Things to include in my monthly budget

Apodemus

Firstly, congratulations on the new job and well done for even thinking about your budget and finances - you are well ahead of most folks at your stage.

In common with all the advice above, I am a +1 for the "take the savings out first" argument. Personally, I would advise 10% of your after tax & NI (but before other deductions) pay. If you do this from day 1 you will never miss it.

One word of caution, though is when constructing your budget, after first deducting your savings, start by asking how much you can actually afford to allocate to each category, rather than simply deducting the current costs of each. It may be that this will allow you to question some of the decisions that you make in regard to different aspects of your expenditure.