how much do you have left ?

Bella79

hi all

Ive been looking at my monthly outgoings and trying to be more os cooking from scratch meal planning etc and still cannot seem to save anthing for a rainy day

After your

morg
gas/elec
council tax
insurances
water

basicly all your essential bills how much do you have left each month for food shopping,birthdays,xmas,petrol,clothes, basicly everything else

and do u manage to also save anthing out of this ?

after all our bills we have about 700 punds left for everything else and i feel ashamed to say we struggle on this after the £30 a week petrol £6o a wqeek shopping (roughly) taking my lo to playgroup birthdays etc i never have anything left to save

this is a even bigger prob due to hubby been sepf employed we never know what we have coming in from one month to the next, above is based on a average month

Thankyou

rosieben

I was told I should 'save first, spend after' but its taken me a long time to put it into practice! At the moment I have a small private pension of just over £50 a month and that goes straight into a savings account. If I keep money in my current account it will always gets spent

clutterydrawer

I have £450 left after rent and bills, so that has to cover me for food, travel, vets bills etc etc etc

I usually manage to only spend about £200 of it but then there's only me and two rabbits to provide for.

Stephen_Leak

I like the title of the album by the bluesman, "Seasick Steve": "I Started Out With Nothing, And Still Got Most Of It Left".

Penelope_Penguin

Hi, owens! You could take a look at the Grocery Budget threads, if you want to see what others spend on food. As you're asking more about general budgeting, I'll move you over to that board.

Hi, Martin’s asked me to post this in these circumstances: I’ve asked Board Guides to move threads if they’ll receive a better response elsewhere (please see this rule) so this post/thread has been moved to another board, where it should get more replies. If you have any questions about this policy please email [EMAIL="abuse@moneysavingexpert.com"]abuse@moneysavingexpert.com[/EMAIL].

sunflower76

If you pop over to the Debt Free Wanabee board there is a budget calculator which you can use to work out exactly what you should have left at the end of the month. As this includes things like haircuts, birthday presents etc it shows you the hidden things that you possibly haven't thought to deduct.

If you still aren't sure where your money goes then maybe start a spenindg diary where you write down everything that you spend; doing this for a month can be a real eye opener.

I don't save a lot each month as I'm OS in order to pay off our mortgage but I do try to make an payment of at least £50 per month. It's all relative to your income though really.

Toonie

At the moment we only have one income as my partner is out of work with a bad back, so we only have around £260 per month after bills. With this we pay for travel to work (for me) and to physiotherapy (for him), food, household items and also put away £40 a month into our Christmas savings and £20 a month into a "jollies" pot. It is hard and but we know that once we're both working again we'll be able to save more and also treat ourselves to a new TV (ours goes crack all the time).

If we need things like clothes then we will either make do and mend or check ebay/other cheaper sources. If its something like shoes, then we take money from the jollies pot.

Why don't you try doing Martin's budget planner http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/banking/Budget-planning

poorandindenial

There is a statement of affairs calculator at www.makesenseofcards.com where you can enter in all your income and outgoings. If you don't know where your money is going then it is time for a spending diary to see how those bits and bobs you grab can add up. If you post the SOA on the debt free wannabe board then we can help you identify areas that you may be able to get better value from.

(We aren't sticklers for the debt thing, we welcome anyone - just let us know as otherwise you will get advice assuming you are in debt and asking where your debts are on the SOA which might not be so useful)

Bella79

thanks guys for all your help, am going to fill in the budget planner x