How Much do you ACTUALLY spend???

Cycrow

Bedsit_Bob wrote: »

That seems an awful lot to me.

I spend less than £25pm, on mobile phone and BB, and nothing on TV.

well BB and TV is my main form of entertainment, and alot of the stuff i watch tends to be on the paid for channels rather than free view.
it also includes LoveFilm and such

But i also need decent speed BB for work as i can be sending/receiving alot of data at times.

My mobile is more expensive because i also use it for work, so needed the latest handset

Weird_Nev

Here we go: Our only bank account: Multiply by 0.6 for UK values.


It's been an unusual month: The Flights and travel costs are my wife working abroad, we'll get those back on expenses. We've also had a couple of big bills for the car: A gearbox service and the registration to pay. The laptop broke and cost me $80 to get soldered back together too!

Groceries are very expensive here, I try and keep it below $150/week for food for the three of us, but often fail especially once a couple of bottles of wine are in the trolley! Last month was a miserable failure on that front - my wife has had to eat out virtually every night when abroad.

Everything else really is unavoidable/minimised expenses. Internet for example is $90/mo for terrible service (but we get our land line thrown in with free international calls), mobiles we have on $25/mo pay as you go sim only! Things like medical bills, insurance etc is unavoidable. Child care is $100/day - he gets one day a week in a creche mainly for his social development and to stop him being to clingy/dependent on us.

We do okay, and I manage to save $1000/month, though I'm really hoping to get some form of work to bump that up.

[Deleted User]

Weird_Nev wrote: »

Internet for example is $90/mo for terrible service

I make that £55-67 at today's rate.

Child care is $100/day

So £1855.63 pm? :eek:

MrsGSR

quantic wrote: »

Just the two of us, we have tried both cooking from scratch and ready meals and somehow from scratch often comes out more expensive?!

The £250 we spend includes all lunches for both of us at work, and probably 6/7 meals on night times, we normally have 1 takeaway fortnight.

We normally have meat with every meal which I don't think is helping. Also, we have 3 pieces of fruit per day each, which can be expensive.

I bulk out meals with lentils,beans and veg. Bolonaise sauce is made using the same amount of finely chopped mushrooms to meat so it goes much further.
Do you meal plan?

Weird_Nev

Bedsit_Bob wrote: »

So £1855.63 pm? :eek:

No, $390/month for 4 days. He goes one day a week. I use that time to tidy and apply for jobs. I'm a full time dad the rest of the week.

But pro rata, it would be about that, Yes.

The broadband by the way is about 2Mb/s, and it's wireless broadband so it has horrible latency. It's a kind of pseudo 4G Wiimax set up. The only good thing is the router has built in VOIP, and we can call home for as long as we want for free, and we have a land line number via it.

MrsGSR

virtuallyfree wrote: »

I am now debt free.
I have always spent a lot of money on myself eg wine, clothes, gigs, restaurants, but i scrimp on bigger things eg i do not have a car, my kids never got driven to school or friends, we holiday with family. Everyones life is different so it hard to compare sometimes, you have to find out what works for you. If your debt is rising, it is not working. I used to have a car but i found this to be a huge expense for no returns, i put the money into paying off my debts and mortgage.
Living a simpler life is cheaper but you can still enjoy good things, it is possible.

I completely agree. You have to do what works for your situation. Like a diet, you need treats when trying to be DFWer or you would go mad! As long as I have wine and sky thats cool with me:rotfl:

[Deleted User]

Weird_Nev wrote: »

No, $390/month for 4 days. He goes one day a week.

You had me going for a minute then.

BTW. and no offence intended, but regarding this creche for social development business.

There were no creches when my generation was growing up, but we managed to develop into independent, confident individuals, who were anything but clingy/dependent.

iolanthe07

There were no creches when my generation was growing up, but we managed to develop into independent, confident individuals, who were anything but clingy/dependent.

Boarding school from age 8 knocks clingy tendancies on the head.

FireWyrm

Bedsit_Bob wrote: »

There were no creches when my generation was growing up, but we managed to develop into independent, confident individuals, who were anything but clingy/dependent.

There were playschools when I was little, but our family could never afford them (and neither could many others of my immediate friends) so we all played out. We werent clingy. In fact, school these days seems to start quite a lot earlier for most - I was 6 before I went to school not 4 as is usual today. Most of us knocked around in a group which consisted of anyone from about 4 up to about 12 or 13 (when they went up to secondary school and developed odd obsessions with the opposite sex instead of climbing trees). Essentially, the older ones looked out for the younger ones and the younger ones had to run to keep up (literally when it involved a bike and everyone was two's up already).

As for household spending - here's mine.

Food/Petrol = £400 p/m (£200 each)
Mortgage = £581
Energy (duel fuel) = £100
Council Tax = £96
Water = £32
Insurances (various) = £70
Loans = £250
Sky = £50 (considering getting rid of it frankly)


The rest is all allocated to either savings or overpayments on debts. There is no real personal spending at all although we did spend £20 last night on kebabs and a bottle of wine.

barbarawright

Bedsit_Bob wrote: »

You had me going for a minute then.

BTW. and no offence intended, but regarding this creche for social development business.

There were no creches when my generation was growing up, but we managed to develop into independent, confident individuals, who were anything but clingy/dependent.

Not sure when you were growing up but I went to various different nurseries and playgroups in the late 60s and they certainly existed before then.