How much money do you have left after bills?

midlander81

Just been redoing our budget spreadsheet and after we have paid all bills, food & fuel and made debt payments (including over payments) we have around 700 left between us. This seems a lot on paper but in reality we always feel poor in the run up to payday!

Just wondered how much others have to live on and how the budget this money?

ahomemadetouch

midlander81 wrote: »

Just been redoing our budget spreadsheet and after we have paid all bills, food & fuel and made debt payments (including over payments) we have around 700 left between us. This seems a lot on paper but in reality we always feel poor in the run up to payday!

Just wondered how much others have to live on and how the budget this money?

its worth keeping a spending diary to see where the money is going, lots of little things over the month can soon add up we have more on paper than we seem to but now i write it all down I can see where it goes

Niv

My essentials bill comes to £846pm and I give myself abudget of £570 which is to cover clothes, going out and a bit of ‘walkingaround money’. I also save a few bob here and there and generally do not spendmy £570 allowance.

MrsSave

Our bills/minimum debt repayments comes to £1450 a month.

Food/petrol £280 a month.

Our income changes each month as I work as a supply teacher, but the aim is to bring in £2200 a month between us, which leaves £470 a month. This all gets split into different pots (emergency fund, savings, holiday fund, christmas/birthdays, day to day, entertainment and personal spends) which is £285. Anything left over gets split between adding to emergency fund and debt repayment!

James_B.

midlander81 wrote: »

Just wondered how much others have to live on and how the budget this money?

After all allocated spending (mortgage, pension, emergency funds, planned investments, holiday home, bills and so on), I allocate myself £3k per month for "other".

Holidays, meals out with the wife, shopping etc don't come out of this, but I do try to make it cover most other entertainment, buying bits and pieces.

Edited to add, my other half has her own amount that she uses, we do not merge our spending.

FireWyrm

midlander81 wrote: »

Just been redoing our budget spreadsheet and after we have paid all bills, food & fuel and made debt payments (including over payments) we have around 700 left between us. This seems a lot on paper but in reality we always feel poor in the run up to payday!

Just wondered how much others have to live on and how the budget this money?

It is a lot. I have zero left but then I practice zero based accounting. I assign every penny to a category before the month commences and only spend from within the category balances. Perhaps this might help you see where you are (over)spending and on what. My guess is that there is a lot of incidental and unplanned spending that you could do with getting to grips with.

joedenise

Like Firewyrm I use YNAB. I've only been using it since July and have managed to save more money in the last 3-4 months than the previous couple of years.

It's amazing how it makes you focus on what you are spending.

Denise

Flutterby83

I am like Firewyrm and joedenise, I always go on the basis that I have nothing 'spare', every penny is allocated and anything left over is put to good use (eg, if I don't use my full food budget for the week, I use it to donate food to the food bank, if a bill comes in lower I use the remainder towards paying off debts) I'm quite tight with our purse strings but we don't go without either. I agree that a spending diary is a good way to see where your money is going if you feel you struggle in the run up to payday

quantic

We earn £3100 after tax and pension contributions, our fixed bills are just shy of £1000.

Leaving us £2100 after fixed bills, we then spend:

£100 on petrol
£250 on all household shopping: Food, washing powder etc
£150 on eating out / days out as a family

This leaves £1600, we normally spend a further £300/200 on random things - haircuts, birthdays, nights out, clothes etc.

Last month we had around £1300 left on payday which we put into our ISA.

Zerdi6

My bills come to 873.60, leaving me with 150 for food and fuel for the month

DennyChomp

After all my bills have gone out (mortgage, utilities, insurances, student loan, child maintenance, food, petrol, gym etc.) I have about £760 left. I stick a big(ish) chunk of that into my savings and then keep the rest in my current account for the occasional meal out and taking my son for days out.

I've recently started overpaying on my mortgage as well, so will be committing more of my 'spare' money to that