On average how much spending money do you have each week? [Archive]

Lilahh

01-12-2009, 08:46

Around $50-$100, depending on how much I decide to save that week. If I save nothing, I have $150 to spend, but I always try to save at least $50 per week.

Although, my baby bonus runs out next week, so then Im onto savings and DP's money. Once that happens, Im going to have a spending budget of no more then $50.

jennababe

01-12-2009, 08:47

about $100 to $150 most weeks anyway. if theres a really big week with bills and stuff sometimes i dont get anything.

Dp is happy with a carton, smokes and a $20 in his wallet lol.. and the ocassional $50 for JB-HIFI;)

i will admit i have a bit of a shopping problem:o i love to buy new clothes and things for the house, and lots of nice things for my boys.

Miss_Vicki

01-12-2009, 08:48

i dont get money as such , thou put 40 as i buy smokes so i giess thats for me,

when i was with DP thou he would try an budget to make sure i would least have about 50is-100 fornite to spend on Just me thou every time i had mo for me id end up gettin kids stuff lol

crazymuma

01-12-2009, 08:53

On a good week there might be $60 left - on a bad week nothing at all.

On the good week I will usually shout the kids to hiring some DVDS or we will go and buy something we need - rarely will I spend it on myself.

Before I became a single mum my ex was on good money - after all bills I had at least $500 in my hand to play with every week so going from that to a pension has sort of sucked.

MummaBear03

01-12-2009, 09:05

After direct debits are taken out which cover the house, car and fortnightly installments on the utilities and the school fees, I then have roughly $50 to use for fuel, food and anything else that might crop up. When I'm working I've got heaps more and that's when I stock up on things like non-perishable cheap food and put some into savings for times like now when I have not enough coming in to cover anything.

No spending money, I only wish I did! Although I have been out for coffee about 10 times this year which is pretty good. I'm hoping to have enough left over this week to get to Vinnies and buy myself a pair of jeans, mine are falling apart, which is no surprise really since they are about 10 years old :o

A new pair of shoes would be nice, too, since they are full of holes and are the only ones I own that are suitable for work. Not good when you rock up to talk to a new employer about getting work!

elleandsam

01-12-2009, 09:20

I have around $100 a week to buy whatever I like, but I usually end up spending it on DD.

MummaMilk

01-12-2009, 09:39

We have around $600 between us since DF recently started FIFO, but we have $15,000 in debt that we will be paying off asap, after I get my thermomix ;)

baylees mummy

01-12-2009, 15:13

Wow there is a big variety hey! Just bumping this up :)

lilmissmkiii

01-12-2009, 15:19

We get nothing to spend on ourselves.

Whatever is leftover after bills is put straight onto our debts as extra payments.

In doing this, we have reduced the life of our loans from 5 years left down to 12 more months :)

dancingchipmunk

01-12-2009, 15:22

I normally have around 40$ left over for me every week. his takes care of my obsession with celeb mags :o and my weekly 5$ crossword scratchie (or 2).

DP will be starting a much better paying job next week though so hoping to keep my spending down and save but really, honestly, don't see that happening much. I can't resist a good sale :p

SweetSerenity

01-12-2009, 15:29

Answering honestly here... I don't have any spending money.

All of our money goes on mortgage, food, DS, pre-school and every other bill under the sun.

I wish we had spending money but that's a sacrifice we make :)

~isis~

01-12-2009, 15:40

i wish i could say we had spending money. but not a cent here. im working over christmas just so we can give our lil one a good first christmas and birthday in feb. our older son (my step son) has been told we cant affored anything for him but i am desperatly hoping i can get some extra hrs so we can, i feel so bad about it. as i have never really lived like this i have always been able to get what i need plus, but we decided it was more important to us to survive and have mummy at home then to put bub in care and still only have a little bit bit to spend. just a sacrifice we see as worth it. and well dp has got a new job and wil be paid weekly not monthly so heres to the hope we will be better off. if not we at least feel like it knowing more money is just a few days away rather than a few weeks away

zenifa

01-12-2009, 15:41

We don't have any set spending money each week for DH and I. We have the usual bills like mortgage, utilities etc and we just buy things we want or need when we want or need to. There isn't a set amount we allocate to each of us, we just discuss and decide on big purchases (eg most recently a laptop, and additional stuff for our pc). We try to buy clothes once or twice per year at the sales and try to restrict buying stuff for the kids, to b'days and xmas - as they have plenty of toys, clothes, books etc.
Spending money or money in my purse usually goes towards paying for girls' weekly activities like gymnastics, playgroup and incidentals.
We are trying to be less materialistic, but its not easy.

What I want to know is what are you spending your 'spending money' on?

singa06

01-12-2009, 15:50

We dont really have a set amount, I budget for bills, food, gifts etc, if there is left over the rest goes on the house loan. If I need something, eg clothing, something for the house or DS, I just buy it from some of the savings we have. A few weeks ago Dh and I spent $700 on sunglasses :eek:(We then said it was each others Xmas presants :D). But there are lots of weeks where I dont spend a cent on extras ( I am not much of a 'shopper', I actually hate shopping unless I really need something).

tootiredtosleep

01-12-2009, 15:51

$100. It could be more, but we are really trying to cut back and pay off the house in 10yrs instead.
Mine pays for kids clothes, extra groceries, haircuts, coffee, laybys etc.
DH has roughly the same and uses his for a takeaway night, beer, DVD hire, swimming etc.

MsMummy

01-12-2009, 15:54

I'm a bit lazy so we don't have set amounts for things.

When my partner was working we just had separate accounts, and paid half of all the expenses and did what we pleased with the rest.

Since my partner has stopped working, my pay goes into a joint account and we just pay the expenses as they arise and put lump sums in the mortgage.

I would probably spend about $50 a week on myself (being food/drinks while out, newspapers, magazines, hiring DVDs. That probably includes the hairdresser.)

I need to cut down on my incidental spending. It's so easy to spend $5 or $10 a day on stuff you don't really need, and that adds up over a year.

My partner is really good at not spending much money. he can go weeks without buying anything, and he labours over the decision when he has to buy something.

EmPowering

01-12-2009, 15:56

about $100 a week:yes::yes: but then that can go down if i need phone credit or need to pay for other things etc.

that's also now in holidays, once i go back to uni and cant work much it goes down to about 80 a week !

baylees mummy

01-12-2009, 17:03

What I want to know is what are you spending your 'spending money' on?

We dont have any spending money... But if we did it would be to buy things like..

clothes for the kids
nice foods (chips, bacon and eggs, yummy fruit)
activities for the kids (playcenters etc..)
phone credit
everyday needs
things for our house
save money for big ticket items
etc etc..

Basically anything that we CAN get by without but would make life more enjoyable..

For instance we dont have a lounge, we sit on the floor.. its not a NEEDED item but it would be nice to have one :rolleyes: We also live off cheap food and the kids could do with some new clothes... Our son is 3 and sleeps in a portacot as we cant afford to get him a bed. (granparents were going to buy him one but not now.. Long story)

There are plenty of things we could class as spending money items :yes:

MummaMilk

01-12-2009, 17:15

What I want to know is what are you spending your 'spending money' on?

At the moment we are buying a few things that we have been wanting for months/years replacing things (like our car that is dead), paying off debit (including said dead car) and hopefully paying out our fox symes debt early as well as paying back 2 employers that over paid DF and then asked for it back 3 mths later, paying off bond assistance (finally). After that our spending money will go towards saving for a house deposit and wedding (just a small park one). I will also be going to do my doula studies and DF wants to upgrade his medic training to paramedic then maybe mica. We are probably going to send the boys to an independent school as well. We are also beginning to eat more organic/free range stuff (doing that asap).

This has been an up hill battle for us, we are finally going to be debt free after years of struggling and scrimping. It has taken DF a long time to get all the qualifications and experience he needs to do this job so it is a huge relief for us.

Refresh

01-12-2009, 17:20

I think I need to give myself a set amount of spending money, I'm terrible, it just comes in and goes straight out again. I spend about $100 a week on kids sport, then there is tuckshop once a week - $12 or so, a few trips to the coffee shop, extra groceries, milk, etc, kids clothes, there is always something....so I guess it would be a couple of hundred.

honeydew

01-12-2009, 17:39

We don't have a set amount for spending each week and never have. All our bills are direct debited the day DH's pay goes in, including our mortgage payments.

Anything else that we want or need we just buy as it comes up. At the moment we've cut our spending right back because we have just built a new home and are trying to get some landscaping happening.

mum_I'm_hungry

01-12-2009, 17:48

We don't have a set amount, we're terrible budgeters. We just have a set amount we save each fortnight and the rest is up for grabs :o

zenifa

01-12-2009, 18:17

Thanks to those that answered my question.

I guess I think of 'spending money' as being for luxuries or extras, ie not essential nor planned expenses.

naiwen

01-12-2009, 18:54

I don't really have a set amount, some weeks if I stay away from the shopping centre and the computer it could be $10.00 and other weeks it could be $800.00, DH organises all the mortgage payments and savings accounts and whatnot and then I just buy stuff for me and DD on my CC which DH pays of each month - the only time he complained is when I spent 2k in one week but in my defense we were on holiday and my parents were over from the UK.

I mostly buy things for DS really - toys, equipment, clothes, linens, furniture, books etc.

mumma2ajem

01-12-2009, 19:38

me and dp dont have set amounts for spending money we pay the mortgage and bills including food etc out of our joint account which his pay goes into and my pay goes into ( i work one day a week for a few hours for my mum) then we just buy whatever we want out of this account some weeks we may spend $30 some weeks we could spend $500 depends on what we want to buy etc
we have another account that our FTB money goes into but that is dd's money and we use that to buy her formula, clothes, toys, mcns and anything else she needs ( her food etc comes out of our joint account )

baylees mummy

02-12-2009, 02:09

Bump :d

BlessedWithBlue

04-12-2009, 15:24

We get paid fortnightly and i always add $200 spending money in with the budget.
I find that way we have $100 per week to get things like lunch out, luxury items, dvds, medications etc that way i can keep control of what is spent on what.

Everything stays in the bank and gets divided up between the regular household things like bills, mortgage, childcare etc the only money i withdraw is our spending money.

crazymuma

05-12-2009, 16:44

What I spend my spending money on varies - if I have enough I may take the kids to the movies (has happened once in 12 months), we may hire some weekly movies also. And the odd week there is $20 left I may treat myself to a bourbon or 2

This spending money is also used for any medication we may need, extra petrol if we are going to visit friends that live half an hour away (I haven't had the money to visit them in over a month).

This weeks spending money has gone on extra petrol for a few medical visits I have needed and the kids needed some shoes so I spent $10 on 2 pairs of shoes. I also bought a bottle of childrens panadol which has left me with $13 in my purse for a week - and that will be used on bread and milk.

Any spare spending money in the next month will go on my sons school books for next year.

Sorry but I also have to say to the PP who said they can't afford to buy there step son a christmas present - thats really slack hey.

Perhaps cut down on your childs presents and buy the stepson something small.

Sorry but I couldn't not say that - I have nothing - we have bare mimimum but I know that christmas is coming every year which gives me a year to pay off the small amount of gifts my children receive.

My kids don't receive gifts from his father cause he can't afford it and too be honest its such a bull**** excuse and does nothing but hurt the kids.

mum2bubba

05-12-2009, 19:19

Maybe $50. I could spend more but some of it goes to the kids' accounts (I put a little away for them each f/n when my c/link money goes in).

Basically, I get about 480 a f/n from c/link. $200 to $300 goes to groceries (depends if we need nappies, formula etc), $65 goes to Hayley's speech pathologist, $12 goes to Skye's occasional care (it'll be more next year because a) Nathan will be going too and b) Skye will be going an extra day). I put maybe $5 to $10 away for me and the kids ($5-$10 each) each f/n. It also depends on bills too. Most of Grant's pay goes to the mortgage so whatever we both have at the end of the month/f/n whatever we'll put it together.

A Party of Five

16-12-2009, 16:41

Around $100 but if we decide to save it that week it all goes in the bank :yes:

Susan Mac

26-12-2009, 22:33

In my budget we have $240 a week for spending. That doesn't include bills or fuel - tha t money goes into seperate account. Or house, car or health maintenance and flights to visit DH's parents - that's in another account. But the $240 includes groceries, entertainment, clothes, coffees, hobbies, gifts. Anything that's not a bill, really. We average $90-100 I suppose on food each week. Unfortunately, I've overspent this year, but bills came to less than expected, so I'm okay this year but need to do better next year.

Where does the money go? On crap, mostly! No, seriously. We haven't bought a whole lot of clothes recently, but DH did get an iPod a few months ago, and I bought too much tupperware earlier in the year... A coffee or two a week, the occasional book, birthday and christmas presents for a LOT of family, a newspaper or two each week, a bottle of wine every so often, plants.

I'm always really thankful that I have so much spending money each week, and that I don't have a super strict budget that i have to stick to. Though sometimes I think it makes it too easy to spend too much on crap.

joshysmum

29-12-2009, 13:04

Wow thats just a good life if you get that much!!!! I wish I had that kind of money to spend. We are building a the moment so it will be different when we are finished but even then looking at the budget we should have around $600-$700 a f/n spare and I will be spending it on new lounges and nice things for the house before we get back into the saving stream again.

Greenhorn

29-12-2009, 13:24

We just spend :| DP earns a bit, so my money is my money & ill just pay the electricity/rates etc bill when it comes. Im also trying to pay off my debts asap (they are about 5k)

DP's money mostly goes on the mortgage, if we reaaallllyyy wanted to scrimp & not have a lot to spend we'd pay off the mortgage in 6 years. But we're chosing to have the luxuries while we can. We have borrowed way under what our limit would be. we don't need much to make us happy :)

Lemonhead

29-12-2009, 15:14

After paying the car loan and rent and bills each fortnight we have about $1000 left so save some and spend some :D.

supa_star323

01-01-2010, 18:06

Once I pay bills, food, rent, daycare and fuel in the car I have like $10 a week. And that doesnt include paying running expenses and rego on the car, or jacob's medical expenses.

It definitely explains my lack of social life and why I often have to borrow money, but I want to go to uni so this is the way it will be for a while.