Are you financially comfortable?

enthusiasticsaver

HappyMJ wrote: »

I wouldn't have a clue what to do with £3,000 per month. That's what I used to earn many years ago. I couldn't spend it. I spent about £1,300 per month and saved the rest. I just cannot spend much more than about £150 per person per week no matter how hard I try. I have always tried to save on everything I buy even when I earn enough money so I don't need to spend additional time trying to find a better deal....I will still shop around and use Quidco/Topcashback/Checkoutsmart.

Maybe the difference is the car. I don't want to own a car ever again. I have a driving licence and will rent one whenever I "need" one for £20/day plus fuel but that is very rare. I haven't needed one for over a year at which time we hired a transit van for the day to move house.

We are saving between £1250 and £1750 per month from the £3k for early retirement which is the main reason why my OH can go at 58 instead of his NRD of 65. We gift to our children and granddaughter (do you have kids?) and we have one private car which I use and a company car for my OH who will have to give that back when he retires. Living in the South West, public transport is not great so driving is the most convenient way of getting around.

If the £150 per person you mention per week is just to cover food,clothes and meals out etc then we could probably manage on that too but we do splash out on home improvements, holidays and weekends away which is what boosts the spend. I would say holidays is probably our largest expenditure over the year. The capital cost of the car obviously we have to find up front but the actual fuel and maintenance of it is very little (usually around £100 per month).

cadon

PasturesNew wrote: »

In short, no. Compared to you, no way. Perpetually single person households will always be bottom of the heap.

I'm in a single person household and much more financially comfortable than when I was in a two person household. Mainly because my ex used to fritter our money away on booze.

It'll take a long time for me to trust someone enough to combine finances again!

Mrs_Ryan

At the moment we're not doing too bad.
OH just cashed in a savings bond he had through work which paid off the mortgage and his overdraft. We're having three holidays this year, two in reasonably cheap holiday parks in the UK (cost about 400 quid in total for 2 X 5 days self catering in the South West) and a couple of nights in Dublin which my mum has paid for. Normally we wouldn't but it's our ten year anniversary this year and OH wanted a trip away for it.
The rest of OH's money is going on a new bathroom suite as our current one is unsuitable for me, and then we're having a new boiler and new kitchen- our boiler went bang about four years ago and we've had no central heating ever since. Kitchen is wrecked as well so we're needing a new one. OH drives a 12 reg Yaris which he pays £100 per month for and work pay for his petrol. He pays all the bills- utilities, food etc. He earns a decent wage- about 27k a year after tax, he pays into two pensions through his work.
I don't work because of disability and I get ESA and PIP which pay for the various stuff I need. We're doing ok at the moment, although we're about to make some big payments so in a few months time maybe not so much.

pickledonionspaceraider

As long as I have food in the cupboards and no outstanding debts - I consider myself to be comfortable.

Double_V

No not at all.
Some people are lucky.

We at the end of month left with nothing.
After paying all bills, rent etc. £60 is all left by £25th of each month to last til 1st (payday)

AndyBSG

My household is my wife, myself and our 1 year old daughter.

Both of us are in full time employment with a combined income of 80K, roughly 3K of debt and a mortgage.

We are quite comfortable in that we pay all our bills each month, eat out fairly regularly and have a foreign holiday plus a few UK weekends away each year.

That said, we've noticed things are a lot tighter since our little one arrived, mainly due to nursery fees that almost make it not worth my wife actually working.

With number 2 on the way I suspect my wife will go part time as she'll be working for nothing with two lots of nursery fees and we'll definitely be forgoing most of the luxuries we enjoy now.

Also, being an ex bankrupt i'm painfully aware that if I were to be made redundant i'd have roughly 6 months to find a new job or we would lose our home and I work in quite a specialised role whereby jobs are hard to find.

I think being 'comfortable' and being 'secure' are two very different things.

Certainly my BR has made me much more aware of how precarious my financial situation could be as even with 4 months of salary squirreled away in savings one redundancy could wipe that out very quickly

jtr2803

I want to say yes and no. After years of struggling and being on a dmp in really pleased to have got to where we are. Of our monthly take home our committed expenditure including mortgage, dds, car, maintenance for daughter etc comes to around 50% each month. My large annual bonus has always paid for luxuries before we bought a house, this year it's gone into a roof replacement and loft conversion which will hopefully reduce our ltv when we remortgage.

I find it difficult to walk the line between being prudent and thinking of retirement etc and 'living', you never know what's around the corner and I want us to enjoy it while we can.

If someone told me ten years ago I'd be earning what I do now I'd have believed I'd be living the life of Riley, I'm definitely not but we don't have to worry generally, that will do for now!

Peter999_2

Yes, I feel comfortable at the moment.

We have been very poor in the past but have worked very hard with long hours and am now doing pretty well. I work in IT and have taught myself a lot through the years - you really have to dedicate yourself to it.

I took redundancy a few years back and worked a few other jobs. One of my ex-colleagues was a contractor and got me a 6 month contract on pretty good money.

I've now been contracting for 3 years and managed to save nearly £4,000 a month after tax. I am still very careful with money as I know I could be unemployed very quickly - in fact I'm pretty sure that the contract I have now will come to an end in August.

The people I work with (most of them) have never struggled and spend nearly every penny they earn. All of them have really flash cars and endlessly take the mickey out of my Ford Focus. There will come a time when they will look back and realise that they should have been more careful, but they seem to enjoy life very much so who am I to tell them what to do.

One guy did ask me how to get a loan through his business as he didn't have enough money to pay his VAT. Shocking - he earns more than me, probably about £120,000 a year and still can't budget. Quite funny at the pub when he pulls out his three phones all on massive contracts (iPhone 6s, Galaxy Edge 7 and a Oneplus 2).

I still worry about money and don't waste money. We have an 11 year old who has no idea about money and we've kept her pretty grounded.

Pay_me

Single person household suffered several redundancies and pay cuts over the last few years. Just about floating and after all bills I live on about £70 per week for everything about half of that is lost in petrol.

Makes having a social life hard as most of my mates are earning high £30's to low £40's and in 2 wage households. The group get together's are just too expensive for me these days.

tece

What a great thread and demonstrates where different people at different ages/stages are at in their life.
I am now mortgage free but was on the housing ladder for almost 30 years and over the past 5 years saved as much as possible to get to that stage.
Our son (who we had after ten years of marriage) is in his second year of Uni and we pay his rent which is like having a mortgage. Our daughter is in year 13 and has decided to defer for a year so that gives us a bit of breathing space so we are not paying two rents. However it is likely we will have 3 more years of rent paying from September 2017.
We both work full time and we are now at the stage where it feels that our combined salary is keeping 4 adults. I not complaining this is our choice but I am just putting it out there to demonstrate how each family is different.
Hubby has a 12 reg mid size car and I run a 08 reg small car so you can see we are not spending in this area.
If we eat out it is never anything fancy and usually at chain places and this is not every week as hubby moans its plastic food and I can cook better. Of course its plastic its pre-prepared.
Our holidays are Med and a couple of city breaks each year as cheap as I can source them but I like to spend what I have saved once I get there.
And I am now obsessed with saving as much as I can for retirement and this will start (the saving) once DD has finished Uni. I am fortunate and in final salary and hubby is private pension.
I think we all come on MSE because we are trying to be thrifty and manage our income the best that we can. I have a friend who keeps moaning she has no residual income or pension saved but she is out every weekend fine dining and drinking but she does work hard as a self employed hairdresser so probably deserves it.
I am of the lucky generation when you could get a mortgage easily and house prices were affordable. Should I be lucky enough to inherit anything from my parents/in laws (it may go on care home fees) the plan is that it will go to the kids to get them on the property ladder. If not the intention is to downsize to achieve this. They do not know this as I do not want them to think things will be handed to them on a plate.
As I said in my opinion a great thread and the answers really do demonstrate people priorities and income brackets.