#FinancialAdvice #BudgetingHelp #SavingsGoals 💰
Hey everyone! 👋 I need some advice on my spending habits. I’m a 26-year-old guy living solo in the South, making around £3350 a month after taxes. Here’s a breakdown of my expenses so far this month:
– Mortgage: £750
– Service charge: £150
– Council tax: £123
– Electricity: £120
– Credit card: £96
– Water: £26
– Internet: £21
– SIM: £12
– Car tax: £21
– Spotify: £12
– Workplace union: £17
– Life insurance: £12
– AppleCare+: £12
– Travel: £389
– Food/Drink: £232
– Girlfriend’s birthday: £202
– Concert tickets: £129
– Gambling: £98
– Groceries: £91
– Father’s Day present: £70
Total: £3250
A few things to note:
– I overpay my mortgage by £90
– I contribute 8% to my pension with an additional 11% from my employer
– Travel expenses are mainly for future train tickets
– I’ve been eating food I already had to keep grocery costs down
– The credit card spending is spread across different categories
I’m feeling like I should be saving more than £500 a month. Any thoughts on where I can cut back?
EDIT: I realize the gambling is unnecessary and I should address that.
Possible solutions:
– Cut back on unnecessary expenses like gambling
– Look for cheaper alternatives for things like entertainment or gifts
– Create a strict budget for each category to control spending
Any other suggestions? Let’s chat! 🤔💡
Start by setting yourself a £40 a month limit on gambling.
What’s the interest on your mortgage? And better to break down bills further so we can see if anything is too much.
How much do you want to save a month?
Also, obviously, the gambling is not ideal. If you don’t have an addiction and it’s just the occasional bet it’s fine but it’s the easiest to cut out from that list of course.
Food / drink (presumably eating out, since groceries are separate) seems excessive. If it’s just for June, that’s nearly £20 every day.
Girlfriend’s birthday, father’s day and concert tickets are all the kind of things that feel like “one off” spends, but the question is then how many such “one off” events are there during a year?
And gambling can easily become a money pit, even if it’s just a bit of fun, and not an addiction.
That’s basically the same as me and it pisses me off the birthdays and Father’s Day bullshit I can’t afford this every year. However, the gambling cut that shit out and invest it bro?
What is ‘savings’ for? Do you think this should be money you won’t need for a long time (long-term, like an income-replacement fund) or is it for house repairs, or what?
Gambling @ £100 is a proper waste of money.
Eating out (‘food/drink’) could be much less if you spend a bit more on groceries and took a packed lunch.
Fair wodge on your girlfriend’s birthday but that’s once a year – how about all the other birthdays you buy for, and Christmas?
Basically from your list above it seems you don’t yet have a dialled in annualised budget – i.e. if something doesn’t happen monthly like a ‘bill’ then you mentally disregard it. But stuff that happens infrequently or on a less predictable schedule still needs accounting for as you’ll spend it eventually- that’s why you’re ‘dipping into savings’ because some of those ‘savings’ are really just required for living.
I recommend YNAB a lot for this, but other apps are available – or just go through all your last 6 months’ spending and average it out. Then you’ll have a clearer view of what you can really save that’s untouchable.
I think the amount you’re saving each month isn’t too bad.
However, if you want to cut spending, you need to look at non essentials. Food and drink is quite expensive and you’re spending on things like gambling and concert tickets, which you could go without. And £70 on a Father’s Day gift seems a little excessive.
Equally, if these things make you happy, do you want to give them up? I know savings are important, but is it worth making you miserable?
Food & Drink and Gambling are the two categories I’d try to cut. Eliminating gambling completely sounds like an easy win.
You’re saving £500 to an ISA? Do you include your workplace pensions too? Add in the employee and employer part.
Are you in credit card debt?
You’re saving about 20% of your post tax income, which looks fine to me.
Do you make decent pension contributions?
Other than that we can’t really tell you how to spend your money, it’s personal preference. Personally, i’d ditch the gambling, because although it’s not that expensive now, it might become so in future.
You also gift quite generously, sometimes time or something thoughtful is better than expensive consumer nonsense.
When you say long distance travel for family, is that train? Might be able to save there a bit by buying ahead/split ticketing etc.
> Struggling to save a lot
> Savings – £667
That’s far more than the majority of this country saves every month.
Obviously the gambling needs to go.
When you have big events coming up such as birthdays and concerts, what you should do is put a bit of money aside each month to pay for these items. Stop gambling and put aside the 100 per month for high ticket purchases such as birthdays, holidays, concerts,etc and that will resolve most of your budget issues.
Alternatively using the 100 gambling per month to pay off your credit card would also be s good move. Not sure what your interest or balance is but m If I was you I would clear the credit card debt as fast as possible. No credit card and no gambling leaves you with an extra 200 per month.
Your food and drink budget is high and can come way down but a young man spending 330 per month on groceries, restaurants and drinks is not tbe end of the world. It’s all about priorities. If you enjoy eating out then I think your budget can accommodate this comfortably.
Has your gf told you she has a birthday monthly? I think she might be taking you for a ride lad
With a 2.69% mortgage I wouldn’t bother overpaying. Put the overpayment money in a higher interest ISA then pay off when the fixed rate ends. Might not be an enormous amount but over a year could be £30-40 extra at £90 a month.
Not loads, but ‘free’ money.
quick question – why aren’t you throwing all of your non direct debit expenses to the credit card? (assuming you have the credit limit and are on a full-balance direct debit repayment)
Are things like mortgage/service charge you paying 50% with your girlfriend paying the rest? Or do you pay 100%?
The biggest money saving thing you can do is split all your bills and live with a partner.
Insane privelege. You are saving 20% of your wage every month while living maintaining a decent work/life balance and complaining?!
Some people barely save anything without doing NOTHING.
Jesus christ.
>but I think I am struggling to save a decent amount due to spending
Ok…
>Savings – £667
Found it… 🫠
Seemingly you’re already saving 20% of your net take home…more than national average. What’s the issue?..
Side note: Saving is arbitrary without specific goals in mind. What are your aims?
You’re saving 8 grand a year are you taking the piss
You’re saving 667 a month, and no other expenditure seems excessive (except for the gambling maybe). What exactly do you need/want us to say? Always think these sorts of posts are just humble brags about how much you earn.
You have already saved £667. That’s not your expenditure. What’s the issue here?