How much is enough 'spending money' for a month?

arbroath_lass

Kayalana99 wrote: »

Hiya guys,

Me and my partner have agreed to spend £200 a month each as spending money only.

How much do you tend to spend on extras? £200 is alot to me but my partner its not & he is the one working atm... esp since he buys alot of beer on top so he rarely has spare cash to buy himself much else.

Where does his beer money come from just now? And where will it come from in July?


Sorry I'm just a bit confused that it seems to be extra money (for a short while) but you are allocating it to things you already spend on.


FWIW I would save as much as possible. I wouldn't want to get accustomed to having something and then have it taken away again.

getmore4less

arbroath_lass wrote: »

Where does his beer money come from just now? And where will it come from in July?


Sorry I'm just a bit confused that it seems to be extra money (for a short while) but you are allocating it to things you already spend on.


FWIW I would save as much as possible. I wouldn't want to get accustomed to having something and then have it taken away again.

This is why budgets(plans) should be based on longer term(min 1 year) you spread your spends, or understand that if you blow out in one category there is less for the rest of the year, cut back on one category there is more for the future.

Another good ide is to use a rolling 12 months reviewing regularly, especially if tracking show it is not working or the income changes(default is save till you work out where you want to allocate).

theoretica

Kayalana99 wrote: »

No to all, he literally does it because he enjoys drinking, as he calls it its his hobby, he is subscribed to some beer festival thing, knows everything about beer/ales etc you can imagine loves to try new ones etc etc.

It reads to me like he might benefit from becoming a beer connoisseur - savour smaller quantities of particularly good or interesting beers and give up on large quantities of the ordinary stuff.

hgotsparkle

Well, it depends on your outgoings and earnings, but OH usually has a few hundred a month spare, though he says hes going to save it but it always gets spent on god knows what! That really riles me up!A good month to me is when I have £100 to myself, this month though, I'll only have about £30. Now thats low earnings!

Kayalana99

I never actually said how worse off we would be - truth is I don't know. That is down to the fact we have two kids, a new business and don't know what tax credits are going to do, but come June thats when everything will fit together (because we will know what tax credits for the year will be) and I will be taking 3 months unpaid M/L (Already got savings in place for this!)

We have basically decided for me not to go back to work, so I've worked out we are -£20 a month if I don't. Based on having no wages - and no tax credits.

In reality, I'm earning £200ish monthly off the business atm....and with 6 months to grow it more...fingers crossed I could earn £400 which would put us in a tight spot...but liveable..without tax credits.

My main aim is to get off benefits first, but its hard to grow my business to much because I have the kids... swings and roundabouts.

FYI I had a chat with OH and he says he's going to *try* to cut down to three cans a night to start.... see how this one goes as today is our first day of the £200 and he plans on buying 18 cans from Lidi in one go to last him the week... hum ho.

(Also not set on not going back to work - I actually don't have to decide until Oct as I have holidays to take but with two kids it cost me £70 a day in childcare at least, and I'd only be earning £50! So I'd basically be relying on tax credits anyway!!)

paulineb_2

Will you not get tax credits because you have the business or does your OH earn too much for you to get them?

Kayalana99

hgotsparkle wrote: »

Well, it depends on your outgoings and earnings, but OH usually has a few hundred a month spare, though he says hes going to save it but it always gets spent on god knows what! That really riles me up!A good month to me is when I have £100 to myself, this month though, I'll only have about £30. Now thats low earnings!

That's not really fair - if you've only got £30 a month and he has a couple hundred surely he should be helping you out?

Low earnings for you but not to him by sound of it.

Kayalana99

paulineb wrote: »

Will you not get tax credits because you have the business or does your OH earn too much for you to get them?

I will get them but I don't know how much and I don't like relying on them as I always hear people getting cut off for various reasons running up debt that wasn't their fault etc. Bare in mind that the reason our tax credits are high is because when on M/L you get £100 a week free..yes it still counts for this year but come next year it will be a big drop if I was to stay at work.

Truthfully I'd love to be able to call them up and say I don't need them anymore but we don't know what things will be like in 6 months.

OH earns more this year with a new job + the business has added extra income, , on so we won't get as much as we did this year (I was on M/L last year as well) and because I don't know how much the business will earn from now to March its hard to work out as it is growing tbf.

Edit:

Thinking about it I was basing my original calculations on no money coming out of the business, I did really well in Oct- Dec but I blamed it on the xmas rush, I expected everything to die down in Jan and I was surprised it didn't.

I was thinking we would get about £300 tax credits at a guess which would of meant £300 spending money between us if I wasn't working.

I suppose as long as I keep my business going *we* should be ok.

FBaby

I'm confused as to what you mean By left after bills. Do you count saving for hols, day trips, activities, essential clothing as part of your bills. Is the £50 a week each to dispose as you wish? If that is the case I am amazed. My hubby and I earn significantly more but definitely don't throw away that amount a week. If I include hairdresser session, gym membership, savings towards holiday, then yes that's probably about right but again income is much higher.

Kayalana99

No thats all included in the £200 apart from the holidays - days out are abit hit and miss if we was going down to Skeggie for the day that would be a holiday fund moment where as if we was going round the park and went to the cafe that would be out of our spending money.

That said we havn't done many proper days out, we more go round parks and things at the weekend. (Truth really his old job hours were all over the place so we wouldn't of had chance for a weekend trip somewhere so we are thinking of doing this soon when we get chance)

Tbf I don't have any outgoings like that apart from my phone bill which is included in total bills (outgoings as in extras like gym hairdressers etc) I suppose I do get my hair cut every so often but thats like £20 every 3-4 months? XD

I guess thats why alot of my money ended up back in savings pots.

Oh and saving for hoildays wouldn't come out of the £200 or bills - that would be whats left over. Bills are basicly monthly bills.