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I have spent some of my lunchtime today rejigging some of my finances.
As part of that I have realised that 2/3rds of my net monthly income goes straight out in dd's each month for mortgage, bills, savings standing orders etc but not counting food bills.
Kind of explains why I always feel skint! I'm just curious as to what the norms are as a %? Not too sure where I can cut back on some of my fixed outgoings...
Hopefully mortgage interest rates don't rise anytime soon as unlikely to get a payrise soon either!
approx 1/3 on mortgage + bills.
(not including food or savings)
we are by no means loaded. we just have a small house.
About the same. Grim isn't it?
Two thirds of my salary used to go straight out in bills. Down to about half now the mortgage has gone.
Including food, normal family days out and kids activities, pretty much all my income is accounted for.
Mine is about 2/3rds, includes food shopping but excludes fuel and car expenses 😐
A large proportion. When you go from dual income to single, jeez it's hard to save money for a rainy day... Fence needs fixing? Car repairs? Bathroom? Kitchen? What about the winter holiday?
It's hard to know where to start.
So, being single, the BIKE takes priority 🙂
This month <20%
When the mortgage goes through it'll be a smidgen over 50%.
The Miss'rs doesn't seem to realise the new mortgage will scupper her chances of 'retirement' when we have kids as it now means I won't be able to pay the bills on my own!
Are we including things like loan repayments? childcare (nursery costs)?
If you're including everything I'm obliged to pay per month then its about 50%, maybe a bit more. comprising the following items
mortgage
car loan
gas
elec
phone (mobile + landline)
broadband
council tax
insurances (motor, home contents,home buildings, health)
childcare (nursery)
About 25%.
Frugal living for someone on min wage. 😀
38% - childcare already gone out by them though and that's not to say 62% is really disposable income, maintaining the house, eating food, buying toothpaste and schizzle
About two thirds goes out a day or so after it comes in but then I pay all the bills out of my bank and we use her wages for other stuff. Somehow though that last third always disappears by the time payday rolls around again.
Over 100%.
That's why I have a wife. 😉
4/5th's. But that includes childcare.
22% on the essentials. the rest gets squandered every month. 🙂
My essentials are:
rent
gas/leccy
phone (mobile)
broadband
council tax
Sounds like some of you need to buy smaller houses btw! 😆
2/3rds covers everything, mortgage, food, bills, loans etc. The rest, 50% goes into savings, anything else is 'spending money' and kids clothes.
Not including food.
1% maybe less.
14.8% of my monthly income goes on bills, that's not including food, just gas, electricity, phones, sky, gym, etc.
I have probably 3/4 of my income that covers everything in the house including food.
Have about a 1/4 left to cover social life and private diesel for the car but can often get away with some left over work diesel if I drive economically!
Including childcare, currently about 50%, if our house purchase goes through - so swapping the rent for a mortgage and extra insurances will be up to around 60-65%.
Oh God, hadn't really looked at it like that before
Edit,5% each for me and mrs-g in purely disposable income. 15% for food and travel, 10% to save. Yeah, thats all the money gone
savings standing orders
Can you count savings as bills?
Not including food.1% maybe less.
Incredibly well paid, still living with your parents, or detained at her Majesty's pleasure?
If i recall from the other thread, he lives in Thailand!
10 - 15 %
Embarrassingly i don't know. About 30% goes on rent, i know that much.
This is a perfect thread for STW d1ck swinging.
The mortgage is about 25% of my take home. Council Tax is about 5%. Genuinely have no idea how much everything else is.
Living on a very tight budget at the moment after being made redundant from one of my other job.
I have a spreadsheet to calculate/budget my entire year spending so this year I am break-even. i.e. zero saving as all gone towards bills (88%) and food (12%).
If I lived in London I would be screwed big time with this income.
I think I need to withdraw my union membership contribution as I can no longer afford them ...
[i]This is a perfect thread for STW d1ck swinging.[/i]
Interesting take on it but bearing in mind there's no salary details and no actual figures on monthly expenditure how do you work out your negative take on it?
Mortgage, food, bills (gas/elec/phone/broadband/tv/property management stuff/death cover for mortgage) = 45% which is more than I'd realised. I do pay for everything on my own though, the wife doesn't really earn much at the moment as she's working on a career change.
There's been remarkably little swinging MrGrease, unless you'd like to add some?
45.58% - that includes everything such as savings plans for our children, life insurance etc etc (just doesn't include food)
Im with Gary_M, as there are no details on where you live, whether you rent, live with mum and dad, mortgage, or own outright it just gives an interesting spread of the numbers across a fairly broad spectrum. My assumption is that the smaller percentage would more likely be down to age rather than location. There is no really willy waving potential.
I wouldn't count personal saving as proper monthly outgoings really.
Depends how much I earn (self employed). Varies from <20% to 40%.
Seriously, mortgage, council tax, gas, leccy, water and childcare easily wipes out my monthly take home.
And that's before I consider optional extras like food, petrol, phone, broadband, clubs, charities, etc
If we didn't have my wife's income we'd be fairly screwed. No idea how single parents manage it, respect.
GrahamS - Member
If we didn't have my wife's income we'd be fairly screwed. No idea how single parents manage it, respect.
Previously I made some calculations for a single person expenditure ...
If you live in London you need £24k to £26k just to keep afloat with simple lifestyle. No saving.
If you are in the NE you probably can get away with around £14k to £15k with no saving.
50%ish on:
Mortgage
utilities
car expenses (insurance/tax - no loan)
phone/broadband/sky/mobile/tv licence
insurance
council tax
Groceries, savings, gym membership, bikes etc come out of the other 50% No kids.
Its bout 1/3rd of our current joint income.
Thats everything- mortgage , student loans , pensions , savings , cars (100quid standing order takes care of them) all bills and food.
Dont have as fancy a car or as big a house as some of my peers how ever the idea for me is prepare now so that when we have kids we have options instead of being backed into working all the hours to pay for the house.
After regular commitments and the inevitable incedentals I like to £20 per day for myself. This has been the same for the last 20 years.
All my fixed expenses:
1. Rent inclusive of all bills
2. Car insurance
4. Secure car park charges
5. Council tax
6. TV license
7. Union membership fees(will withdraw soon if my income does not permit)
All my variable expenses:
1. Petrol
2. Mobile phone - Pay as you go top up £20 x4 a year.
3. Food.
No more budget for the rest this year ... no new toys, no traveling home to N.Borneo for holiday etc.
If you live in London you need £24k to £26k just to keep afloat with simple lifestyle. No saving.
If you are in the NE you probably can get away with around £14k to £15k with no saving.
Its not quite so simple, IME I just adjust my expectations, on Teesside I rented a terraced house in a nice village for £500/month, down in the SE I shared a house for about the same.
The biggest difference is there is very little betwen a £500/month flat share and a £1500 (once c.tax and bills are paid) 2 bed terrace round here, so there isnt really an option of having a batchelor pad, you always need 2 incomes to rent anything.
Far more than I should have ever let I get too even more so when I had it massively reduced a few years ago. Working on getting it back that way.
thisisnotaspoon - Member
... on Teesside I rented a terraced house in a nice village for £500/month,
I have calculated that too and as I am renting a two bed flat with bills all in etc and near to location of work ... your £500/month rent is almost equivalent to mine in the Toon centre.
Two bed flat in the North East has a average of £500/month rent excluding bills.
Graham S - I lied 0.2%
Well paid, I suppose so, but all housing is paid for, and all I worry about is water and electricity, which as I don't use the A/C is next to nowt.
In the UK though - basic bills and utilities - at least 50%, this didn't include my rent, which was living in mates house for 100 quid a month cost with free DIY from me thrown in.
At the end of the month, with food, fuel, insurance etc thrown in, we had nothing left. I don't know what we would have done when we had to move out of his house in a years time and the project was finished.
Sorry for the willy waving, it entertained me when I realised how little I spent, and how much we are actually spending on eating.
All direct debits and other regular payments account for 35% of our net income. These include mortgage, council tax, memberships, subscriptions, utilities, phone, Sky TV, cleaning, car finance/tax/servicing, etc.
Food and all other expenses (incl additional saving) not included. Haven't worked those in detail out but assume the other 65%...!
Quirrel - Member
Sorry for the willy waving, it entertained me when I realised how little I spent, and how much we are actually spending on eating.
Hey your money so do as you like. You have earned them so what's wrong with showing off those cash?
Don't think that's willy waving at all Quirrel. Always interesting to hear from someone that has taken an alternative path.
You live up/down to your income to an extent......
When i first moved to aberdeen the 2 of us( mrs at uni)lived in a 1 bed shoe box in a shit part of town from a bike mechanics wage which is barely 5 figures per year.
No car , bikes and buses for transport,
Any bike bits or races were paid for by doing overtime.
Certainly wouldnt like to support a family in this way though but as a young couple moving out into big bad world it was fine and drove me to find a bettter job , but never forget the hard times your never more than a couple of life events from them .
With my income mail order bride is definitely out of question let alone hookers and coke.
😮
Hey your money so do as you like. You have earned them so what's wrong with showing off those cash?
Alternative path was always part of the plan for us. I had been out of the UK for 7 years before returning, six months unemployed burnt up half our savings, and reality of living in the UK and actually having an income, after coming back to start afresh, just wasn't happening.
My last post in UB was great, no bills, 10% tax, but 5% back as pension and a decent package, but living in UB isn't for everyone.
Current job I pay as much tax as a UK earner, possibly more, but the cost of living, rent etc make it worthwhile, for now anyway.
UK has great health service, public services and transport networks, but the tax man, and the bill collectors make it hard to make ends meet if you aren't two people working.
My mates on the dole, used to live a better, if somewhat more boring life than us, and have as much cash at the end of the month.
We have talked about going back, but that is years away, if ever.
Curiously i just looked up what it would cost to rent that self same dump we rented 5 years ago.....its nearly as much as my basic mortgage payment these days.
Almost all of it. After bills, food, fuel to get to work there's nothing left.
I don't remember signing up for it
About 95% goes on rent, council tax, utilities, insurance and food. The other 5% goes on petrol...
about 25%
girfriend has her own place too and i guess she spends more like 35-45%
both of us well paid but with average (for london) lifestyles and neither with big mortgages or any laoans or HP.
put like that i guess we are both very fortunate.
36 % covers everything. All food mortgage bills. That's what goes into the bills shared account. Thebrest is mine to do with as I fancy. Don't tend to do big holidays. But do enjoy my hobbies. And some of them can get quite Expensive.
About half I'd say. Mortgage & car loan are the two big ones then the other shit like utilities, broadband etc all adds up. Luckily it's just me living here otherwise I can imagine it'd be a lot more.
Is it fair to say that those with much smaller percentages either rent, have paid off a good bit of their mortgage, or bought back when houses were much cheaper?
Our mortgage payment is 82% of my take home!
I think I'm on a fairly okay wage (Senior Software Engineer) and our house is a modest 3 bedroom terrace in the north east.
Is it fair to say that those with much smaller percentages either rent, have paid off a good bit of their mortgage, or bought back when houses were much cheaper?
No not everyone. Some are well paid but don't want to be mortgaged up to the eyeballs and have never felt the need for Sky TV/gym memberships/eating out 4x week/frivolous spending/car payments/no kids/alcohol problem/smoking etc etc
Out of those "sins" MrSmith, I'm only guilty of mortgage and kids.
25% bills
12.5% childcare
15% savings
10% food and fuel (I don't know why I group those together but I always have done).
Took me years to get to this point, I was really stupid when I was younger - I was earning a fortune for a single bloke working in finance but I was spending fortunes too, I worked out once my outgoings we're 130% of my income!
Now everything is carefully organised to avoid waste and interest.
It is precisely 58.07%. But theat does include probably a bit too much for food, and some single yearly equivalent payments (clubs, NT that sort of thing), and bit and bobs for my car (VED, MOT breakdown etc) which I pay annually but budget monthly...
How the winter nights fly by... 😆
I have no clue although I did look at my bank statement recently and notice that the dog insurance is £65. WT actual F, how did that happen?
We could get by on my wage for everything. The Mrs works 2 days a week which we could save if we put our minds to it. And cancelled the dog insurance!
Trying to link to this PDF crashes my iPad so you will have to do it yourself.
Some national figures from the government. Quite a regional variation
A tad under 93% of what ends up in my bank account goes directly on monthly bills. Yes, ninety three percent. My wife's wages are the spending money.
12% of our joint income, with no mortgage, but inc childcare, council tax, utilities, broadband, insurances. Not inc food, diesel, house/car repairs or maintenance or other purchases.
Yep in London you have to house share.
2/5 of my net pay is for a grotty house share (incl. bills), with no living room. I live frugally otherwise to compensate. My biggest cost is train tickets to decent riding places 🙂
In Sheffield I had a nice flat with traffic free access to the peak district for 1/3 net pay (incl. all bills). Sometimes I feel crazy for being in London (and not chasing a mega salary).
I'd forgotten that we did a spreadsheet a few months ago - our direct debits come to 37% of our joint income.
The mortgage payment alone is 14%. Just mortgage, utilities and insurance (no phones, TV, etc) is is 29%. Car tax and insurance is 1.5%.
about 60-70% gone from couple to single without a pay rise, all the fun to deal with and none of the perks
Chuck food in and then the beer and bike fund is getting smaller
[i]Almost a quarter (24%) of households have no savings at allNearly a third (30%) couldn’t pay their mortgage if they lost their job
A third (33%) of people in the UK – or 8.5 million[1] households – have £250 or less set aside as a financial safety net, new research from HSBC shows.The survey of over 2,000 people found that almost a quarter (24%) of all UK households have no savings at all, while 9% have savings of £250 or less. Based on UK households’ average outgoings[2], this would last just four days if they were to unexpectedly lose their income.
18-24 year olds are the group most at risk: 33% have no savings at all, while a further 10% have savings of under £250. Based on their average outgoings, this age group would survive just three days on £250. Worryingly, despite being likely to have more financial responsibilities, almost a third (31%) of 35-44 year olds also have no savings and 12% have less than £250.
A third would not be able to pay their mortgage if they lost their job
Almost half of UK households (44%) have savings pots of £2,000 or less, with 36% of the population saying they would depend on their savings if they were suddenly made redundant or were unable to work due to illness. Given that the average Brit has monthly essential outgoings of £954 and monthly debt payments of £514, these households could soon run into financial trouble.
If made redundant, almost a third (30%) said they would not be able to pay their mortgage. A quarter (26%) would be forced to apply for benefits, while nearly one in ten (9%) would turn to unsecured lending such as credit cards, store cards or a personal loan to finance their monthly outgoings and 8% would rely on their overdraft.[/i]
*Huge generalisation alert*
And then I look at the cost of an average night out thread and can't help but jump to conclusions! People need to stop drinking shots and visiting casino's and sort their finances out. What happened to saving? Some people seem to want it all now and not think about where the money is coming from.
(FWIW I grew up on a council estate and had free school meals and half mast trousers, made me appreciate having nothing and working towards having something)
End of daily mail post.
I remember when my wife and I first moved in together, we had £160 ish for living on (food/transport etc) every month after bills went out. We lived simply and have done ever since, paying similar amounts in rent/mortgage since that time and saving the rest - this has meant we can now buy pretty much anything we want or need nowadays and are going on our third USA trip in 4 years despite us not earning loads.
We went to the bank recently and they wanted to lend us loads for a new mortgage as we don't owe anything and have been overpaying ours for years. We could get a mortgage now for a £250k house but are sticking at £160k as it will still enable us to have surplus to save or if rates go up.
Peoples eyes have been far larger than their wallets for some time now...
About 95% of my minimum wage goes straight out on bills, the rest is for my lunch and petrol money, all food is bought with the tax credits the missus gets.
I do have a nice bike though...
Around 55%. We do manage to "save" a bit each month, which goes straight into the mortgage to accelerate the improvement in our financial situation.
We still owe like a shitload on the mortgage (£170k) but that's dropped by £30-40k in 3 years!
Mortgage gone so council tax, food, childcare, utilities are the main costs shared with my wife. We each pay into a bills bank account and that means about 15% for me. So saving quite a bit but not too confident about my future employment prospects so could be used to fund early retirement.
65% or so... by the time you factor in petrol and food etc it's closer to 90%
We still owe like a shitload on the mortgage (£170k) but that's dropped by £30-40k in 3 years!
Blimey! By my reckoning you must be overpaying your mortgage by around a grand a month?!
I thought we were doing pretty well to put in an extra £250 month - good work fella!
The percentage all depends on where you are in life, if you're young and you've just taken out a massive mortgage you're going to have very little spare cash. if you're older and have paid off the mortgage then you'll be much better off. DINKY & no mortgage here, so bills are less then 10% of take home.
Well for us it changed massively when child number one arrived 12 weeks ago. Outgoings went around 30% of joint to 65% of mine.
This is after decent pension payments, mortgage, car etc etc etc.
It was quite a big jump going from looking after myself on a decent salary to looking after 3 people!
Wait till you start paying for childcare. Ooooft!
Wait till you start paying for childcare. Ooooft!
Don't get me started! Hopefully we should be able to over that ok or preferably she will do some remote contract work.
To give you a rough idea, we both work part-time and we use a local nursery to cover the two days a week that we both work.
That costs £365 a month. And that's in the north east so relatively cheap compared to what some people pay.