Spent a year on UC at £410 a month and always had some left over...
One thing that always amazes me is the cost of hotel rooms.
I cannot fathom why people pay multiple hundred $£€ per night just to sleep!
Fair enough it's a business trip and someone else is picking up the bill (I've stayed in some nice hotels whilst working away) but frankly I don't particularly care about the "facilities" a hotel has apart from a decent bed and a room big enough to bring my bikes inside, assuming I'm on a roadtrip.
My spending has drastically reduced in recent years. Our biggest expense will be annual holiday followed by mortgage payments. We have not other debt as a result of a change in ethics and are amassing some decent savings.
Not spending money is a bit dull though, the pull of shiny things still remains albeit restrained by discipline.
Bike bits and van bits mostly. Only had my current alloys on for afew weeks but find myself browsing the classifieds for more weirdly.
I don't understand how people can spend so much money on
-the weekly supermarket shop
-coffee, either bought from a cafe or using one of those stupid expensive coffee machine
-clothes
-micro subscriptions like Spotify, Netflix, prime etc
I probably spend more money than some would consider sensible on
-cars, but never use pcp or lease, always paid outright
-bikes
-holidays
-boats
I don’t understand how people can spend so much money on
People like things, and their definition of "nice" differs from yours.
I'm probably spending less than most on clothes (buy new ones when something wears out, and the worn out stuff goes onto my gardening/fettling pile), eating/drinking out and booze at home (pretty much zero, not eating out is easy when you've got an aversion to new food), mobile phones & bills (I don't need to be "connected" 24/7 thanks) , TV services (no Netflix sky amazon etc), gadgets in general (used to be a proper geek but have lost interest).
More than most? Maybe holidays, I'll decide where I want to go before checking the cost so sometimes that gets pricy.
People like things, and their definition of “nice” differs from yours.
That's the whole point of this thread, isn't it! 😉
My last two holidays were 3 nights in a cheap hotel Paris in 2016 and 4 nights in a cheap ‘hotel’ in New York in 2005 that we later discovered was a bail hostel with a side hustle.
so... don’t really spend much money on holidays
edit- in fact thinking about it... the New York trip piggybacked a research grant my GF had so we only paid for one of the two flights and nothing for the hotel and the train tickets to Paris were a present.
I have no idea how much other people spendnon things. I'm a bit of a tightwad so my best road bike cost £400 off eBay, my gravel bike was £1500, most I've ever spent 3 years old now. Doubt I've spent 15k on cars in my whole life and am pushing 50.
No idea where they money goes tbh, although I am terminally lazy so don't earn much.
Some of these responses are pleasingly tightfisted
're expensive hotels they are nice, our sales director had to cancel a meeting in Brussels so his secretary asked me to go, first class air waste of money it's only 1 hour, lounge was nice though, hotel was amazing but over 500 per night, no wonder these people are so remote u get no sense of normality. Chauffeured about, 5 star hotels.
Meeting was a waste of time too.
We spend a lot on food; most of the food we eat we see wandering around outside local to our village. My wife also likes Michelin star restaurants on occasion. We also spend a fair amount on preparing for our daughters future, savings, house etc.
I don’t spend a fortune on my bikes, my most expensive is a Sentry I got on cycle to work for £1400 a few years ago and I have no desire to change that. I do spend quite a lot on my daughters bike, her next one will be a lot more expensive than mine. We don’t scrimp on things like helmets / outdoor gear, but then we get expensive stuff and it lasts a very long time. Generally.
Our cars are “relatively” cheap, in fact my wife’s yearly car allowance probably outweighs the cost of the cars since we bought them. I used to do lots of trackdays which makes me cringe now when I think about cost and petrol use.
We love where we live so spend very little on holidays.
Big extension to the house this year, but it’s added value to the house, expensive yes, lost money, no. It also means it’s easy to have friends and family stay when the world returns to normal and until then it’s been a working from home dream.
We buy refurbished phones, cheap sim only contracts and not much else from a technology perspective unless it’s via work.
And we’ve managed to get to nearly 50 years old and neither of us have ever bought a sofa. Odd but true. 🙂
I save a fortune spannering my own cars.
We drive a £400 2004Golf, a 2004Volvo that we've had for 12years and a 2007 Transit. I keep cars as long as I possibly can but have the tools and space to do so.
A work colleague leases a BMW M2, his wife's new BMW X4 and a KTM motorbike. He doesn't drive the M2 as it's rock hard suspension has damaged his back!
Madness
Mortgage paid, no kids, but probably spend more than most on dog food!
More - bikes and bike clothing I slightly suspect, bought two bikes new in the last few years and have a mild Rapha habit so total spend probably approaching £8k in the last 3 years or so, although I sold one for roughly £1k in that time as well and have frankly run out of things to get now that would have any sort of sensible cost/benefit ratio (in my opinion anyway).
Apart from that I buy coffee from Pact, and save a lot of money every month into my pension and ISA, certainly much more than I allow for disposable income.
Not much else in the way of expenditure really, eat mainly vegetarian, no car, have an 8 year old 32” tv, wear clothes and shoes to destruction. I do have a few subscriptions but went on a massive cull of those a few years ago and have no desire to add more. Time rather than choice tends to be the limiting factor in my experience, especially having a toddler around.
Art, tools, photography and chocolate. Oh yes. No vegetable fat mass produced rubbish for me; it has to be hand made, proper cocoa, the finest ingredients and most likely £3 per small mouthful. You only live once; why waste it on mediocrity?
Booze.
How do people afford so much of it (physically and financially)?
Hmm... more, probably gigs and events.
Less - definitely clothes (excluding bike kit). I might buy one or two t-shirts a year but I've still got some Howies ones from when Howies were new and exciting. Also TVs. We existed on cast offs from others for years, finally got a flat screen one about 5 years ago - a 28" one that was about £150.
EDIT - Also more - craft beers, I only have 2 or 3 a week so don't tend to look at the prices of the ones I pick up in the beer shop - £5/6 a can isn't unusual. Also spirits, again I don't drink much - maybe one or two doubles a week - but I'm happy to pay £50/60 for a bottle of brandy or Armagnac.
Spend a lot:
Running shoes. New pair every month to 6 weeks, I run 300 miles per month and get injuries if the shoes are old.
Beer. Not the volume, but I do like a fancy craft beer at £6 a can.
Meals out. I like a Michelin star, and I like good wine.
Spend less:
Cars. Currently have a 12 year old and a 10 year old on the drive.
Houses. We have a small ish 3 bed semi, there’s 2 of us and it’s more house than we need. I can’t understand people in similar circumstances buying 5 bed places.
A) also Lego, probably over £25k worth in the house ranging from stuff I had as a kid, the lad's Lego, my UCS collection and the loose Lego in the Garage (alot bought on Ebay as job lots and from the Lego pick and mix so it didn't actually cost that much but thats it's second hand market value).
B) tools, I like a good tool.
C) bikes but not so much anymore, most of that spend was 10 years ago.
D) food, mainly supermarket but we tend to go for the nicer ranges plus a Gusto box once a week.
Not spendy
A) clothes
B) cars, only had one car for the last 18 months, trying to go as long as possible before buying a second one when I finally have to return to the office and it won't be expensive. Done the whole flash company car thing, was nice but the expensive Audi kept having minor issues which luckily I didn't have to pay for. Despite a load of tax paid I had nothing to show for it when it went back.
C) mortage, by luck and not being greedy, we moved at the right time (end 2001) to somewhere most people think is godforsaken moorland before the village became popular. Also moved the mortgage just before the crash and have paid negligible interest each month ever since. To me £400 a month is a decent size mortgage but I realise to many it's less than their interest payments.
Compared to some I spend a fair amount on gadgets but look for offers on things that will last a long time & keep their value - refurb Apple, Sonos in the sales etc. Amazed that people will shell out £800 for the latest samsung or iPhone.
Probably don't spend enough on clothes or furniture. Would like to, in some ways, for sustainability and erm, looks. But I'd ruin £150 jeans or a fancy sofa. Sensible people seem to have good solid furniture though so I think maybe I should do that.
Cars: I buy a rubbish Zafira for £3k every so often, once it seems like it will start to cost me actual money. Probably costs me £600 a year. Seems like an easy way of having money for holidays/pensions/savings and I spent quite a lot on cars in my youth so maybe i've grown out of it.
a) what do you spend more on than most seem to and why?
Other than bikes???
A bity like thebrick
Failed experiments. I try lots of things, usually to do with something I think I can make into an small business so I can “make my own job” unfortunately in half hearted way and fail.
I just buy "stuff" I can play with.. electrical, mechanical... chemical... stuff that's broken and non-economic to fix but spend and fix anyway... I sometimes buy broken stuff off ebay, fix it then end up throwing it away cos I only bought it to see if it could be fixed.
Tools ...
Um and bike stuff...
b) what can’t you believe spend (what to you seems) so much money on?
Cars (common it seems), contracts of any type... insurance that isn't a legal requirement (don't even have house insurance - can't see the point paying so someone can rip off the insurance and I end up paying)
Shampoo (don't buy, sometimes pick a sachet up from a hotel), haircuts (just use the shaver on #12), clothes (occasionally buy something in Sainsbury's) still have lots of clothes that are 30+ years old.. Threw out a shirt a week ago I bought before the bomb at Victoria (1991)
I don’t spend anything like as much money as many people I know on:
-eating out, either restaurants or pubs. Not eaten out since Feb 20 but probably only two or three times a year normally
-takeaways- not had one for three years probably
-clothes
-subscriptions like Sky, Netflix, prime etc
- foreign holidays
I probably spend more on
-cars
-tools
Oh, and bikes obviously
More on - the van. Must have spent north of 50k on it. If I worked out a price per night I could be in the Caribbean in a 5 star resort for less.
Less on - clothes (excluding outdoor stuff), beauty stuff like hair cuts, male waxing (I’ve heard it’s a thing).
Oh another more on would be canoes and sea kayaks which I freely admit I have spent a stupid amount on but I’m finally happy and have a stable fleet. (N+1 applies to these as well as bikes)
Mortgage is largest expense by a long way but an investment. Buy cars outright at about 5 years old and try to keep for 5ish, I can't believe the price of new cars and the finance that goes with them. Family holidays 4-5k a year, clothes last me years but the kids go through them at some rate. Daughter is into horses which is very expensive even when you don't have one. I do spent alot on bikes with both me and wife riding having a selection. I also like watches and have a few of them at a few thousand each which I have acquired over the last 20 years.
A) Skiing.
Good food.
Good quality clothes and especially footwear ( buying few items but they last for years).
Curtains - Get decent fabric, have them interlined and lined and it'll save you money keeping the heat in and draughts out. You'll get a good nights sleep if the room is darker and quieter.
B) Booze.
Cars (although in my youth I was petrol head, but became more environmentally aware)
Plastic tat.
I buy good food it doesn’t have to be expensive to be responsibly sourced, go to an independent shop.
Bicycles, I can’t believe what people spend on new bikes now. Why not buy secondhand and have a nice holiday with the money you save.
My two drains on my finance are my bikes (which was my only one until late last year) and my Mini.
The bikes pay for themselves in the adventures they allow, the people I've met because of them but mostly for the physical and mental wellbeing they give me. I genuinely would have left this world a few times now if it wasn't for what bikes have given to me.
The Mini is still worth roughly what I've sunk into it so far so it's definitely a Man Maths thing but even if I didn't get a penny back if it had to go it's been worth every one of those pennies for the fun, satisfaction and mental wellbeing it has provided me over the last 6 months I've had it. It was an itch I desperately needed to scratch!
I don't really spend any other large sums of money unless I have to, been down that road when I was younger and got into serious amounts of debt so prioritise the essentials these days.
As for what other splurge money on? Lease cars, expensive holidays on debt, lots of clothes, needlessly expensive tech, Sky subscriptions, houses (therefore mortgages) that are well above what they need and can afford, furniture on 0% only to change it the second it's paid off, etc.
Basically mass-consumerism. Oh and anything that is bought purely for bragging rights over others. Seriously, if that's what it takes to make you happy then you have much bigger issues to worry about!
Coffee. I really like good instant but i cam believe how money people spend on grinders etc.or buy a cup from starbucks etc. for 4 quid.
Spend a lot on heating and water. Don't like being cold and like long showers. Also food; like good quality ingredients. Spend a lot on my cat because he's greedy and eats like a goat. He's also fat.
Hardly spend anything on clothes, haircuts (do it myself most the time) and entertainment. I don't know how people spend more than £15 in a pub in one evening (pre covid). Tools too; tend to keep them till they fall appart. If a tool costs more than 10% of the cost of what its fixing I'll make my own tool. Phones and watches; phone cost £300 and its better spec than most others so why do people spend over £1000 on a phone? Also, why do people buy a new phone every year? Don't need a watch, phone has a clock.
Coffee. I really like good instant
heretic!!
More on
House (live in an expensive area - Would probably cost 750k to buy today, will be putting a 6-figure extension on it soon)
Holidays (fly cattle, but normally abroad for 6 weeks of the year. even managed 4 last year)
Pension (normally max out the allowance)
TV (oled is lovely)
Less on
Cars (last one was £1500, lasted 80,000 miles before selling for £500)
Clothes
Meat (not veggie, also not fussy)
I've just spent 40 quid on clothes pegs.
Does that count?
This thread has made me realise that I probably spend far too much money on pretty much every aspect of my life....
Sod it, can’t take it with you.
I am a bit surprised just how dismissive some people are regarding things that other people do choose to splurge on - some people just really like going on holiday, gadgets, fancy clothes and trainers, or beautiful small batch roasted Indonesian coffee. Doesn’t make them bad people or consumerist monsters. They just have different interests than you - and different personal/financial circumstances.
More than most:
Escape Rooms, prior to lockdown. It's my thing. I've just now booked three rooms for the first time in about 18 months and then had a bit of a cry.
Board games (and by extension, escape-rooms-in-a-box). I have a problem.
I'm furnishing following a house move so I'm essentially bleeding money on paint / shelves / chairs / toilet roll holders / etc etc.
Less than most:
I dunno, what do people spunk money on now when everything is shut? My house-to-mortgage ratio is likely lower than many because I'm Northern. I'm not going to be buying posh food as a veggie, expensive steaks and the like.
I might spend a bundle on some clothes and shoes but then they last forever and I can't bear shopping so over time it's cheaper. I swerve borrowing so always buy bargin cars. At one time my f/s bike cost more (second hand) than my car and motor bike put together. Looking to move before long but I can't see the point of buying a cavern to heat up or a sward of grass you only have to cut. Happily shell out on food and beer and go large on a bottle of claret every few months but I spend nothing on TV or channels. It's useful to assess your priorities.
More than most
House insurance. Live in a thatched cottage and insurance is over £1K at a minimum
Animals. 2 dogs, 4 cats and 6 chickens
Less than most
Guitars - happy to play instruments that cost £150 and make them better myself
Bikes - only bike I have is worth about £300 and ride it 4 times a week all year round
Holidays - not been on holiday for 20 years
Funny thing is I earn quite a bit of money but still don't really have much left at the end of each month!
More than most:
- bikes, bought 3 high end bikes over the last 4 years and ride them enough that there’s always parts or maintenance needed on one of them
- cars, got a golf gti that we paid off for 6years, finished that, kept the car and got a Porsche Boxster as a second hand, ‘fun car’
- house, living in the south east, mortgage is expensive
- Food, butchers meat but less often as with others
Less than most:
- flights and hotels, tend to drive for most holidays and do self catering
- going out/entertainment, most of our leisure time has always been spent at home or outside. Not much spent on eating out, drinking, cinema etc
Less on hair, makeup, clothes and shoes and a lot of things tbh.
More hmmm apart from bikes. Perhaps meat (local/free range) though eat it less often so meat bill overall is probably average, milk (organic) and pet medicines(expensive cbd oil and tablets for the dogs arthritis), knifes and other kitchen ware possibly.
I save a fortune spannering my own cars.
I used to do this up until I was early 30s but having to go round parents all the time to work as I had no drive got old. I'd like to get back into it as I was getting quite into the diagnostics / electronics / sensor testing etc now I have space but got too much work on the house to do!
1. Rent
2. Bills
3. Food
Don't buy much of the rest as they are all paid for.
"Electricity. I sometimes read the column in the paper about how someone manages their money and they always seem to spend around £20-£50 per month on their utilities bill. Our monthly direct debit is £238 for electricity." Yeah that seems really high, but maybe we are just efficient though our current house isn't that well insulated, 4 bed detached with power to external garage and mid-winter we are spending about £130-140 per month on gas and elec, reducing to ~£40 in summer.
I expect we spend less than average on: clothes, car (had a now 14 year old running in to the ground; had 2 cars in the last 17 years) mostly down to a wonderful OH who fixes stuff, home interior and improvements because again wonderful OH who does DIY; very few take-aways or drinks out, took lunches to work etc; mobile phones (maybe average but we buy new as little as seems feasible, about 4-5 years at the moment); no subscription services to TV sport or cinema; no kids so no kids activities or child care either. Oh yeah and virtually zero on makeup and £40 a year on my hair.
I expect we spend more than average on: holidays (as others have said we don't spend on expensive holidays, we take time off to travel more often UK and abroad), pensions and savings and overpaying the mortgage.
And I've just had to have a look, but it appears our house cost more than the median, so that too.
For holidays we do spend a lot of time away from 'home', we live miles from our families and friends so travel around the UK at weekends and then pre-covid, my vice, we would take several holidays abroad a year. So it's not that we spend on expensive trips, it's just that we do it a lot. About business class, we have paid ourselves (i.e. for leisure not business) when the price is right. With a lie-flat seat you get the best of your arrival day and a day back on your return because jet lag is nowhere near as bad.
I know it isn't 'spending' but I honestly think we save far more than most of our peers. Mostly through ability (generational wealth means we were able to buy a house and acquire more asset that way so now we have the ability to save more) but also mindset of paying off our home asap and building up a retirement fund. I've had some scary conversations with 35 year olds who are renting and have no savings or pension outside of their work schemes and just haven't thought about it.
More on photography stuff and also a holiday home (yes, I'm Stanley Johnson). It would have been cheaper to stay in luxury hotels for all the use we've had. My hope is that it was an investment.
Less on cars (none) and clothes (worn the same fleece and sweatpants for the whole pandemic apart from brief periods while they were being washed).
More than most:
House. bit the bullet and stopped renting land for our horses, bought a house with land and facilities. I don't ride but it keeps my better half happy and once we're ready to retire we can downsize and release some capital.
Less than most:
Everything else! We don't drink, smoke, have kids (by choice), we don't holiday abroad, we both wear our clothes until they are opaque and both our cars are around 9 years old.
More than most (not on here) = Bikes/Bike bits.
Less than most ( maybe on here) = Bikes
I've never spent more than £2k on a bike and likely never will. I also can't get my head around the idea of a wheelset that costs more than I would ever spend on my most expensive bike.
Non hobby -
More than most - God - where to start:
Mortgage - we're from the North West, currently live in the South West and have no inherited wealth, so when we had to pay almost £0.4m for a house, it was always going to hurt.
Student loan - First in my extended family to go to Uni and again with no support made for an expensive endeavour.
Childcare - £1300 per month as we have no support.
Debt - Went to Uni late in life, had savings, but needed to retain them to keep a house deposit later, Grad wages in the SW aren't great for a 30something soon to be dad with rent to pay and a wife finishing her PhD. For a few years we were living about £6k beyond our means (not in any way extravagantly), just a single £28k wage after tax, Student loan, pension etc to pay for rent (60%), council tax, food, electric, water, gas, food, transport and having to buy baby stuff, etc. should all be clear next year.
Food - we spend about £600 a month for a family of 4 and occasionally up to £800. We shop at Tesco and cook almost everything from scratch. The vast majority of our bill is fruit and veg.
Less than most - not sure - Clothes almost certainly, Eating out, holidays - 1 in 10 years, maybe cars? Our annual outgoing for 2 cars including fuel, tax (£360 for one car!), insurance, servicing, maintenance, etc is <£1k and we live 10miles from anything.