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

KiKi

I used to have a great job in London and had over £2000 per month disposable after bills. Then I quit on a dream to become a writer, and now I have £300, sometimes a bit less. As it's only me, though, it's very do-able, although I also pay for my Open Uni course out of that, too. I still have a lot more than others who have families to look after, though, and it's my choice, so I don't ever complain.

KiKi

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we have around £170 a month for a family of four 2 adults an 11 and an 8 yr old, after all our bills are paid out of that £170 we have to buy our food and any clubs the boys want to do although we have cut down on those latley as have been really skint, to be honest there is nt really anything left for entertainment so we just make our own with family nights or a dinner round the parents once a week.

Bibbitybob

I have about £70 of disposable income a month if I'm lucky.

salski

We have a pretty decent budget to work on - 2 of us, with £250 spends each (hubby is doing his car up using his, and mine is for baby clothes, maternity clothes, meals out and lunches etc) and £280 a month on food and £160 on fuel.
We are both aware that this will soon stop once baby is here and have now adapted it to pay off £300-400 a month on Credit cards AND pay £200 a month savings, so our spends has gone down to £100 each.

pupsicola

Im lucky in that I am mortgage free so thats a huge outlay I dont worry about anymore.

I have 3 bank accounts, one for my income, one for all bills on direct debit (utilities and all other payments that are paid monthly like inurances, mobile phone, mobile broadband, sky, tv licence etc) then my spend account to cover all other monthly expenses like food, petrol and general stuff.

I put £300 in my direct debit account and around £500 in my spend account. Normally put some into an emergency fund to cover unexpected problems and a small amount into savings.

geriann

i get about £400 per month that has to pay fo everything.
mortgage, water, electric, gas, broadband, landline phone, groceries, 2 cats, debts.

Alizarin

Me and OH both pay into a joint account for all bills and direct debits. I then pay £250 into another account to cover food shopping and my petrol, and after that I have about £500 left for myself. After Christmas I'm going to try putting at least £200 of that into savings. OH has £80 a week spare, although he has to pay for his own petrol out of this - I have no idea how much he spends on petrol!

Liz3yy

OH and I earn roughly the same each month. We each pay £500 into our joint account which comfortably covers all the bills plus groceries with a little left over in case of emergencies.

I have just over £500 left of my income which has to cover petrol, car insurance, credit card payments and my mobile phone. It can vary from month to month, but after that lot I normally have around £350 left to do what I like with.

This month my extra money is going towards Xmas, in the new year it will go towards clearing my credit card once and for all, after that I plan to get some savings sorted

sulkisu

We are left with about £3500 after essential bills, mortgage, OH's child support payments etc. We manage to save at least half of this. We are expecting our first child together early next year, and I will be working part-time when my maternity leave ends, so expect this figure to drop to about £2000 per month.

Caroline73_2

I work on an ad hoc basis and have a permanent job too so household income really varies. DH wages pay all the bills though so mine are what we have as spends.

Monthly bills (mortgage, utilities, insurance etc) comes to about £1100 a month. I then allocate £25 per day to the family, that's me, DH, DS1 and DS2. That buys all day to day stuff - food, entertainment, clothes, haircuts, petrol etc. Everything else has been thrown at debt repayment, then some savings and now mortgage overpayments. Paying for large things like holidays means we stop the mortgage overpayments for a month or two.