I really really want to be........mortgage free!

shangaijimmy

Just think of the satisfaction when you achieve it though!

ourcornercottage

Thanks for the encouragement I'm really going to try, I have managed to keep the full £250 saved every month for the mast 3 months. The aim was to save £250 as maintain as much as i can in there. Currently standing at £920/£1250 kept in there. This is a real challenge to reduce my personal spending.

Just as a little mini survey what do you all budget on personal spends per week. If you strip out everything what is your 'pocket money' per adult each week. I am sure we can do a lot better you see.

shangaijimmy

Mrs SJ has £50 per week, I have £30.

hiddenshadow

We each have £150 per month. I've averaged £115.51 over the last year, DH has averaged £142.17. We've both been quite good about taking lunch in to work (no spending there), so mine tends to be used for craft supplies and DH buys DVDs like nobody's business.

AlexLK

What counts as "pocket money spends"?

We are trying to reduce our monthly spend by quite a margin. Last month Mrs K's spend on lunches, a couple of dinners out with friends, a dress, a jacket and a pair of shoes totalled over £1,000. :mad: Wasn't annoyed until I calculated the total.

ourcornercottage

I count pocket money spends as follows, it's basically all non essential treats.

Personal treats and days out. (Not including our season tickets which is paid for from bills account)

Minis subs, split between each of our personal spends.

Meals out or takeaways not paid for from leftover money in the food budget. That includes if we forget to take/make lunch got work we buy from personal spends.

Nights out for us.

Any household expenses we haven't accounted for (this rarely happens)

Non essential clothes purchases for us and Miniocc. If it's a want rather than need senario.

hiddenshadow

Likewise for us. We have household budget pots that cover groceries (includes breakfast supplies we buy for work), meals out, joint fun money (going out together/buying something both of us will use like a board game), and clothing (basic needs only).

Anything discretionary that doesn't fit into the above comes out of our allowances.

ourcornercottage

AlexLK wrote: »

What counts as "pocket money spends"?

We are trying to reduce our monthly spend by quite a margin. Last month Mrs K's spend on lunches, a couple of dinners out with friends, a dress, a jacket and a pair of shoes totalled over £1,000. :mad: Wasn't annoyed until I calculated the total.

That's quite impressive spending. If all was required that's money well spent, if it wasn't it's money wasted which is not good at all.

AlexLK

ourcornercottage wrote: »

I count pocket money spends as follows, it's basically all non essential treats.

Personal treats and days out. (Not including our season tickets which is paid for from bills account)

Minis subs, split between each of our personal spends.

Meals out or takeaways not paid for from leftover money in the food budget. That includes if we forget to take/make lunch got work we buy from personal spends.

Nights out for us.

Any household expenses we haven't accounted for (this rarely happens)

Non essential clothes purchases for us and Miniocc. If it's a want rather than need senario.

Do you have separate "personal spends" in different accounts to your joint day to day current account? Hope you don't think I'm being nosey, just interested to try a few different things.

ourcornercottage wrote: »

That's quite impressive spending. If all was required that's money well spent, if it wasn't it's money wasted which is not good at all.

We're going to a wedding next month, so the clothes spend is not entirely unjustified. She always spends about £200-300 per month on eating out, drinks etc. and £100 on lunches.

ourcornercottage

Alex, we each have our own personal spends account these are 2 totally separate bank accounts which our company wages go into (not dividends) on first day of the month we take from that food, tutor, Miniocc school savings, after school clubs at the end of that we have just less than £500 each this is our personal spends allowance which is very generous in my opinion.

I save £250 of mine straight away and id say probably at least another £50 goes to the mortgage and £20 to minis subs. The savings and mortgage payments are my choice, last year I paid for my 2 courses I wanted to do from personal spends. I prob have about £180 per month but access to more if I need it from the £250 saved.

Forgot to say earlier that personal spends also include presents for birthdays and Christmas too. The BF only saves £50 per month but tends to pay for more of the fun stuff and also buys most of the presents. He also contrives about £20 per month to subs. He is more rubbish with money than me but I'd say his personal spends after presents and fun stuff are £300 per month.

I used to spend £5 per day on work lunches. Now I just make lunch and save the £100 per month. That's personal choice though. If she enjoys eating out and you and little lk get the same amount of money to go do as you wish with that's democracy in action. Personally I think it's rather a lot and if you go out to eat too often it's no longer a treat so isn't enjoyed as much. Just my opinion though