How much do you set aside for 'living expenses'?

[chody47]

I've been wondering recently how much people set aside for daily 'living expenses'. In this I consider things that aren't the bills or mortgage/rent payments, childcare or savings ect....so I'm talking things like food, petrol, going out to dinner, lunches, nappies, general spending money (for us that would include buying the odd outfit for DD, or having a day out, buying presents, pretty much buying random things you need at a shopping centre)......

I guess I think of this fairly often when I look at our budgeting spreadsheet as by far, most of the money that we earn goes into what I call the 'bills account', considering what we earn, I feel that living wise, we get by on not a huge amount.

For us, we get paid fortnightly, so we generally use about $800 a fortnight for all of these things. Some weeks we have a bit left over, other weeks this doesn't quite cover it all. I often feel that we need more, but I really thing it's more of a 'want'. I mean, we could get by on less, but we also like to do things if that makes sense. A lot of my friends seem like they would use a lot more on general living expenses, but I'm not sure if that's actually the case.

Anyway, if you don't mind me asking, what's your 'living expenses' budget, and how many people does that cover?

[Onelittleprincess]

We have to budget them into the budget. Our budget has everything. How much for nappies each week fuel each week etc. after all that we have $20 to our name to have take out buy clothes or save.

[nothing2lose]

We each put $850 aside a fortnight for bills, including groceries. So that's $1700.

Petrol, we each buy separately with our own money.

Then what's left is up to each us to spend/save as we like.

[briggsy's girl]

We budget and pay regular bills like electricity and gas, phone, water, rent, insurances, internet etc automatically each fn, and then spend about $300 a fn on everything else (food, entertainment, fuel, clothes, prepaid credit for phone, pay tv, swimming for DD, medication for me, chiro if i need to go). our budget is very tight at the moment, so there is minimal "splurging" - our one big luxury is pay tv - everything else is worked into the budget. there isn't much wiggle room right now (at all!), but we're surviving, and the alternative means me working a hell of a lot more hours to counter the loss of ftb and paying higher taxes, and it's hard to justify it...

[Tinks]

I couldn't give you an exact figure but I have set our budget up in such a way that all our bills and savings debited from our account fortnightly or weekly depending on the bill. Whatever is left in the account on Friday morning is what we have left for spending, including groceries.

[Amity]

Honestly? I don't budget. But I'm fortunate enough that I don't need to bother to budget.

I have a credit card with a set limit. Each month, EVERYTHING goes on the credit card (including bills - rates, gas, water, electricity), and I pay it off in full at the end of the month. That is, everything EXCEPT the car loan and the mortgage.

And when I say everything, I do mean everything. I rarely, if ever use cash. And I often pay for other people's food and drinks without blinking. I'd eat out for lunch at least three times a week. I'd eat out for dinner twice a week (once with kids, once without). And my DS1 is gluten free, so all our food is gluten free.

It comes down to the following, IMHO:
- Meal plan EVERYTHING. Buy only what you NEED.
- Baking home made lunch box snacks is VITAL.
- Fruit, fruit, fruit. More fruit.
- Dinner is generally chicken thighs, sausages, (gluten free) spaghetti, roast chicken marylands, basa fillets (fish) - for the kids. I get salmon and steak

It's actually relatively cheap to eat healthily. It's more expensive to buy junk food. I rarely buy takeaways, generally because it's more difficult to get gluten free stuff. It's cheaper to make home made fish and chips ($7.99/kilo for basa fillets, so $3 for fish, and $1 for potatoes) than to buy them at the takeaway shop ($6 each for flake and minimum $3 chips) It's cheaper to make home made gluten free pizza (about $5) than to buy take away (gluten free is always gourmet) pizza ($18).

And I always turn off things at the wall - TVs are rarely on, for example. However I ALWAYS use the dryer and the dishwasher every day. Bills are generally : electricity $300/qtr, water $200/qtr, gas $60/qtr, rates $1000/year. Phone is business related so I pay that through the business, as is internet.

My credit card bill is usually between $2,500 and $3,500 per month, depending on how many pairs of shoes I've bought. It does include childcare (but only before and after school care, which I usually use about once a fortnight for two kids, so not that much). That's for one adult and two kids. One month when the kids were away at their Dads for 2 weeks, it was only $1,200... but the month when the kids were with me the entire time, it was $4,000. So my kids are by far my biggest expense

Mind you, this doesn't include holidays. Gifts, including birthday, Christmas, Easter, and for family gifts, yes, but not holidays.

Oh and I don't have a shoe problem. I only have a problem when I can't get shoes.

[Lenny]

I don't consider food to be something we spend leftover money on. Food (groceries) is a budget item. As is petrol.
Lunches are all taken from home (DH can't buy lunch). So that's included in groceries. General spending money is only for eating out, gifts, days out, and other random things.
I think if you lump too much into 'general spending' then you don't really know what it goes on, and where you could save if needed.

[Tegam]

Our food budget is $700 a fortnight. This does include a few small incidentals but mostly food. We eat healthy options and I cook a lot of our food so I find that that costs more money. We are also a family of six

We budget everything

[chody47]

I don't consider food to be something we spend leftover money on. Food (groceries) is a budget item. As is petrol.
Lunches are all taken from home (DH can't buy lunch). So that's included in groceries. General spending money is only for eating out, gifts, days out, and other random things.
I think if you lump too much into 'general spending' then you don't really know what it goes on, and where you could save if needed.

I do actually set $ amounts for food and petrol and random things, but I then classify it under the heading 'living expenses'.

I'm not necessarily looking for ways to save on costs (I know that we could definitely save by spending less on 'random' stuff), I'm asking this more out of curiosity.

[danita]

i like divvy dont really budget i just filll 1 to 1.5 shopping trolleys a f/n for shopping usually around $650 for groceries. $200 fuel for my car not sure how much DH spends per f/n we save at least $1000 a f/n i pay childcare a mortgage we go out every friday for dinner and occasionally buy 1 take out meal through out the week, we splurge on things we really want and layby clothes when needed. i usually leave $400 a fortnight for extras that i may not of considered.
we have 4 young children 2 adults and 3 extra children every 2 weeks. i try to do as many cost free activities as possible with the kids and pack picnic lunches. im very fortunate at the moment to live this way.

[trishalishous]

we budget everything, but have $30 a week for fuel, $50 spending (which is shared, usually a meal out, money for pressies or incidentals around the house, then another $20 each for whatever we like) and $100 for shopping.

[Gigi]

i've been to get help with making a budget, and there are always so many columns, i just don't know how to fill in.

like
presents (your kids, their school mates etc) i make presents, but it still costs money to make presents
dentist (you don't know, until you're there, what needs to be done)
car repairs (ditto)
haircuts
shoes
clothing (only buy to be legal and warm, not for fashion, nonbrand name opshops and fetes are good).

the easiest one to answer is $30 per week for petrol (basically the school run and not much else).
maybe $20 for spending money if it's a good week
i never spend money on water whilst out, take water bottles with us everywhere. Always pack food for a child, they cannot wait "until we get home".

many things i CAN fill in for the budget, regular expected bills, but there is always so much "????" that i have no idea how to fill in.

i really need to have "Mr clip" in my budget, bilby has started telling me "mum, snakes will come" (the grass is high). Keep putting it off.

[Nai]

Per fortnight

Food: 360
Petrol: 50
Bicycle maintenance: 20
Dog food 40
Kids spending 40 (clothes, going out etc)
Own spending 280 (140 each, for going out, alcohol, clothes etc)
Gifts, miscellaneous: 50

I put 300 into savings per fortnight for big bills, holidays and emergencies, And extra onto the mortgage for house maintenance and furniture.

[~clover~]

I don't have a 'budget', I just pay what's needed & if there's any left, I usually spend it

Rent & most bills are paid through centrepay. Phone/net & insurance are direct debit. Gas, power & anything for school I pay as it comes in. Theres around $150 or so left & that covers those few bills every few weeks easy enough. As long as it all works out with timing. I simply haven't set up centrepay/DD since moving across the country & changing companies.

Food is up to $250 a week, petrol is normally $30 a week, but at the moment sports take us up to 2 hours away every Saturday, so thats an extra $40 odd.

Whats left over might do take away, or I'll buy a pack of ciggies (its generally a fortnightly thing) & a couple drinks, depending on what the friends are up to. And thats about as exciting as it gets!

If we want to do anything more, it takes alot of spaghetti on toast & planning! Or centrelink love

[BellyBelly]

The Millionaire Mind Intensive recommends 55% gets set aside for necessities, I think they have a great formula that I really need to get kicking with, just been thrown off with this surprise bundle, moving and settling. No excuse really! Also something ALL of the wealth/success/business seminars I have ever been to all say the same thing - the difference between wealthy and poor people is this: Poor people pay the bills then save (or spend) whats left. Wealthy people save first then the rest with whats left. They have different values and beliefs about money and the reason for the difference is fear. I actually posted my notes from Dr John DeMartini's money seminar in the money section I think, was a great seminar and made so much sense!

ETA link: https://www.bellybelly.com.au/forums...me-159089.html

[misty]

After Mortgages, rates, land tax, bills, etc, We are left with about $500 a fortnight (give or take $100 depending Army reserve pay), About $300 is dedicated to food, nappies, toileteries etc, Which leaves $200 a fortnight for anything else, coffee, clothing, school stuff, takeaway, extra bread and milk, etc. It doesn't go very far in a family of 6. Thankfully fuel is already paid as the cars a salary sacrificed, or we'd be really in the red, because we have two cars and my big people mover uses alot of fuel.

[Ambersky]

I take $400 a week cash out, $50 for DD2s day in care, $50 each for DH and I (lunches/coffees/clothes/personal) and $250 for food and all other 'shops' spending. Petrol and bills go on the CC which is paid in full every month. That leaves us a bit of a buffer in the bank for things like last month when the washing machine dies, i could buy another one straight away (Phew!)