monthly budget - 'disposable income'

alecsa

PS. For me it's probably the shock of going from being on a couple income to a single one (broke up earlier this year) and all of the sudden feeling stressed about money and what ifs...

meer53

I too would love to have £500 spare each month. You just get used to living with whatever you are left with, to be honest, £500 disposable is a really good figure.

davenport151

Try the budget planner on here - I keep recommending this!

Fill it in and don't be scared of being honest about amounts. Play around with figures a bit especially with spends like clothes etc.

The help I got from this was it gave me a monthly amount to put aside for those yearly/emergency expenses. Plus a figure not to touch for that months expenses. Anything beyond this was mine to do with as I pleased.

I also keep a spending diary (an easy habit to get into as suggested by some on here already) so I can really see where everything is going. This in turn has motivated me to spend less.

By the way my monthly free spend amount is £295 and i'm trying to get that down.

Good luck! You have to find what works for you.

SavingSassy

alecsa wrote: »

PS. For me it's probably the shock of going from being on a couple income to a single one (broke up earlier this year) and all of the sudden feeling stressed about money and what ifs...

I thought of this as a positive, the money I had in my bank was MY money; mine to save, mine to spend on what i wanted. This then gave me a massive boost that I could do it all on my own.

I'm not lucky enough to have that much disposable income, but of what I am left with, myself and daughter have a few treats and I am saving money.... (once I have an emergency fund, I'm paying off all of my debt).

It may be worth doing an SOA though - if you don't feel it's a lot of money, then maybe you don't have as much as you think... I give myself 'pocket money', but I have to find for example - my car tax out of it! I'm going to be doing one of these myself!