How much do you spend on yourself per month?

[purplespink]

This is to include clothing, cosmetics, hair, nails, coffees with friends, books or any hobby related things. I’m a SAHM with an 8, 6 and 5 month old. I have £100 per month to spend on myself and any coffees out etc, although this excludes gym session payments.

Varies massively
£50 hair every 6 weeks credit card
£40 skincare a month credit card
£27 gym per month
£5 phone per month
£20 lottery per month
Credit card varies from £200-£900 over the last 6/12 depending on birthdays, nights out, clothes, etc.

So average of £50ish regular spends the rest goes on CC paid off every month. I work so I never really think about it.

I have £250 which goes on gym membership, hair (I put money into a pot and then spend it every 3 months), coffees, clothes, occasional drink at the pub. I am pretty low maintenance aside from hair so don't spend on things like nails, brows etc. I get all my cosmetics in the weekly food shop.

Clearly the "everyone's struggling" narrative on the hysterical tax threads doesn't apply to everyone!

However if you're not going into debt and can afford it it's all fine.

Clearly not, you only have to look at his busy restaurants and airports to see that everyone is not struggling.

Yes I often think this when I'm out and about too. Everywhere is so busy

I didn’t think I spent much until I sat down to work it out ,the following is in the last 3 weeks and upcoming week-

£32 hobby subs
£80 reformer Pilates
£115 eating out with friends (3 events)
£284 clothes and make up
massage £60
cocktail evening plans so circa £120

clearly I’m more high maintenance than I thought.
hair cut is £125 every 10 weeks
hair colour £170 every 8 weeks
I’m 53
work part time and have 3x adult children who have flown the nest and a wonderful dh .
this is our time to enjoy ourselves after years of providing for our family.

We've taken the same amount each per month, from the moment I gave up time when we had DD. Since then, I've worked part-time, a good few years on DH has retired and I've cut down my hours. We've slowly increased how much we have a month over the years, and it's currently £175pm. That covers hair cuts, clothes, coffee/lunch out/activities with friends, bus fares for anything pleasure, buying presents for eachother and our own friends. I'm not fussed about beauty treatments, so that helps. We've always easily managed. I used to pay for my exercise classes from my amount, but when DH retired he started the gym, which comes from joint funds and he suggested joint funds now pay for my exercise classes.

It varies for me. I do two big clothes shops a year, one in spring and one in autumn. I don't really buy anything inbetween.

My hair costs me £100 every 8 weeks.

I don't get my nails, lashes, botox, gym ... anything like that, but I do buy face creams and makeup and I love nail polish so buy that quite often. I would say about £80 a month.

I don't understand this. You don't need to spend the same amount of money each week/month, it's more about having an affordable and fair amount of money to spend on personal items without worrying about spending bills money on non essentials or one partner taking all the spare money. If you want something more expensive, you save for it out of your spending money for a while, also if you don't spend it all, you have it available for later on.

What do you mean by 'it took the joy out of being spontaneous'?

Hair (colour and cut) every 8 weeks — about £120.
Don’t do makeup, skincare, nails, etc.
My morning routine basically consists of brushing my teeth.
I only buy clothes when the old ones start getting holes. Haven’t bought a single proper item in two years (apart from underwear).
So that’s roughly £60 a month on average?
As a result, I look a bit crap compared to my colleagues/friends, but
a) I can’t afford to spend more, and
b) I don’t really care

I allocate £125 a month for clothes / makeup / skincare. Hair is £90 every 6 weeks and I don't have any other beauty treatments. I don't spend much on coffees / nights out but when I do they come out of our joint account, so does gym membership at my work - £45 for 10 visits.

I also save £275 a month on top of our regular family savings so I have a backup if needed. Some of this may or may not be used to bridge the gap between what I have told my DH a holiday costs and what it actually costs.

£500 but I don't spend hardly anything on hair, nails etc. its more visiting friends and going to the opticians.

It's bizarre, and quite disconcerting, people on MN are either spending a fortune or completely skint.

I don't set budgets, I track what we actually spend and check we have enough and adjust if needed. (We are retired).

Beauty:
Hair - £40 3x a year
Toes - £25 every 6 weeks (I can't reach them myself so they need cutting!)
Body:
Clothes - £150pm
Gym - £36pm
Social:
Theatre / concert / event tickets- avg £100 every 3 months
Lunch / dinner / drinks with friends - avg £50pw

So average per month = approx £450-£500pm

I have have expensive private health insurance but have not included that.

Good job I am not counting socialising and holidays WITH DH 🤣

Absolutely. Having a set amount a month just means DH and I are taking an agreed fair share that a) makes sure we are still meeting our wider financial goals but b) also essentially gives us permission to take some money for ourselves or it would be easy to not want to take it.

He’s a saver, I’m a spender. Doesn’t stop us being spontaneous, just gives us a pot to spontaneously spend on ourselves. Also gives us a bit of independence as all our other money is pooled, but we keep this money in our personal accounts.

It varies last month I got my haircut and did quite a lot of socialising so probably around £200 other months it’s more like £20!

Some things are monthly spends and others are every 3-4 months, but averages out I probably spend about £500 -£600.

Covers things like Botox, hair, manicure/pedicure, facial, monjuaro, clothes, spa days, massages etc.