After all of your bills... how much do you have left over?

Fireflyaway

dsab wrote: »

It's probably a question of how you define "bills". We are a family of four and probably have £1800 a month left after paying for all bills in relation to housing, health, the cars, Insurances and our food (i.e. for the family to be be fed, dry, warm and mobile).

If you then take off the other costs (Holidays, Kids activities, repairs, days out) we probably have £1K a month left, which goes towards savings.

Exactly. Some people have no mortgage, some spend £500 on food where as the next only £100. Some people have kids, some pay school fees, some not. You may have a huge house or a tiny flat a car or no car, so 'bills' means different things to different folks. We have big travel costs and school fees but I'm tight on food and have no car payments. The main thing is not to have a negative.

Towser

The median UK household disposable income was £26,300 in the financial year ending 2016 (2015/16); this was
£600 higher than the previous year and £1,000 higher than the pre-downturn value of £25,400 in 2007/08 (after
accounting for inflation and household composition).
Median disposable income for the poorest fifth of households rose by £700 (5.1%) between 2014/15 and 2015
/16; in contrast the income of the richest fifth of households fell by £1,000 (1.9%) over the same period.
Overall, cash benefits and direct taxes led to income being shared more equally between households. Original
income (before cash benefits and direct taxes) for the richest fifth of households was around 12 times higher than
the poorest fifth (£85,000 and £7,000 per year respectively) while disposable income (after cash benefits and
direct taxes) for the richest fifth was 5 times higher than the poorest fifth (£62,400 and £12,500 per year
respectively).
There has been a gradual decline in income inequality in the last 10 years, with levels similar to those seen in the
mid to late 1980s.
Looking separately at retired and non-retired households, the median income for retired households rose by 3.1%
between 2014/15 and 2015/16, while the median income for non-retired households was broadly unchanged.
The economic downturn had a larger effect on non-retired households, with median income in 2015/16 still 1.2%
lower than pre-downturn levels in 2007/08 while the income for retired households grew by 13.0% over the same
period.

enthusiasticsaver

We don't have money left as such as we budget for all categories and if we overspend on one we take from another. Our utilities, council tax, food, insurances and car running costs/house maintenance and food come to about 50% of our income. The other 50% covers personal expenditure for us both, savings for holidays, entertainment, meals out, savings for furniture/white goods, gifts and Christmas.

Novice_investor101

Single person, no kids, have mortgage. My pension is salary sacrifice, & I class savings & S&S investments as "bills" which come out as soon as I get paid along with all the other, actual, bills.
Once they've all cleared Im left with about £300 a month to fritter on what I want. Food isn't a big expense as I live alone - £50 a month at most so £250ish.
If I didn't save or invest it'd be about £700 a month, but I'm not really a materialistic person & don't drink alcohol often or frequent Starbucks daily so my spending is low.if I fancy an extravagance I just dip into my savings pot (separate from my emergency fund).

determined_new_ms

depends what you mean. In our household account we pay about an extra £100 pcm into it to build up and pay for things we want/need. I usually can squeeze and extra £20-50 pcm on cutting back on stuff

my personal income is very low. I take home £800 pcm. I save about £200 pcm into long term savings, about £100 ish into regular years spends - xmas, birthday's, car etc. I then have about £150 pcm to spend on whatever I want

determined_new_ms

lulu_92 wrote: »

Nothing! Just had to take a £5k a year pay cut, so heaven knows

I took a £22k pay cut last year. It's all relative, I don't *often* miss it though I miss the 4 x holidays a year and just having money to spend *if I wanted to*

aquestionoftime

Between us (me + husband, no kids) we have around £800 leftover. That's after all household bills, food, debt repayments and emergency savings.

We definitely need to keep better track of where this goes as we rarely have anything left at the end of the month.