How much cash y'all got ?

mr_eddy

A tad forward of me to ask such a thing but just wondering what you all have after everything is paid out at the end of the month (by everything I mean bills/food/clothing/entertainment etc) ?

My other half reckons we spend too much but I think we are doing ok - We each earn a modest 17.5k but our mortgage is only £380 pm and we have a small and warm house, neither of us drink or have big nights out - occasional meals out but never more than £50 a time. Overall we end up after everything with about £300-700 left over. We tend to put it towards a couple of nice holidays each year. I think if I did not cycle to work and we had a second car etc I would be far worse off.

That being said I don't save anything (I don't see the point on my wages) and I do have about £6k of low interest debt which is my main target of my extra cash hence the big gap in monthly disposable income (some months I pay more off than other months if we don't have a holiday planned etc).

Just out of curiosity those of you who are happy to discuss what do you guys have left over after everything ?

ballysmate

Get rid of that debt and you will have it cracked.
Happy days!

pblakeney

^^^^^ Debt first. Much enjoyment to follow.
That light at the end of the tunnel is the oncoming train of pension or no retirement though.

gethinceri

I get paid on the 10th. I have £1.60 in my pocket.

rick_chasey

If you're saving that much on that salary don't worry.

Just get your head down and work on earning more and you'll be golden.

That you a) are even saving and b) monitor it is 80% of the battle.

fenix

I save more than you for pensions and retirement which is <20 years away but can't afford expensive holidays.

I'd be getting the debt paid off as soon possible and skipping hols for a bit.

(how much is a nice holiday ?)

mamba80

you should look at the rate on your loan v your mortgage, i paid off my mortgage years ago, by making lump some payments into it but on a reduced term basis, rather than reducing the amount paid per month, the savings, even with a low interest rate are large.
Should you later hit hard times, you can go back to the original term but have much lower payments.
having no mortgage is a really good thing.

i note no one is actually saying how much they have left each month lol!

florerider

no income, even less left at the end of the month

pblakeney

mamba80 wrote:

i note no one is actually saying how much they have left each month lol!

As an old guy with lots of promotions and lots of time to pay off all debts, I didn't want to sound as if I was boasting. Being 100% debt free takes a massive load off the shoulders.

capt_slog

PBlakeney wrote:

mamba80 wrote:

i note no one is actually saying how much they have left each month lol!

As an old guy with lots of promotions and lots of time to pay off all debts, I didn't want to sound as if I was boasting. Being 100% debt free takes a massive load off the shoulders.

In the same boat as you.

After 20+ years of struggle, plus 10 years of making some headway I managed to pay it all off in 2012. Other than a couple of car loans , the only thing we ever owed was the mortgage. Never had anything on credit cards, if I couldn't pay for it at the end of the month it wasn't bought.

During those times I ran old cars, fixed everything myself, made furniture, did my own building, plumbing etc.

Both finally managed to get better jobs and promotion. We're now in the unbelievable situation of having two salaries coming in and just about managing to use one of them.

dinyull

We usually end the month with less than £100 a month left. That's after paying the mortgage, car/wedding loan, bills, wife's debt, £200 each to do with what we like and saving £400.

Our social life sounds a lot like the OP's, so if we were out a few times a month the savings would go out the window.

Both of our salaries are below national average, but then our mortgage is too.

rick_chasey

PBlakeney wrote:

As an old guy with lots of promotions and lots of time to pay off all debts, I didn't want to sound as if I was boasting. Being 100% debt free takes a massive load off the shoulders.

Assuming you already own something.

It's all very well being debt free but if you can't buy anything in the first place...!

slowmart

Be thrifty till you're fifty and spend till the end

joelsim

Huge debts on London mortgage, credit cards, car loan, futures (maintenance on 2 children), and about fark all in the bank.

Job done.

iPete

As an average over the last 4 months, £230.
It fluctuates and will hopefully increase soon as we finish paying off some stuff.

If you're concerned about spending, chuck 6 months of statements into excel, itemise each company (e.g. tesco = food, wiggle = bikes), assign a month value and then pivot the data. It takes half an hour to setup if you know how to use lookups.
You'll quickly see where it's going and if it's all necessary.

Be warned, there is nowhere to hide. Luckily for me 'bikes' is currently under the price of a travel card.

mr_eddy

Some interesting answers there - Agree with clearing the debt hence the big gap in my estimate, My debt is basically a home owner loan so its charged at our mortgage interest of 2.99% so very low rate that being said I am keen to clear what I owe. I pay what I can but usually pay double the normal payment sometimes more.

I simply refuse to spend every last penny I have on clearing a low interest loan, I totally get why some do but for me given that I don't go out / Don't drink / don't really have regular mates (how sad!) I have to have something to look forward too, Sometimes that is a meal out with the other half or a holiday. We did try going without a holiday for a few years but it was so rubbish, I look forward to a nice holiday.

I think overall for us to have a house (with a good chunk of equity built up) plus relatively low debt (I don't think 6k is so massive in the grand scheme of things) we are doing ok.

pblakeney

Rick Chasey wrote:

PBlakeney wrote:

As an old guy with lots of promotions and lots of time to pay off all debts, I didn't want to sound as if I was boasting. Being 100% debt free takes a massive load off the shoulders.

Assuming you already own something.

It's all very well being debt free but if you can't buy anything in the first place...!

Nonsense. Save up before you buy. A bit of patience for massive savings.
Mortgage. Save deposit and pay off ASAP. I started with nothing, and no hand outs.

rick_chasey

PBlakeney wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

PBlakeney wrote:

As an old guy with lots of promotions and lots of time to pay off all debts, I didn't want to sound as if I was boasting. Being 100% debt free takes a massive load off the shoulders.

Assuming you already own something.

It's all very well being debt free but if you can't buy anything in the first place...!

Nonsense. Save up before you buy. A bit of patience for massive savings.
Mortgage. Save deposit and pay off ASAP. I started with nothing, and no hand outs.

With all due respect, house & rental prices for places near where I work (i.e. where I have to live) are rising faster than my income is. It's only because my landlord is so keen to be a good landlord that I can get away with persuading him to go for below-market rent rises.

Of course you'll save up before you buy. That's obvious. But being debt free isn't the be all & end all.

guy.spartacus

PBlakeney wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

PBlakeney wrote:

As an old guy with lots of promotions and lots of time to pay off all debts, I didn't want to sound as if I was boasting. Being 100% debt free takes a massive load off the shoulders.

Assuming you already own something.

It's all very well being debt free but if you can't buy anything in the first place...!

Nonsense. Save up before you buy. A bit of patience for massive savings.
Mortgage. Save deposit and pay off ASAP. I started with nothing, and no hand outs.

Yeah - when did you 'start with nothing' though? Were you renting? Was the required deposit nearly 150% average annual earnings?

dinyull

PBlakeney wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

PBlakeney wrote:

As an old guy with lots of promotions and lots of time to pay off all debts, I didn't want to sound as if I was boasting. Being 100% debt free takes a massive load off the shoulders.

Assuming you already own something.

It's all very well being debt free but if you can't buy anything in the first place...!

Nonsense. Save up before you buy. A bit of patience for massive savings.
Mortgage. Save deposit and pay off ASAP. I started with nothing, and no hand outs.

I'd agree with that, although easier in some parts of the country than others.

I always have a little chuckle at my brother-in-law who moans every time you see him that they can't afford to buy a home - telling us how lucky we are. We are, but at the same time most of their money goes on renting in a "trendy" post code, new designer clothes/trainers and beer. If he had a bit of discipline he'd have a deposit in a few years no problem.

rick_chasey

and for context, being debt free at my age means having paid off all your student debts, which was £3225 a year in studying fees, plus whatever you borrowed off the gov't to survive as a student (in my case £3.5k a year).

So I paid off c.£20k of debt in my 20s.

So on top of that, I have another £40k saved, but that doesn't get me a deposit on a place unless it's well over an hour commute away by train.

So it's not that straightfoward.

Nowdays tuition fees are £9k a year plus whatever you lived off, so that's even higher.

guy.spartacus

I didn't go to university - I went straight in to work

Now at 33 I think I have about £240k in equity in my house and manage to pay off £500/month extra of the mortgage.

Alongside my wife who is currently on 70% salary and about to go on maternity leave for a second time in a few months.

pblakeney

guy.spartacus wrote:

PBlakeney wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

PBlakeney wrote:

As an old guy with lots of promotions and lots of time to pay off all debts, I didn't want to sound as if I was boasting. Being 100% debt free takes a massive load off the shoulders.

Assuming you already own something.

It's all very well being debt free but if you can't buy anything in the first place...!

Nonsense. Save up before you buy. A bit of patience for massive savings.
Mortgage. Save deposit and pay off ASAP. I started with nothing, and no hand outs.

Yeah - when did you 'start with nothing' though? Were you renting? Was the required deposit nearly 150% average annual earnings?

1. Choose life.
2. Choose not to live in the S.E.
3. Patience. I was in my late 40s before that stage.

And yes, it was an option to go to the S.E. I chose to have a life.

guy.spartacus

PBlakeney wrote:

guy.spartacus wrote:

PBlakeney wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

PBlakeney wrote:

As an old guy with lots of promotions and lots of time to pay off all debts, I didn't want to sound as if I was boasting. Being 100% debt free takes a massive load off the shoulders.

Assuming you already own something.

It's all very well being debt free but if you can't buy anything in the first place...!

Nonsense. Save up before you buy. A bit of patience for massive savings.
Mortgage. Save deposit and pay off ASAP. I started with nothing, and no hand outs.

Yeah - when did you 'start with nothing' though? Were you renting? Was the required deposit nearly 150% average annual earnings?

1. Choose life.
2. Choose not to live in the S.E.
3. Patience. I was in my late 40s before that stage.

And yes, it was an option to go to the S.E. I chose to have a life.

It's a bit tricky to choose not to live in the South East when you've started work at 18 and still live with your parents though.

I still live in the South East, in deepest Kent.

rick_chasey

Yeah. As I've mentioned in another thread PB - in '09 when I graduated up North, there were very few jobs going for grads outside of London, given it was the depths of the recession post the GFC.

You can sit there on your middle aged high horse, but you would do well to understand the dynamics behind the young complaining about house prices.

http://www.economist.com/news/britain/2 ... uch-faster

Dig deeper into the data and a more complex picture of the state of Britain’s young emerges. Their incomes are not as bad as some suppose. But the dysfunctional housing market weighs heavily on their standard of living.

The financial crisis of 2008-09 hit the young hard. Employers slashed recruitment and fired their most junior workers. Youth unemployment rose from a low of 12% in 2001 to a high of 23% in 2011. And as competition for jobs rose, the average weekly wage of a 22- to 29-year-old fell by more than 5% in 2008-12, a worse performance than that of any older age-group. Britons born in the 1980s earn no more than the previous generation did at the same age.

perhaps the single biggest complaint of young Britons concerns housing— and it is justified. In the past 25 years the rate of home-ownership has fallen among all people of working age. But it is down by a whopping 30 percentage points among 25- to 34-year-olds. Whereas in the early 1990s two-thirds of this age-group owned their own home, nowadays little more than one-third do. Eleanor, a young media worker in Manchester, sighs that unlike her parents she will not have a home of her own by the time she is 30.

mamba80

Rick Chasey wrote:

Yeah. As I've mentioned in another thread PB - in '09 when I graduated up North, there were very few jobs going for grads outside of London, given it was the depths of the recession post the GFC.

You can sit there on your middle aged high horse, but you would do well to understand the dynamics behind the young complaining about house prices.

Rick, i have no idea how the younger generation, let alone the next one, will be able to afford to buy their own place, starter homes are cr@p and down here tend to built in shitte areas, like next to a 24 hr busy DC or an industrial estate, so much for choosing life! how about giving your first born asthma ????? they are also not cheap either, 150 to 230k.
avg wage for a male here is about 21k.

In Cornwall, my house, has gone from an affordable 96k in '98 to 400k, on my salary now, i d not afford that, let alone have a life.

rents are also stupid too, oft higher than a mortgage, so saving up 50k or so is impossible and if you did the house you wanted would have risen far faster than you can save.

So, unless you ve a career that earns silly money and/or have housing owning parents who wont need a care home, its a fuggin nightmare.

dinyull

In London, it's totally f*cked and the yooth have no hope. I agree.

However, being a northerner I struggle to see how some can't get on the market. Can't help but think it's because of the whole #YOLO culture - either pi$$ing it all up the wall or expecting to buy what mum and dad have.

For eg. Elenor (above) from Manchester doesn't think she'll own a home by 30 - what and where is she looking at. Bolton's (10 miles up the road from Manchester) house prices are approx £50k cheaper than Manchester. And I'd guess Oldham, Rochdale are the same and Burnley is one of the cheapest places to buy in the country.

rick_chasey

^^ Jobs innit.

Reason London's so expensive is not just lifestyle - it's cos that's where the work is.

pblakeney

Rick Chasey wrote:

Yeah. As I've mentioned in another thread PB - in '09 when I graduated up North, there were very few jobs going for grads outside of London, given it was the depths of the recession post the GFC.

[/quote]
It went pear shaped when I was in my mid 20s. Worse than recent times.
I moved abroad. Came back just as skint, but better qualified. Choose life.

iPete

I so hope you're quoting trainspotting.

okgo

Best thing I ever did was not get tied down into one company for too long. Many people I started work with years ago have stuck around and been hideously punished for doing so, financially.

I've been hideously in debt in my younger years mainly through being a tit and its grim, really grim.

I've got the fun and games of buying a flat to live in alone soon, I can tell you that even with what I would class as a decent deposit and being in the top couple of percent earnings wise, I'll be lucky to get much further in than bloody Balham.

For those thinking buying in London is pretty easy and that if everyone wasn't so YOLO they'd be fine, to be in the top 5% you need to earn £103,000 a year. The competition for property is hot. I would almost say that if your job has no clear route to paying you 6 figures, sack it and go and live elsewhere. Its just not worth it.