What percentage of income is reasonable after bills etc?

GoldenShadow

We will have between 15-20% left I think.

Rent would be similar to mortgage and this is after pensions/student loan/fuel/groceries/car insurance/pets etc. My earning potential should increase by a good 30% in 18 months or so.

Might have a closer look to try and see what I can shave off, until we move out some costs are hard to predict but I am a spreadsheet addict. Not quite sure if/when we will feel comfortable enough to try for kids. Lots of my friends say they have nothing left etc, but I know from threads on here that the whole world doesn't live like that.

Is there a certain amount you feel you need, and what sort of things affects that? My parents were never good at budgeting and kept adding things onto the mortgage, I don't want to end up as they did

GolfFoxtrot

After deductions I earn around 2050 per month and I'm happy to have around 200-250 for general spending per month.

Note that the above figure excludes, food, transport and household bills and also around 150 per month going into our wedding fund.

If it helps here is our household cost breakdown

Mortgage: £1600 (should be 1100 but we overpay)
Gas&elec: £75
Tv,Phone, BB: £40
Water: £25
Council tax: £110
Food & petrol:£400
Company car:£210
House fund: £500 (we are renovating an older property)
Home Ins: £15

amistupid

40 years ago, starting out in life, I suppose we'd be lucky to have 10% left to spend.

Now there's no mortgage and no loans. We have a car, eat very well and have about 60% of our income to spend as we wish. Most of it is saved,

Gavin83

Think it depends on what you consider necessary and how much you earn. 20% of £200k a year is a lot more than minimum wage.

Personally I have about 50% of my salary left once rent, bills and food shopping is paid for. I do have a girlfriend earning roughly the same as me and we split the bills 50/50 so that helps. I probably wouldn't want less than £300 a month for personal spends.

Rambosmum

After all deductions I bring home roughly £1600.

My expenditure is:
mortgage/utilities/internet/food/pets/netflix&insurance: £700 (my half)
Car- petrol/ insurance/ repair savings: £240
Mobile tariff + insurance: £12
Trade union subs: £12
Expenses: £250 - this is for clothes/ going out with friends/ cinema/ meals out etc

The rest is savings.

thescouselander

Cracking question. Since I keep very good records of these things (I'm another spreadsheet addict) I can see that jointly (between me and Mrs thescouselander) we have 32% of our income in tact after all expenditure (everything including mortgage, bills and regular personal expenditure) and also childcare for our son which is very expensive. Our bills do include a lot of discretionary spending through (cars, sky etc etc) and in a squeeze I reckon we could reduce our outgoings by quite a bit.

The thing I found when our son arrived was that, although we have to spend a lot on him, our lifestyle changed a lot. For example we hardly go out now and we take holidays in the UK instead of abroad. Using childcare vouchers also takes a lot of the sting out of the costs. In the end our finances have turned out better than I originally predicted on my spreadsheet.

gentlewoman

Interesting question, I'm trying to figure out things myself... currently this is where I am:

65%: mortgage, all other bills, childcare, travel card, food/groceries, and (very small) savings
15%: credit card payments
20%: discretionary

My CC debt is very high at the moment (bad spending habits), and I'm trying very hard to pay that off by Jul 2017 at the latest.. so hopefully in a couple of years the picture will be rosier.

FreddieFrugal

thescouselander wrote: »

Cracking question. Since I keep very good records of these things (I'm another spreadsheet addict) I can see that jointly (between me and Mrs thescouselander) we have 32% of our income in tact

that's funny, us too, exactly.

However I tend to budget over what we actually spend so we may have more than that.

It used to be closer to 50% but I've had to take a reduction in income. (I must sort out tax! This reminded me, I'm below basic rate threshold but I'm being taxed as if I'm over)

Our mortgage payment is lower than our rent but we overpay the difference.
We generally don't spend anywhere near the amount I budgeted for entertainment/takeaways/oneoffs

We don't buy stuff unless it's necessary. Since starting our monthly healthy meal planner we don't have takeaways. All left over money therefore is saved.

So we actually save quite a lot, considering we're not on a huge income.

Savings took a hit this month because of a number of unusual large spends. Car needed new tyres, both our cars had services and tax, holiday payment.

However those are budgeted for on my spreadsheet as if they are monthly payments so it'll balance out again pay day this month.

cyantist

We have about 20% of our income left and I feel it's not really enough, maybe because until recently we had 50% left over and it takes some getting used to.

I'm trying to cut down our expenditure wherever we can because one unexpected repair bill or broken appliance could pretty much take all our spare money for a month

HappyMJ

GoldenShadow wrote: »

We will have between 15-20% left I think.

Rent would be similar to mortgage and this is after pensions/student loan/fuel/groceries/car insurance/pets etc. My earning potential should increase by a good 30% in 18 months or so.

Might have a closer look to try and see what I can shave off, until we move out some costs are hard to predict but I am a spreadsheet addict. Not quite sure if/when we will feel comfortable enough to try for kids. Lots of my friends say they have nothing left etc, but I know from threads on here that the whole world doesn't live like that.

Is there a certain amount you feel you need, and what sort of things affects that? My parents were never good at budgeting and kept adding things onto the mortgage, I don't want to end up as they did

Anything positive is great. At the moment and for quite a number of years I have been spending more than I earn so I need to use savings to meet the shortfall.

When savings run out I take out another low interest loan or a zero interest balance transfer and restore the emergency fund and as my credit is good this works. Eventually the credit card and loans will all be paid back. The advice on the debt free wannabe board is to stop paying the loans then I'll have money left over each month. That's not going to happen as my credit would be destroyed.

pollypenny

In an ideal world we'd all have a decent amount left after bills and food etc. However, it doesnt work like that. As lives changed, kids arrived and grew, interest rates varied enormously and there were times when we juggled Peter to pay Paul.

It was only when DS, our second child, finished uni that we felt comfortable!