Just How Little Do You Have To Live On Each Month?

PasturesNew

For a few years I was paying my mortgage and very basic bills and having £50/month to live on. That's £50 for food, petrol, clothes, haircuts, life... so I stayed in for years.

I've no idea how much I have now as I am self-employed and it varies so much. If I rented a 1-bed flat and had basic bills on top, I'd have about £100-200/month left over.

LittleMissAspie

I have just over £300 a month left after bills. I include groceries in bills, food is a necessity after all. Most of my £300 goes into savings and I leave myself £50 pocket money.

PasturesNew

I don't count food as bills. Food is a sack of potatoes and £10 of baked beans for some - and for others it's M&S ready meals at £6/pack and throw some wine into the trolley.

Bills, to me are the bills you HAVE to pay: Council tax, electricity, gas, water, TV licence, contents insurance, landline/broadband and a PAYG mobile phone. So "the basics" for a modern life.

To me, bills are the costs of having the roof exist over your head - ready to walk into to live in - and no more.

Food is a personal choice in a way.

"After housing costs" is how one level of poverty is established - and that means "after mortgage/rent and council tax"

LittleMissAspie

Ah but PN, you do HAVE to pay for food. You can't not eat. But you don't need a TV licence, contents insurance, phone or internet. You also have the choice of reducing how much you pay for utilities by using less of them.

When I say bills, I actually mean things that come from our joint account. That would be mortgage, mortgage overpayments, council tax, buildings and contents insurance, gas, elec, water, groceries, internet and landline combined, petrol, food and vet etc for cat, and decorating budget.

dsab

After paying all bills (incl. running 2 cars) we have around £2K left each month to feed, cloth and entertain our family of 3 (DD just 1), half of which we try to save.

We are lucky to be able to have a decent lifestyle but try to put enough away in case we ever fall on hard times.

rachbc

WE each pay into a joint account for bills etc and put £250 each into a pot for food and petrol for the month

After that I have approx £400 for the month - I am currently (though not this month) channeling £300 of that into paying off debt (on top of min payments) and the remaining £100 is for me for fun - occassion lunch out, coffee with a friend, hair cut etc. I won't know what to do with it all once the debts are paid!!

brians_daughter

At the moment we 'earn' £200 disposable income, but we plan for this as i work during the summer break (April -Sept) in a family run business that pays well so we have £11,000 PA disposable that i have earned and saved in the summer. so about £1100 pcm?

Thats after a food budget of £400 pcm for 5 of us..so we dont do too badly.

We have an offset mortgage so we pop it in that account and save on mortgage interest too.

sexki11en

The 2 of us have £300 a month to include groceries (and food for 3 cats) for the month - which equates to just under £70 per week. We struggle on this TBH but have cut back as much as we possibly can.

SK x

SallyUK

Hi Jody

There's 3 of us. Bills are paid and then there's £500 left over for the things I mentioned.

Sal
x

JodyBPM wrote: »

How many of you are there, and what bills do you have to pay out of that (apart from mobile phone and insurance (which insurance?) that you listed)

As a family of 4, we give ourselves £800 a month as "family spends" which covers food, petrol, entertainment, any clothes, odd bills such as school trips/swimming lessons/dancing lessons etc, and any bits and pieces which crop up, and I would say we live very handsomely on that, and we normally can scoop across 2 or 3 hundred a month into savings (not this month, though, due to Xmas!).

The mortgage, all bills, commuting costs, savings and a small amount of personal spends is seperate to that.

I would say that £500 a month is comfortable for a family of 4 or less, and possibly you could put a little into savings each month from that, if you wanted.

natsing

For a couple we have roughly £1100 after all bills, min payments and an allowance of £50 a month each is taken off, this goes into savings and we will be paying off our loan from that once we've got enough, we live on £65 each for miscellaneous spends, clothes and haricuts. Petrol and food comes out of the general budget but is taken out in cash so we know exactly how much is left, the three budgets do on occasion move around as needed.