LapLand U.K. and spends £££££££££

Bloody hell, my disposable income per month after bills, food, travel is around £100 per month. I'd think £1000 for 4 people (£250 each) is more than generous!

There are plenty of things you can do for entertainment that cost nothing or very little.

No water bill? Gas bill?
Genuine question, I think your list is helpful.

No water bill in Ireland
my house is solely ran on electric
No council tax here either

Crikey OP, DH and I together have about £400 a month after everything and that’s to cover us and a 3 year old and we manage fine on this!

What are you doing with £1k?! We have annual passes to places, take lunches/drinks with us and do a lot of things like library, parks, woods etc. We still manage the cinema, a takeaway and a ‘bigger’ day out to a country park with steam trains/ice creams etc once a month.

What are your typical days out?
We are 1hour from London but just do free days out. Park, bike rides,take picnic Don't buy food out ect
Probably spend 100 a month if that really. Prefer to save if we can especially whilst the kids are young and happy to do cheaper activites.

We've found tescos vouchers helpful for bigger days out like sea life /zoo/theme park but we'd only do these type of days out once a year.

So gym memberships, magazine subscriptions, takeaways and coffees, holiday savings, optical and dental savings. It’s not at all clear.

Hae you factored in kids grow and need new clothes into you budget? That clothes wear out, and adults need new things? Haircuts? Or is all that coming from the £1000?

What are the savings for? ie what pot would you pay for a holiday from? If the car needed extra work for the MOT, where would that come from? The washing machine breaks? If all that comes from savings, £1000 a month is loads.

If you are trying to do all of the above from £1000, it could be tight, and I'd suggest doing a full budget to see where the money is actually going, and how much "fun" money is realistic.

If all the above is accounted for, and the £1000 is literally for fun, it is plenty.

Are your kids old enough for clubs / lessons? I spend £600 minimum on this alone every month so £1000 wouldn’t go far here if that’s not included in your initial outgoings?

No I don’t think that’s a huge amount- but MN will make you think you’re a moaning queen.
A meal out is £50-£100 as a family in a crappy chain restaurant- if you need to buy a winter coat for yourself or get your hair done- it goes quickly.
But it’s unreasonable in 2025 to work and expect to enjoy any of your income!

We try and give ourselves £200 a week to live off so similar.
Sometimes I feel like it's a struggle but then sometimes I realise other people aren't doing the things we do because they simply don't have the money so I could serious scale back my life if needed.

Things that mess me up is a trip to home bargains where my hubby thinks it's a free for all because things are cheap.

Getting a takeaway when I haven't thought about meal plans properly.

Birthdays I forget about.

A cheeky meal to a relatively cheap place on the weekend, usually costs around £30-40 so gives us the thoughts of ah it cheap enough.

Unexpected expenses like we just had to get a new washer, we paid for it out of savings but want to put it back so we put £30 a week from the £200 back to savings.

Things that do help us are:

free cinema tickets with our sky and bank totals 30 per year.

Never paying full price at a theme park, there's many different ways to get these cheaper, my husbands work does a scheme where he can get tickets for Blackpool Pleasure Beach for £19, Flamingoland about £15 etc.

Always see if there is a early evening special on when eating out and head for then.

I don't buy takeaway coffees, nails etc. I track everything I buy (not to reduce it necessarily but when I've spent £100 in a few days I can see that actually yeah I did spend it and haven't been robbed).

I like to use cash a lot too, we really need to as a society before the banks try and make it cashless and it helps you keep track way more than using your bank.

I don’t think £1k is enough fun money for 4 people a month assuming this covers clothes, hair, beauty, fitness etc for the adults as well as the dc. I put aside £300 a month per dc for clubs, uniform, trips and stuff we do in the weekends/ holidays specifically for them.

Well she said after bills, so subscriptions and membership should be covered in that as it’s usually a monthly bill, and the holiday,
optical and dental savings should be covered until savings… because she said after savings, take away and coffee will come out of the £1000 spending money. I think her post was clear enough to have a decent idea to give vague opinion on.

Is it though? The OP talks about there always being something unforeseen that crops up, which suggests that her budget isn't as comprehensive as it needs to be, because there shouldn't be much that is 'unforeseen'. Perhaps the OP can give examples?

But these sorts of threads are pointless, because even if a 'comfortable disposable income' was agreed, what is the OP going to do? She might not have any practical way of increasing their disposable income that doesn't have an unpalatable detriment to her lifestyle. Plus everyone defines disposable income, essentials and savings differently, so it's another 'how long is a piece of string' question.

But for the OP, you need to make the best of your circumstances. It sounds like you have a decent income so you have to make it work for you according to your priorities and be mindful that every pound you spend on A is a pound less that is available to spend on B, C, D etc.

Can you reduce the cost of your bills/groceries? If you're one of those Mumsnetters who think artisan sourdough, large servings of protein and unlimited blueberries are basic essential groceries, you need to accept that a good portion of your 'nice things' budget is being spent there.

How much does the household spend on food and drink out of the house? That could easily be hundreds of pounds a month, so needs to be done mindfully, to make sure it's worth it to you, and see what can be swapped to cheaper alternatives, eg nice frozen pizza instead of delivery at 2/3/4 times the cost.

Have you reviewed all your bills to get them as cheap as possible. You should always be on a deal for everything.

Days out don't need to be expensive. If there's places you like to go regularly, get a membership, rotate around so you have one or two at a time, then cancel and swap to something else. Take a picnic instead of buying food out, which is usually poor quality, expensive and at the end of a long queue.

When you consider most people, ie excluding those who don't have enough to pay all their essentials and the people who can spend endlessly without running out of money, the likely biggest factor in how 'comfortable' they feel is how they manage their money and spending, not how much they have. Some people will feel very comfortable on £500 pm and make it go quite a long way, whereas others will rinse through £5000 pm and not feel particularly well off.

Thanks everyone for your comments.

Within this £1000 would be the following (obviously not every month, but every month there is something!)

Family days out
Socialising with friends individually (adults)
Take away coffees/drinks
Car parking costs
Hair cuts
Nails
Dog groom
Clothes
House and Garden wants & needs (i.e. new kettle)
House and Garden unforeseen (i.e plumber)
Gifts (Birthdays & Christmas)
Kids adhoc activities (softplays etc)

You would be surprised how much it all adds up and we aren’t lavish! If we are going to have a meal out it would be somewhere cheap.

My kids are under 3 so this is before we’ve even hit the committed activities stage & uniform, which would all be coming out of this pot too. Feels impossible?

Our savings are not accessible and are for a future house reno.

Im actually very on top of our expenditure and keep a detailed spreadsheet to the penny of where our money is going, but with the cost of everything these days, finding it difficult to spend less than what we do.

£1000 a month for stuff outside of food, bills, fuel is more than we (2 school age kids, live in London) have (I think, not as on top of the budget as the OP) but with costs of everything seeming to be constantly increasing I can see why it’s feeling tight. We are def feeling the pinch, especially after summer holidays when we always spend more. I’m assuming your disposable budget covers holidays too?

Anyway of the things listed I’d cut getting nails done, reduce take away coffees to nearly 0 and reduce hair cut frequency. Can you forgoe the dog grooming? I don’t have a pet so not sure how possible. Also what saves us money significant cash is not having a car at all, but I do live in inner London where it’s not needed. If you have 2 cars could you reduce to 1?

Well no it’s not enough then to be comfortable. If your dc are under 3 are you paying childcare? That money could be added to your pot once they start school.

£12k a year for all the things you’ve listed isn’t much for 4 people - £2k each a year for all personal and social spends, £1k for the dog, £1k for the house, £1k for unexpected things like the washer goes or your heating needs fixing and £1k for Xmas and birthdays. People live on a lot less but that doesn’t mean this is a lavish lifestyle.

One thing that leaps out from that is that it makes more sense to use some of that £1000 as savings for things like the plumber so it builds up and doesn’t get wasted on says out and coffees in the good months. Having savings that are totally untouchable isn’t sensible, nor is spending money on coffees and nails when you don’t have any emergency savings. I’d recommend tweaking your finances a little to make sure you are covered better because if the plumber says you need a new boiler one month you won’t have the money for it.

There’s always ways to cut back - better deals for your phone contracts and utility bills, having haircuts, nail treatments and takeaway coffee less often etc. I agree with the poster above about not having accessible savings isn’t a good idea. In your shoes, I would aim to have a really lean three months to build up more savings, add this money to a new easy access savings account and maybe have a frugal Christmas. Save as soon as you both get paid.