Is £300 reasonable on a monthly social budget?

[Deleted User]

Chasing_cars wrote: »

...I will re-evaluate my spending, saving, best thing I can do really.

Its very hard finding that balance of having fun, enjoying your youth and spending...

E.g. You spend £16 a month on Spotify + Netflix. You spend £15 on the gym. Your £31 'entertainments' are greater than your £20 barclaycard payments.

Maybe look at one of the newer music streaming services... or the radio! You could then put £10 a month more into your card repayments. Do you use Netflix much? I can't say I found much to watch on it.

(I shouldn't preach, my outgoings are terrible!)

Chasing_cars

ringo_24601 wrote: »

Its very hard finding that balance of having fun, enjoying your youth and spending...

E.g. You spend £16 a month on Spotify + Netflix. You spend £15 on the gym. Your £31 'entertainments' are greater than your £20 barclaycard payments.

Maybe look at one of the newer music streaming services... or the radio! You could then put £10 a month more into your card repayments. Do you use Netflix much? I can't say I found much to watch on it.

(I shouldn't preach, my outgoings are terrible!)

Netflix has been updated, some classics on there the other day, with some recent ones too - plus I travel a lot with free data so always watching something on my phone/tablet lol.

However, may look at reducing the PP and life insurance, £40 odd is a bit much for me really. Will clear Barclaycard asap then.

[Deleted User]

Any chance of creating some extra income? Tutoring/Baby sitting/Making and selling stuff?

When you travel, do you ever use Quidco (Other cashback services are available). I 'earn' about £250 a year through it. Basically, whenever I buy anything online, i earn a percentage back. This includes mobile phones/car & home insurance/music

Chasing_cars

ringo_24601 wrote: »

Any chance of creating some extra income? Tutoring/Baby sitting/Making and selling stuff?

When you travel, do you ever use Quidco (Other cashback services are available). I 'earn' about £250 a year through it. Basically, whenever I buy anything online, i earn a percentage back. This includes mobile phones/car & home insurance/music

Hi, I will look into Quidco, thanks! As for an extra job, I am not exactly hard up plus if I wanted some extra cash would do more over-time, although I like my weekends lol.

Was just looking at 70-80 weekly - on social spending good or bad really? although if I do want to save, might need to lower that lol.

:money:

opinions4u

I'm trying to work out if I spend more than £300 a year on frivolities.

Ah yes, football season ticket!

At the end of the day it's each to his own. I've got family responsibilities so don't spend much on my social life. But they like the all-inclusive holiday or occasional cruise and this alone can come to more than your budget.

My own view would be to spend less on the social and save more. The future will make demands on your money. Your future gives you more choice if you've saved hard.

hugheskevi

Without repeating above posts, given all that insurance you have, I'm surprised not to see any PHI (permanent health insurance - long-term income protection). I'd say that is much more important than the things you have (not that I would necessarily think you should have it mind).

In general, insurance for small things is prohibitively expensive - car insurance, house insurance, travel insurance and PHI are the main insurances to have, along with life if you have dependants - be very suspicious of anything beyond those.

If you buy a car, depending on how expensive insurance is, you are probably looking at about £1,000 p/a running costs (exc fuel) given that a cheaper car is likely to need more spent on maintenance. Given spend of only £40 p/m on transport that would seem an expensive luxury.

What is 'practical'?

£200 on Barclaycard - is that minimum payment? Or is that anticipated future monthly spend paid off in full?

Plans for spending on Plasma TVs and XBox seem rather luxurious - do they fit with plans for house deposit and pension/retirement provision? As an idea, a reasonable target for retirement saving is £35,000 by age 35 (extremely crude). At age 28 it doesn't sound like you have built up any provision at this stage? If so, a lot of that £300 of social spend may well need to go into catching up on that and a house deposit.

Priority is to get ahead of the debt curve as quickly as possible - pay off all expensive unsecured debt, build up at least 3 months of income. That allows you to skip all the expensive insurance on trivial things and if bad things happen then fund them out of savings - far cheaper even in the medium term.

Then review long term plans, primarily house purchase, car purchase, PHI and retirement provision. Maybe marriage and kids in there too. Make sure all those are taken care of, and then set social budget accordingly.

To answer the original question - £75 p/w for me personally wouldn't have been anything like enough at university and throughout my twenties. Currently in my 30s, and find social opportunities decreased quite a bit - friends moving away and having children mean that socialising is far less frequent than before, and tends to end by 10pm rather than 2 am Reckon I might only get through maybe £30 a week excluding holidays.

Chasing_cars

Thank you again for taking time to reply. Please see below

hugheskevi wrote: »

Without repeating above posts, given all that insurance you have, I'm surprised not to see any PHI (permanent health insurance - long-term income protection). I'd say that is much more important than the things you have (not that I would necessarily think you should have it mind).

If I can, I will sit down again with the bank managers and take off some of these things I feel I don't need. As you say if I don't have dependents, it's sort of silly paying it all out now.

Do you know if I can stop the PP/Life insurance or am I now forced to pay?

In general, insurance for small things is prohibitively expensive - car insurance, house insurance, travel insurance and PHI are the main insurances to have, along with life if you have dependants - be very suspicious of anything beyond those.

If you buy a car, depending on how expensive insurance is, you are probably looking at about £1,000 p/a running costs (exc fuel) given that a cheaper car is likely to need more spent on maintenance. Given spend of only £40 p/m on transport that would seem an expensive luxury.

What is 'practical'?

£200 on Barclaycard - is that minimum payment? Or is that anticipated future monthly spend paid off in full?

Right now a car isn't pratical as I still owe some finances elsewhere - r.e. credit card etc so will work to clear that and start saving etc - £200 is what is left on the whole of the card though. I also set up to pay £30 off the card not £20. Min payment is like £6.00

Plans for spending on Plasma TVs and XBox seem rather luxurious - do they fit with plans for house deposit and pension/retirement provision? As an idea, a reasonable target for retirement saving is £35,000 by age 35 (extremely crude). At age 28 it doesn't sound like you have built up any provision at this stage? If so, a lot of that £300 of social spend may well need to go into catching up on that and a house deposit.

TV is practically paid for, and most what you see was the remaining price to pay for the bundle and the last payment r.e. i paid half on the day, half left by September so will defiantly need to pay for that.

Xbox live is a yearly subscription taking out automatically;

Priority is to get ahead of the debt curve as quickly as possible - pay off all expensive unsecured debt, build up at least 3 months of income. That allows you to skip all the expensive insurance on trivial things and if bad things happen then fund them out of savings - far cheaper even in the medium term.

Will do!

Then review long term plans, primarily house purchase, car purchase, PHI and retirement provision. Maybe marriage and kids in there too. Make sure all those are taken care of, and then set social budget accordingly.

To answer the original question - £75 p/w for me personally wouldn't have been anything like enough at university and throughout my twenties. Currently in my 30s, and find social opportunities decreased quite a bit - friends moving away and having children mean that socialising is far less frequent than before, and tends to end by 10pm rather than 2 am Reckon I might only get through maybe £30 a week excluding holidays.

My social life does take a back seat to weekend now, work and gym come first in the weekdays, so could be argued I only need money for Friday (sometimes not even that) and Saturdays but I do want to start saving.

I also now pack a lunch as soon as i get back from the gym instead of eating out on my lunch hour each day and that is saving quite a bundle!

Any other tips to make sure costs stay down?

dawyldthing

I'm spending £100 a month, but I don't spend £20 a night on alcohol (many do, not saying you do though). But most things can be done on the cheap - comedy is often cheaper on a Friday plus theres late night buses to get home in some areas, cinemas 2 for 1 on Wednesdays etc, just depends what your interested in.

Payment protection is a bit of a con as often it takes months to pay out, I pay 133 on a years home insurance for contents and buildings combined, haven't got life insurance yet but was told it was around a tenner a month, don't know what mobile you have but I know I could have got that with my Halifax bank account for a tenner a month and it included breakdown insurance. It seems a bit much to me, but to put it into perspective my mortgage payment is less than what your paying on insurances and loan

It depends what you want really, like I have a holiday pot so I don't borrow for going on holiday, repairs to the house pot, actual savings pot (all online accounts that I rename so I know what is where) and have cut down on spending for food and the like so that its all sorted and under control.

You just need to set yourself some long term goals and put some money aside so you can avoid any credit as it costs in the long run for a short term measure.

Chasing_cars wrote: »

Hi it might be a silly question but after all my bills and everything including food! I am walking away with £300 to live on for the month; now if I am wanting to start saving too is £300 ok to live on? or should I look to cut down some other bills, if I can?

I recently signed up to a new loan to get myself out my damn student overdraft, pay of a credit card, pay for a holiday etc so have no savings again. I also took out full payment protection, home insurance, mobile phone insurance and life insurance bundle for like £280 a month all in. Again, with all that added it comes to just over £910 a month on everything? which is leaving me in the region of £300 or just under?

So back to my original question for a busy single, social, 28 year old who wants to start saving too, am I doing ok? I feel I am, but in the past I got into a lot problems financially and now I am finally sorted and happy - I would hate and worry for it all to go pete tong!

PS: This does exclude over-time so technically my wage differs each month.

Please advise :S

dawyldthing

If you sign into spotify through facebook its free as your friends see what your listening to, you do get a few adverts every few songs but its worth it as its free

ringo_24601 wrote: »

Its very hard finding that balance of having fun, enjoying your youth and spending...

E.g. You spend £16 a month on Spotify + Netflix. You spend £15 on the gym. Your £31 'entertainments' are greater than your £20 barclaycard payments.

Maybe look at one of the newer music streaming services... or the radio! You could then put £10 a month more into your card repayments. Do you use Netflix much? I can't say I found much to watch on it.

(I shouldn't preach, my outgoings are terrible!)