Disposable income?

[toffee87]

What would you say is a reasonable amount of disposable income? Is it just that you want to have extra if you need to repair something etc. We're eager to get a mortgage, and have worked out we'd have £300 to spend after all outgoings (including food, petrol). Is that enough for a couple (with no kids)? We don't do much lol, take aways, cinema and not very often.

OH has overtime some months, but I also worry about when we come to ttc if we're not earning much more.

How much do you have after all bills, food, petrol etc?

 

[xoxsarahxox]

we have about £700 left. thats including everything paid for. to give a rough idea of what you would be paying out for here is a list of what we buy every month. (me,my OH, 3 year old and 3 month old)
council tax,gas,electric,water,car insurance,tv licence,mortgage,virgin media,2 phone contracts,house insurance,fuel,food shopping,babyfood/formula milk and nappies. that is eevrything we have to pay out for every month. we very rarley go out cause OH works alot so we dont spend much money socialising, we tend to have a takeaway once a week so we are left with quite a bit of dospoable income but thats cause we dont have a life and dont go out lol. try using the list above and work out how much you think you would be spending on all those things and see what you are then left with. before we got a house we forgot some things like house insurance and council tax ect off the list so was a bit of a shock when we suddenly remembered we had to pay for those sort of things lol x

 

[NDH]

A good rule of thumb when getting a mortgage is to not get one that is more than 1/4-1/3 of your take home income. If your mortgage is more than that it's very risky. Even if the banks approve a higher one than that (which they do) it doesn't leave room for essentials, not to mention emergency situations.

Just my two cents, you can do with it what you will. I've just seen lots of people take on bigger mortgages that they thought they could handle end up in financial ruin.

 

[toffee87]

Thanks, the mortgage wouldn't be more than a third. The 300 would be for us to buy whatever we want.

We're saving now for all the furniture, so our disposable money is ours to spend x

 

[NDH]

Ah sorry I misunderstood. Lol. £300 should be plenty then, depending on what kinds of things you like to do. DH and I have only $40/month for entertainment and $40/month each for our own fun money for whatever we want, but we're on a pretty tight budget, so $120/month is all we have for disposable income for now (by choice).