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

choccyface2006

I have never been in debt but have a low wage so I do have to be very careful how I allocate it.

After bills I have approx £500 left over per month, I save £300 of that for our holiday (this year Cyprus) Christmas and major birthdays, plus a little spare for emergencies. Then I allocate £50 per week for food & toiletries (about £90-per month) and everything else we need, clothes, shoes, school trips etc...Thats for myself and two daughters aged 14 and 7.

Its very tight but I have managed for 3 years like this and we really don't go without anything, and I don't owe a penny to anyone and have a lovely home.

I wish I could spend more on clothes and shoes, I did buy new Clarks leather boots for myself this month but they were reduced from £74.99 to £29.99 and since I have bought two cheap pairs in 6 months costing £15 per pair, I figured these would last a couple of years therefore be worth the money.

I dont have an entertainment budget, my boyfriend and I get the free dvd rentals or swap films with friends & family, I also use my dvd recorder all the time to record stuff to watch when we're at a loose end. We have two takeaways per month (his treat) and we take the kids to a theme park at least one a year on top of any we go to on holiday, occasionally we take them to the cinema or go camping for a night or two which is cheap and because he has a company car and fuel, we can go further afield.

Last week I bought a new laptop so that the kids could have mine, I had saved £350 from last years holiday spending money, asked for money for my birthday in December and that raised another £100 and put the extra £50 from my saving towards it! I save up in a similar way for anything else that I cannot afford out of the weekly budget, it works a treat, last summer I bought a lovely black patio set, matching black planters, Box buxus trees and other plants and flowers.


Sarah

darkly

Okay, so I'm living in Egypt at the moment so my cost of living is much less than the UK. Although that is mainly by choice as I could easily fall into the Expat lifestyle and spend stupid amounts of money on over priced imports when locally produced items are just as good and sometimes better. I'm a keen saver banking nearly 50% of my income (net) each month as it it not going to be cheap when I move back to the UK.

I say I'm lucky as I budget £350 per month on money in my pocket (Egypt has a cash society so everything gets paid for from that from my lunch to a train ticket to, well, all my normal outgoings in the month other than bills.) I also save £150 per month towards holidays (flights back to the UK are not cheap!) and £150 per month for treats (sometimes used to boost the holiday fund or my girlfriend (well fiancée as of this weekend) who is not earning much while we are here. It's for those one off purchases like a TV or a stereo or an engagement ring(!)

The rest of my savings are split between medium (5-10 years) and long-term (25 year) savings; which total half of what I save and the other half split into deposit for a house, savings for a car when we are back, a world tour we want to do in a few years and savings towards matching my student loan. I like the idea of having the money to pay of the loan if I needed to, but obviously it makes more money in a high interest account than the loan is incurring interest!

When I was at Uni in my final year I was living on $5 per week for non-packed lunch and going out. So basically it meant I went out at 22:00 on a Friday night to have 2 pints before last orders and took a packed lunch every day during the week. I can out of Uni around £23,000 in debt and managed to pay almost all (apart from the student loan of £15K) off in the first year. It was hard work not spending my new found income but well worth it in the end. I'm now debt free and reaping the rewards.

2brownboots

An interesting post... (& responses so far)

Have to admit , in the past I've spent much more than I do now, on fun stuff, even though I earn so much more now... but i have more FUN now!
Now spend £10-20 per week on social stuff (wine'n'cuddle on sofa, coffee with friends, etc), and £0-50 per month for hair, toiletries & clothes, in that priority order... the money that isnt spent goes towards the wedding (so i guess it IS a clothes budget blown on just 1 dress:p )

I keep finding 'old' (unworn bargains) clothes & customising them, then getting plenty of compliments on them (I'm creatively handy with a needle & thread)! I even get a thrill out of boots'ing with pigsback vouchers for the toiletries i need/ want (hence £0).
In theory I should be Debt free by now... but my life priorities have changed (refurb'ing house to sell, getting married & migrating with OH)...the debts are still there (sig. not up todate - 1 new 0% debt to add), but managable (0%/ low rate), the difference is that where it makes sense the money (£x00's) is going into savings, as a cash (not credit)fund will be needed/ preferred in the v. near future.
To me, to enjoy life at a level i'm happy with, is what matters, even if it will take longer to be totally debt free!
Funnily enough how much i have or don't have to spend no longer figures in my happiness!:D

debbycatz

Wow, my thread was included in Martin's Weekley Newsletter - I'm very honoured :cool:

Many thanks to all who have replied so far - it really has made interesting reading :T

kay41_2

I spent nearly all of my 20s with no money to spare, 'cos of low paid job and being a student. So when I hit my 30s and had a bit more money I got out of the habit of budgeting. We don't have debts, so maybe we are lucky (only a mortgage and a bit of money on a credit card which we pay off in lump sums for a holiday, so short term) but I know I can cut back when I need to. Too much practice in the past. I must admit I don't ever want to go back to those days when I had holes in my shoes and couldn't afford to buy new ones and certainly for the first couple of years of working I couldn't afford to buy any new clothes. I used to budget for the weekend which was normally going out twice to the pub or cinema with friends, standing my own round, but everything was very carefully calculated. I used to have a few quid spare for make up, toiletries etc and our food budget was very carefully controlled too.

Now I am older, I rarely go out, but probably spend more money on things like wine because we drink more at home. Having said that, being parsiminous in my 20s meant that we got a mortgage when I was still fairly young and now it is a really manageable size, compared to many of my friends. We never went out in the week or drank at home in the week. In fact we rarely drank at home, mostly in the pub. My situation was a combination of a low paid job and living in London because that's where the work was. Although I was happy and in love (very helpful!) materially I was miserable as I couldn't really be spontaneous about anything. It does become a habit, but I think in a way I missed out on a lot of fun because everything was on a budget. I used to budget £20 per weekend (or £80 per month) for going out, which probably sounds a lot as it was nearly 20 years ago, but it wasn't. But to put it in perspective, my rent for a flat in London was more than my mortgage on a 3 bed house is now.

I didn't get my haircut, had no mobile phone, went on modest holidays and life was in a lot of ways very simple. We watched a lot of telly and videos and read books. My big worry was that I had a car to get to work (too hard by public transport) but fortunately in the 2 years I owned it never needed anything more than tax, insurance, MOT and petrol - phew! I guess it was more important to me to go out to the pub with friends than buy new shoes at the time. I certainly wouldn't have dreamt of running up debts I couldn't pay back as I couldn't forsee a time when things would be better. I guess you learn a lot when you have to live like this, but it's not always a lot of fun.

debbycatz

The good news is that my working hours have changed from being term time only to more or less full-time all year round (36 hrs a week). This means I should get an extra £3000 a year.

I'm really not sure if I should continue to budget as tho' I was only getting my usual salary (therefore effectively saving £3,000 a year) or increase what I allow myself for fun stuff as I seem to struggle so much at the moment to 'afford' to go out or buy 'fun' things and some months struggle to find enough to pay current extortionate rates for gas & electric bills :mad:

What do you think

wilo65

I would usually allocate a sum to cover clothes, birthdays, xmas, holidays ect within any budget

, the amount would vary from person to person but as a rough guide £10 - £20 per person per week. Any budget plan is more likley to succeed if flexibility is built in right at the beginning. For more info you could log on to the National Debt Line's web site or call them on 0808 808 4000, or why not pop along to your local Citizens Advice Bureau, who will be more then happy to help you draw up a sustainable budget / repayment plan.

Mindy_2

debbycatz wrote: »

The good news is that my working hours have changed from being term time only to more or less full-time all year round (36 hrs a week). This means I should get an extra £3000 a year.

I'm really not sure if I should continue to budget as tho' I was only getting my usual salary (therefore effectively saving £3,000 a year) or increase what I allow myself for fun stuff as I seem to struggle so much at the moment to 'afford' to go out or buy 'fun' things and some months struggle to find enough to pay current extortionate rates for gas & electric bills :mad:

What do you think

Why don't you save half of the extra and allow yourself to spend up to half of the extra if you really need it, that way you won't feel guilty, but don't forget that you will be paying tax and NI on that £3,000 so it won't be that much in your pocket.