How much do you plan to budget for clothes & entertainment when debt free ?

debbycatz

Following on from the interesting replies on my other thread about how much is 'enough' money, I wondered what amount of money other posters intend to allocate for clothes and entertainment once they have cleared their debts ?

I am fortunate to not have debts anymore, but my income is not great (£13,000) so I try to budget carefully to make sure I don't get into debt.

At the moment, I put £40 a month away for entertainment and £46 a month for clothes and beauty products. However, I often go over budget for entertainment as £40 doesn't really go far per month. A meal out with a drink or two can cost nearly that much alone. I realise I have to cut my cloth accordingly, but I just wondered what amount others intend to budget for once debts are cleared and they are living within their means? How much is 'enough' for going out and also for clothes ?

postingalwaysposting

ummm nothing, i didnt when i was debt free before, i never go out and clothes i have basics from asda that last me years and i just jazz up as a when. but if i had to give you a figure prob £5 going out (odd takeaway) and £15 for clothes

art_student

Interesting question! I find that when I do have money (eg. birthday money that I feel justified spending on myself!) to spend on clothes I go out shopping and can't find anything I want and then get stressed that I haven't bought anything but I want to spend the money. Then I buy something I don't really want just because I have the money. Then I am annoyed at myself.
But I WILL buy a jet ski and spend ridiculous amounts of money buying petrol for it and making it faster, faster, faster!!!!

Oldernotwiser

Better to spend your spare cash on going out enjoying yourself than in buying clothes. There seems little point in having a great wardrobe if you can't afford to go out and enjoy wearing them!

milliejon

I'm on a DMP and we budget £5 per week per person for clothes. But this does include shoes and hair cuts. Most of this goes on the kids' shoes because I insist that they wear Clarks' shoes. I buy most of the kids clothes in bundles from Ebay and my hubby and I buy the occassional piece of clothing from Asda or Tesco (usually in the sales).

As for going out, well with two kids we very rarely go out, but when we do, we use any spare money we might have from the housekeeping money. I set a budget each week, and whatever we don't spend from the budget goes into a savings account, then we've got a little spare cash to go out or buy the odd treat.

Softstuff

I have no debts now, but budget pretty tightly... we (OH and I) have a budget of $75 for eating out (about 30 quid), $25 a month for clothes and shoes (about 10 quid, and always spent in charity shops or on car boots) and $50 a month for other entertainment (about 20 quid). A lot of times we have a bit left over out of this too... but then, we rarely drink and tend to enjoy many things that are free. Guess a lot of it depends on what you enjoy doing.

Birthday or xmas money recently has gone on house things since we only moved in in February, so there's been plenty to do there.

immoral_angeluk

debbycatz wrote: »

Following on from the interesting replies on my other thread about how much is 'enough' money, I wondered what amount of money other posters intend to allocate for clothes and entertainment once they have cleared their debts ?

I am fortunate to not have debts anymore, but my income is not great (£13,000) so I try to budget carefully to make sure I don't get into debt.

At the moment, I put £40 a week away for entertainment and £46 a week for clothes and beauty products. However, I often go over budget for entertainment as £40 doesn't really go far per month. A meal out with a drink or two can cost nearly that much alone. I realise I have to cut my cloth accordingly, but I just wondered what amount others intend to budget for once debts are cleared and they are living within their means? How much is 'enough' for going out and also for clothes ?

I could never spend that much money even if I was debt free! :eek:

findingmyownway

I'm probably going to get shot down here, but hey-ho i'll say it anyway...

I think the amount of money someone would 'like' to spend on clothes/beauty/looking good is entirely related to their self confidence and body image.

Through reading the posts on this site, i feel that many of the regulars have very negative opinions of their bodies and have little selfconfidence (maybe thats part of the reason they ended up here in the first place??) and so i think its unsuprising that these posters don't feel like they would want to spend £££ on looking good, even if they had the spare cash. Maybe if the OP rephrased the question to 'how much would you spend on clothes if you were your ideal weight and had the confidence to wear the clothes you could buy?' there maybe less people saying 'nothing'.

On the other hand, i guess a reason for a few posters ending up on here is due to spending a lot amount on clothes and beauty stuff and although may feel able to cut down for a while, they will always 'want' to spend money on stuff like that and will spend as much as they can afford (a vast improvement from spending more than they can afford!:rotfl: )

I am happy to admit i belong the second group. Although i'm a few pounds heavier than i would like (isnt everyone! ), i love shopping and buying nice clothes. I spend a lot of time and effort on exercise and keeping myself very fit and active (this weekend i have ran 5 miles on sat and did 20+ miles on my mountain bike yesterday). To me, its a big part of a happy life and there's no way in the world i would ever limit myself to a meagre mount to spend on clothes and fitness. I have cut down at the moment while i pay off my small debts - that enough for me!

Bambywamby

We are saving at the moment as we are just about to move house so we are keeping to the same budget we had when we were in debt as this allows us to save quite a bit up.

So for going out - it's a maximum of £50 per month. However we all love long walks in the country, picnics, quiet nights in with a glass of wine reading library books, cuddles on the sofa watching movies on TV, having store cupboard dinner parties etc So we tend to spend less.

Clothes -for me £30 per month & for O/H £20 and son £20 - (however we usually don't spend that much as I have a HUGE wardrobe from my spendthrift days and if we do need anything tend to buy from Ebay/George/Primark/Charity Shops etc

crawley_girl

I spend around £100 a month on going out and clothes. I'm not one for serious spending on makeup and my toiletries comes out of my food budget, which is again £100 per month.

£100 is my magic number!!!

:heartpuls CG :heartpuls

crawley_girl

immoral_angeluk wrote: »

I could never spend that much money even if I was debt free! :eek:

But it's all relative! Is someone earns 10k and has no debts and small outgoings then their money is their own to do with what they want.

If someone earns 30K and has a high amount of debt, then perhaps most of their money goes on debt repayments and not the nicer things in life.

Just a thought!

:heartpuls CG :heartpuls