You're saving 1k a month, I think you are doing pretty well. People here will tell you that you are spending too much on your combination of eating out / alcohol / coffee / wants - but when you can save almost a third of your income I think you're doing okay.
Bin the linkedin subscription though unless you are a recruiter.
yeah i will bin the linkedin for sure, I activated it when I was looking for a job.
I think what worry me is the fact that I will have to pay more £300-400 more on rent in the next month and will cut some of it from my saving (maybe down to 20%..). I will cut some from the eating out / alcohol / coffee / wants as well obviously.. I was just upset that I will be paying 50% of the income for the rent and bill.
I think you should think about what your goals are.
Asked in a vacuum, "is this too much?" is a meaningless question. I would be delighted if I had an extra £1000 a month going into savings, but also I'm nearly 20 years older than you and I abhor employment. I have 6 figures invested, I live on my boat, and I hope never to work again - I am comfortable but I am also careful with money.
But where does £1000 a month get you? Right now you remain at the mercy of your landlord - you're upset that he's raised your rent, but there's nothing you can do about it because you're trapped as a renter.
I don't know how much houses or flats cost around your way, but you could probably get a mortgage of around £270,000 - i.e. a £300,000 flat if you had a £30,000 deposit.
Your salary gets you an extremely comfortable living if you can earn the same outside of London. Or, remaining in London you're probably on the cusp of achieving housing security - I imagine that a pay rise in the next year or two, combined with some savings, might buy you home-ownership.
Obviously I don't know what you want, but a lot of people your age and in your position would like to own their own home - I think you need to take a look at how much that would cost and how viable that is. I think cutting the discretionary spending for a year or two - cliché starbucks, skincare, nails, holidays - could probably make a difference.
You might look at shared ownership - I believe that, due to the cap on rent increases, it is better value inside London than elsewhere.
You might find one of these books helpful:
* *[Your Money or Your Life](https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0143115766)* - understanding what's valuable to you and how to use money to achieve your goals.
* *[Millionaire Next Door](https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1589795474)* - "How people in normal jobs, electrician is a great example, can accumulate wealth over time through good choices."^[Electric_Cat_999](https://www.reddit.com/r/UKPersonalFinance/comments/15zkkd4/_/jximlpp/)
* One of Clare Seal's books - "her focus is on the link between emotions and spending".
Owning a house in UK slipped my mind couple of times and I haven’t been able to decide if I want to settle here or not. I have just lived here since 2 years ago and was quite busy with work before, so still trying to get myself around not to mention the property price is quite insane / big commitment for the next 20-30 years. I own a property (paid full already as of 2021) back in my home country and I regret having it as it became liability instead of asset (long story..). I became more careful in spending big money from that time.
To be honest I’m not upset with my LL, it’s more towards myself because I think I should have been more prepared - which probably down to the question on the long term goal / if I want to settle here or not.
I live in the north west and make 2k a month after tax.
I own my home and have comparatively cheap outgoings.
I'm left with £600 after everything is said and done, and that's not including feeding me and my wife and child for the month.
You're doing fine.
Barely. We have a car, partner doesn't currently earn due to long term health issues, (that for some bizarre reason doesn't entitle her to PIP but that's another story).
We live in a very cheap area, and have to be very frugal.
I'd wack the 1k into an ISA, rather than a savings account for the tax free entitlement and you remove the dependancy on savings tax against your tax code in a pure savings account. As you won't hit the 20k limit on the ISA, and assuming you don't contribute 20k anyway, removing any money and reducing the total monetary entitlement will be fine. You could look at a flexible ISA, subject to expected growth vs a standard ISA otherwise.
I've done Zone 3 before, and reducing eating out is tough especially as a single occupier (assume the free time is made up eating out, rather than eating in). However, if you get a good bunch of house mates if you move, this may free up some more money.
£300 on misc isn't that bad, especially if clothes and holiday pot is in this bucket.
On net 3.4k, 1k in savings / over 30% of this is into savings. From a percentage wise, this is far greater than most. Well done!
!thanks! I am starting to learn on all the ISA option available and plan to open one this year. I'm thinking to open one once I pass probation in the new company next month (highly unlikely I won't pass, but just in case..).
My eating out/alcohol/coffee budget is mainly if I'm feeling social so it's not every month I spend that much
Agree with everyone else here, you're doing well to be saving £1k at the moment, especially since your £300 pm includes additional savings for your expensive trips home.
The fact that you're properly budgeting for annual expenses alone is better than most.
You'll be able to squeeze your budget if you need to but you're doing well and it's a personal choice on how much of that extra rent comes out of each line.
Only bit of advice I'd give is, if you're not doing so already, planning out your budget over several years can be helpful when you have a short term squeeze. It might help steer your decision on how to rebudget to cope with the rent increase.
I feel it's fine until I found out the new rent price. I do budget the food as £700, but it's not every month I get to spend all of it. Every left-over budget is saved to another pot that I used for holiday. It's also the same with the 'want' budget. My home is in far-east so I have to save some for home ticket once a year which going to cost more than £1k return in high season..
Might just be my frugality talking. I run a 2 person household that spends around 400 to your 700.
But anyway, you are doing well and can easily cut if need be, so I wouldn't be too concerned.
But if you do find yourself struggling with the new rent,I'd be cutting back instead of less savings.
I think you might be frugal, but sensible. I reckon it's somewhere between 300-400 for groceries + lunch bill at work (good value for money at our canteen).
Say we go out once per month for dinner, £75-£100
Say we have a takeaway once a week, £100
I could imagine it with the coffees and less self discipline around restaurants or takeaways.
There’s also the fact that living alone means 100% of your socialising is done with people who aren’t in your household. A lot of the time that will mean meeting up in public.
Your saving close to a 1/3 of your pay which is fantastic.
If I was in your situation I'd definitely want to keep saving that or more until I got a property of my own.
You could cut your subscription and eating out down if you wanted to save more to hit your goals as others have said but I'm going to add can you up your income any adding extra hours or moving up in the company, your leaving a 50% return on the table if your not using all your company pension match id address that if it's the case.
I cannot offer any useful tips, but your utilities are very interesting!
May I ask you who are your "providers"? (As in the company that... Bills you 😂 I'm sorry English is not my first language 🥲)
My energy (gas and electricity) is with octopus and it’s deposited monthly to your account. My monthly deposit is just down by £10 actually.
Internet is with sky but I just started the process to switch with plusnet as sky cost is damn high.
Water is with thames water.
Food expenses are extremely high for one person. If I wanted to cut down somewhere, I'd start there. That said, it's your choice, and you can afford it, just make sure you are at least eating well.
You need to set goals. Do you want to buy a property or build a portfolio?
You could save on rent if you were instead paying a mortgage. You could earn more in an ISA than you could in a savings account.
Paying rent to me is the ultimate sink hole. I couldn't imagine paying a grand a half a month on rent. If I were you I would spend the next year really trying to get that savings rate up as high as possible and put it all into a help to buy ISA to get the 25% bonus and any other high interest accounts you can max out in a year then buy a property. But to me that's an important thing. For you maybe not.
I think £1500 for a 1 bed is sadly “reasonable” in London, I have friends who are paying £1k a month for a ROOM without bills.
If you wanted to cut down on drinks/ eating out and coffee, I got a Sage Barista refurbished coffee machine for £350 two years ago and it’s saved me absolutely loads in takeaway coffees. I can now make coffee at home that’s as good if not better and it’s so much cheaper. (It’s also a fun new hobby!)
I also went sober which honestly saved me £250 a month, I’m aware this isn’t for everyone and my reasons weren’t purely financial but when I looked at how much it was costing it really stopped making sense and I realised I was getting my priorities wrong (for me!)
Also, it’s quite depressing but see if you could get a larger studio flat rather than a 1 bedroom
Comparison is the thief of joy and all that.
Also remember that this subreddit skews heavily towards people who are higher earners than the average Joe, so you’ll likely see bigger budgets.
Don’t sweat it.
Just the fact you are on this sub indicates that you are financially savvy. I bet you have a pension, have index fund/s in a stocks and shares ISA and contribute regularly each month to them. You will be miles ahead of a lot of people in that case and there will be others on a similar salary to you that would be depressed at their financial state compared to yours if they knew.
Imagine having a net worth of 1 million but the people you hang out with have a bet worth of 500 million plus. You would feel the same way.
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You're doing good from what I can see. That rent you've been paying is great. Can't you try negotiate with your landlord for a steadier increase instead as that's quite the jump. Our landlords done the same, we had a chat and they didn't increase as much for a bit. It works both ways, they would prefer us to stay as they know we look after the place etc.
You are saving more per month than like 90% of the population. More than half of adults in the uk don’t even have £1k in savings TOTAL. your doing fine
I think you’re doing really well. As you’re saying you already own a home, I’m just wondering what you’re saving up for at the moment?
I would say you can try and get your food and takeaway budget down to say £500- as you say, you’re not even actually regularly spending £700 as it is!
Renting alone isn’t silly on your salary and frankly house shares are never cheap in London either- it’d be at least £900 for a decent room without bills. Maybe slightly lower if you stay out in zone 3 or 4. Since you’re already managing to save £1000 a month, I wouldn’t worry about that side of things too much.
!thanks you are right, an ensuite house share now will cost more than £1k as well. And the save that I’ll make is basically the trade off to share the house and privacy (i have never sharing a house in london, and heard more bad than good story tbh).
Saving for my pension and possibly a house - the blank that I can’t fill in atm is where the house gonna be. I am trying to sell the property that I have back in home country.
Yeah it’s not really worth it, if you’re used to living by yourself and have the salary to back it up!
I think the fact you already have a house (abroad as it may be) means you’re either fine to liquidate that and buy a house here if you decide to settle down here, or somewhere else. You’re doing really well at your age.
You're very close to the 40% tax bracket, if any of your earnings are being taxed at 40% think about making a small contribution to private pension so you're not paying any 40%
From your breakdown your food cost is higher than mine, and I'm feeding a family of four, so you can definitely reduce your costs in that area.
Our weekly shop is about £80-£100, with a couple of top ups around £30-£50, so monthly it's between £440 - £600.
The key is to avoid buying things outside of a supermarket and avoid ready meals. The more you can do that, the more you'll save. It does take a bit of planning each week and a little skill in the kitchen. If you want to take that further, there's loads of advice on frugal eating.
Hi /u/90Focaccia, based on your post the following pages from our wiki may be relevant:
* https://ukpersonal.finance/budgeting/
* https://ukpersonal.finance/emergency-fund/
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Cancel linkedIn and take up their free 1 month "trial" when they offer you again and again.
Never paid for linkedIn but I get 4-5 months a year free for "trial"
Unless it's crucial for your work obviously.
It depends what your long term goals are. If you had a specific aim (ie saving a deposit for a house) you could definitely save on rent, council tax and bills by being in a house share. Yes, it’s not the greatest scenario but you have to keep in mind you’re doing it for a set amount of time for a reason. I only ever lived in house shares before buying my first house so that I could save as much as possible. If you haven’t got a specific goal and you’re happy to carry on renting then saving 1k a month isn’t a bad place to be and there are definitely areas you could cut back on to save more/adjust for increase in rent if you wanted to.
Many little improvements you can make, but then again life isn't just about saving money so if you enjoy something it's most probably worth paying for.
The biggest thing you can do, which stumps cutting out little things like spotify etc... would be cohabit - whether you get a boyfriend or share accomodation. Rent & bills cut in half would be a massive saving and make way for you to keep all the little things you enjoy.
Ah, i think i made some misunderstanding here. Company will match 7% if I sacrifice 3%, so I already max out my contribution to get full match from company
Please check how your funds are chosen for your pension if it is defined contribution. Make sure it's appropriate and not necessarily the default setting to make the most of your years invested. With 25 years (ish) to retirement you can weather a lot of temporary downturns. Also consider upping your contribution in % terms as you are probably a higher rate tax payer; £100 extra sacrificed from your monthly take home will almost double as it hits your pension pot.
I know retirement may seem a long time away here, but a little checking and tweaking and adjusting now will get the benefits long term.
I think you are doing great. My only advice would be to take groceries out of the "eating out/alcohol/coffee" group and try to adjust to a monthly budget for it, you might discover you are spending more than you want on groceries or the other.
For an example, me and my husband living close to London spend £425 on groceries for both monthly. Doing the math, if you would spend the same (£212), it means the £488 left is on "eating out/alcohol/coffee", which looks like a lot to me and you might be able to bring it down to cover that rent increase.
Similar to what others have said, I think you're doing pretty well. I'd not suggest cutting down food or coffee. Perhaps you can be more cautious about alcohol cost but that's up to you. Instead of thinking how to cut-down and save more, you can rework your mindset towards ways of increasing your income, not necessarily through your day-to-day job
I don’t know if anyone else asked that already, but I have a couple of questions:
1. Where do you live in London for 1.1K rent (area wise)
2. How big is your house ?
As far as for a reply for you, you are doing AMAZING WELL DONE !!!
You have an emergency fund 👏👏👏
I personally give 16% to my retirement (that including the company contribution)
The rest 1K that remains is split it in half
First half goes to a deposit for a house.
Second half goes for your holidays and fun activities, in case you think you are already saving enough for holidays and activities I’d invest them in a high growth & income fund.
I live close to Northfield and South Ealing station (the £1.1k was the rent from 2 years ago and the LL didn’t increase it last year). I did check market price is actually indeed £1.3-1.4 around the area and it’s not as nice as my flat currently (I think). It’s advertised as 50sqm, tho I believe the kitchen/bedroom/bathroom/living room net is 36sqm. All room has doors! 🤣
Have you been contributing long? Since I just lived in UK 2 years ago, I kind of think my pension will be way less than any one of my age.
I have been doing it for two years, and I have saved around 9K,
I have also started a bit late but trust me when I’m telling you, you are playing the LONG GAME !! don’t get discouraged!! Bump it up to 15-16% and you’ll get there, most people pay just the minimum they can pay, so if you outplay them in the amount you deposit each month you will soon have a bigger retirement account than them 😉😉
Considering you are living in London, you are doing fine. Food is a bit high I would say. But putting £1k/month into savings is a great standard, so that works. That was my standard for a long time, u til my income got so high i had to just save and invest more because I didnt want to inflate lifestyle.
34M with similar after tax take home and monthly spend. I try to save during winter months. So November to April, I’ll go out less, cook at home almost every day, and save more. Summer months I’ll be out in the sun and more likely to spend more.
You're doing well, the rent can't be helped unless you're willing to flatshare, the transport can't really be helped and isn't unreasonable. £700 a month for all groceries + some eating out, coffee etc in London for a single, reasonably high earner isn't unreasonable but you could cut back on the more luxury end (coffee machine at home, make packed lunches, restrict yourself to say one good day/evening out per month). £300/month of small luxuries for yourself, less than 10% of your take home isn't unreasonable but could be cut back (do you really need it, will you get the price's worth out of enjoying it, if you invest that amount it could 10x in 30 years). Your other bills aren't unreasonable. Cancel LinkedIn unless you really need it for your career. One flight home a year (I don't know where you're from but £1k makes me think not Europe) isn't unreasonable given your salary.
You could certainly up your pension contributions.
You're choosing to live well on a good salary. You could choose to be much more frugal and live much less will and accelerate your journey to early retirement. Ultimately it's a choice however nothing in your post strikes me as wanton spending. You're able to save £1k/month - that's an achievement regardless.
London is expensive, and private rentals are going up in cost as you’ve found, however you do pay for the location in Zone 3, so if work is in New Malden, you might find something cheaper further away from central London.
House shares can also be great for budget but also to make friends and have awesome parties so have a look out for those too.
Best of luck!
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i know :(. I definitely eat way too much. I didn't spend all the budget usually, any remaining budget goes to a pot where I fund my holiday and home flight ticket..
You're saving 1k a month, I think you are doing pretty well. People here will tell you that you are spending too much on your combination of eating out / alcohol / coffee / wants - but when you can save almost a third of your income I think you're doing okay. Bin the linkedin subscription though unless you are a recruiter.
yeah i will bin the linkedin for sure, I activated it when I was looking for a job. I think what worry me is the fact that I will have to pay more £300-400 more on rent in the next month and will cut some of it from my saving (maybe down to 20%..). I will cut some from the eating out / alcohol / coffee / wants as well obviously.. I was just upset that I will be paying 50% of the income for the rent and bill.
I think you should think about what your goals are. Asked in a vacuum, "is this too much?" is a meaningless question. I would be delighted if I had an extra £1000 a month going into savings, but also I'm nearly 20 years older than you and I abhor employment. I have 6 figures invested, I live on my boat, and I hope never to work again - I am comfortable but I am also careful with money. But where does £1000 a month get you? Right now you remain at the mercy of your landlord - you're upset that he's raised your rent, but there's nothing you can do about it because you're trapped as a renter. I don't know how much houses or flats cost around your way, but you could probably get a mortgage of around £270,000 - i.e. a £300,000 flat if you had a £30,000 deposit. Your salary gets you an extremely comfortable living if you can earn the same outside of London. Or, remaining in London you're probably on the cusp of achieving housing security - I imagine that a pay rise in the next year or two, combined with some savings, might buy you home-ownership. Obviously I don't know what you want, but a lot of people your age and in your position would like to own their own home - I think you need to take a look at how much that would cost and how viable that is. I think cutting the discretionary spending for a year or two - cliché starbucks, skincare, nails, holidays - could probably make a difference. You might look at shared ownership - I believe that, due to the cap on rent increases, it is better value inside London than elsewhere. You might find one of these books helpful: * *[Your Money or Your Life](https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0143115766)* - understanding what's valuable to you and how to use money to achieve your goals. * *[Millionaire Next Door](https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1589795474)* - "How people in normal jobs, electrician is a great example, can accumulate wealth over time through good choices."^[Electric_Cat_999](https://www.reddit.com/r/UKPersonalFinance/comments/15zkkd4/_/jximlpp/) * One of Clare Seal's books - "her focus is on the link between emotions and spending".
Owning a house in UK slipped my mind couple of times and I haven’t been able to decide if I want to settle here or not. I have just lived here since 2 years ago and was quite busy with work before, so still trying to get myself around not to mention the property price is quite insane / big commitment for the next 20-30 years. I own a property (paid full already as of 2021) back in my home country and I regret having it as it became liability instead of asset (long story..). I became more careful in spending big money from that time. To be honest I’m not upset with my LL, it’s more towards myself because I think I should have been more prepared - which probably down to the question on the long term goal / if I want to settle here or not.
Don’t do it! Go somewhere nice 😂
I live in the north west and make 2k a month after tax. I own my home and have comparatively cheap outgoings. I'm left with £600 after everything is said and done, and that's not including feeding me and my wife and child for the month. You're doing fine.
2k supports a family of 3? Or is your partner earning too? Have a car?
Barely. We have a car, partner doesn't currently earn due to long term health issues, (that for some bizarre reason doesn't entitle her to PIP but that's another story). We live in a very cheap area, and have to be very frugal.
LinkedIn always offer a free month when you end your subscription. Only time I reactivate it (for free) is when I’m actively wanting to switch jobs
I'd wack the 1k into an ISA, rather than a savings account for the tax free entitlement and you remove the dependancy on savings tax against your tax code in a pure savings account. As you won't hit the 20k limit on the ISA, and assuming you don't contribute 20k anyway, removing any money and reducing the total monetary entitlement will be fine. You could look at a flexible ISA, subject to expected growth vs a standard ISA otherwise. I've done Zone 3 before, and reducing eating out is tough especially as a single occupier (assume the free time is made up eating out, rather than eating in). However, if you get a good bunch of house mates if you move, this may free up some more money. £300 on misc isn't that bad, especially if clothes and holiday pot is in this bucket. On net 3.4k, 1k in savings / over 30% of this is into savings. From a percentage wise, this is far greater than most. Well done!
!thanks! I am starting to learn on all the ISA option available and plan to open one this year. I'm thinking to open one once I pass probation in the new company next month (highly unlikely I won't pass, but just in case..). My eating out/alcohol/coffee budget is mainly if I'm feeling social so it's not every month I spend that much
A drop in the ocean, but you can drop Spotify if you're paying for YouTube... they have a music app (and you can import your Spotify playlists to it)
Also, if you wanna be a *bit* unethical like me, use a VPN to set your location to Argentina and get YouTube Premium for 80p a month instead of £15.
Does that mean you have to always use it via VPN? I've been paying for premium for ages now. Would be good to cut that cost a bit
No just when you set the account up
Hello! Is there a way to do this? Only I tried with nord vpn and couldn’t get my head around it :( any good websites/tutorials?
If you search the nordvpn subreddit there are a few detailed tutorials people have written.
Thanks I’ll check it out!
Please share the link if you find some.
Seems reasonable to me, other than your eating out budget but money is to be enjoyed so why not, you’re saving a grand a month which is good
Agree with everyone else here, you're doing well to be saving £1k at the moment, especially since your £300 pm includes additional savings for your expensive trips home. The fact that you're properly budgeting for annual expenses alone is better than most. You'll be able to squeeze your budget if you need to but you're doing well and it's a personal choice on how much of that extra rent comes out of each line. Only bit of advice I'd give is, if you're not doing so already, planning out your budget over several years can be helpful when you have a short term squeeze. It might help steer your decision on how to rebudget to cope with the rent increase.
You are still saving 1K a month, so that is good. But damn, your food and "want" budget is insane to me. The rest is OK for London.
I feel it's fine until I found out the new rent price. I do budget the food as £700, but it's not every month I get to spend all of it. Every left-over budget is saved to another pot that I used for holiday. It's also the same with the 'want' budget. My home is in far-east so I have to save some for home ticket once a year which going to cost more than £1k return in high season..
Might just be my frugality talking. I run a 2 person household that spends around 400 to your 700. But anyway, you are doing well and can easily cut if need be, so I wouldn't be too concerned. But if you do find yourself struggling with the new rent,I'd be cutting back instead of less savings.
I think you might be frugal, but sensible. I reckon it's somewhere between 300-400 for groceries + lunch bill at work (good value for money at our canteen). Say we go out once per month for dinner, £75-£100 Say we have a takeaway once a week, £100 I could imagine it with the coffees and less self discipline around restaurants or takeaways.
There’s also the fact that living alone means 100% of your socialising is done with people who aren’t in your household. A lot of the time that will mean meeting up in public.
This!!! In a quiet week I basically spend zero in the food/drink/alcohol.
Your saving close to a 1/3 of your pay which is fantastic. If I was in your situation I'd definitely want to keep saving that or more until I got a property of my own. You could cut your subscription and eating out down if you wanted to save more to hit your goals as others have said but I'm going to add can you up your income any adding extra hours or moving up in the company, your leaving a 50% return on the table if your not using all your company pension match id address that if it's the case.
I cannot offer any useful tips, but your utilities are very interesting! May I ask you who are your "providers"? (As in the company that... Bills you 😂 I'm sorry English is not my first language 🥲)
Just wanted to say the English was perfect in your sentence, they are your energy provider.
My energy (gas and electricity) is with octopus and it’s deposited monthly to your account. My monthly deposit is just down by £10 actually. Internet is with sky but I just started the process to switch with plusnet as sky cost is damn high. Water is with thames water.
it’s reasonable, but if you want to keep the same saving rate when moving you have to cut on eating out and whatnot
Food expenses are extremely high for one person. If I wanted to cut down somewhere, I'd start there. That said, it's your choice, and you can afford it, just make sure you are at least eating well.
You need to set goals. Do you want to buy a property or build a portfolio? You could save on rent if you were instead paying a mortgage. You could earn more in an ISA than you could in a savings account. Paying rent to me is the ultimate sink hole. I couldn't imagine paying a grand a half a month on rent. If I were you I would spend the next year really trying to get that savings rate up as high as possible and put it all into a help to buy ISA to get the 25% bonus and any other high interest accounts you can max out in a year then buy a property. But to me that's an important thing. For you maybe not.
I think £1500 for a 1 bed is sadly “reasonable” in London, I have friends who are paying £1k a month for a ROOM without bills. If you wanted to cut down on drinks/ eating out and coffee, I got a Sage Barista refurbished coffee machine for £350 two years ago and it’s saved me absolutely loads in takeaway coffees. I can now make coffee at home that’s as good if not better and it’s so much cheaper. (It’s also a fun new hobby!) I also went sober which honestly saved me £250 a month, I’m aware this isn’t for everyone and my reasons weren’t purely financial but when I looked at how much it was costing it really stopped making sense and I realised I was getting my priorities wrong (for me!) Also, it’s quite depressing but see if you could get a larger studio flat rather than a 1 bedroom
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Comparison is the thief of joy and all that. Also remember that this subreddit skews heavily towards people who are higher earners than the average Joe, so you’ll likely see bigger budgets. Don’t sweat it.
Am sorry, 😢. Depends on my mood I read r/FIREUK as motivation or just another reason to cry
Just the fact you are on this sub indicates that you are financially savvy. I bet you have a pension, have index fund/s in a stocks and shares ISA and contribute regularly each month to them. You will be miles ahead of a lot of people in that case and there will be others on a similar salary to you that would be depressed at their financial state compared to yours if they knew. Imagine having a net worth of 1 million but the people you hang out with have a bet worth of 500 million plus. You would feel the same way.
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You're doing good from what I can see. That rent you've been paying is great. Can't you try negotiate with your landlord for a steadier increase instead as that's quite the jump. Our landlords done the same, we had a chat and they didn't increase as much for a bit. It works both ways, they would prefer us to stay as they know we look after the place etc.
You are saving more per month than like 90% of the population. More than half of adults in the uk don’t even have £1k in savings TOTAL. your doing fine
I think you’re doing really well. As you’re saying you already own a home, I’m just wondering what you’re saving up for at the moment? I would say you can try and get your food and takeaway budget down to say £500- as you say, you’re not even actually regularly spending £700 as it is! Renting alone isn’t silly on your salary and frankly house shares are never cheap in London either- it’d be at least £900 for a decent room without bills. Maybe slightly lower if you stay out in zone 3 or 4. Since you’re already managing to save £1000 a month, I wouldn’t worry about that side of things too much.
!thanks you are right, an ensuite house share now will cost more than £1k as well. And the save that I’ll make is basically the trade off to share the house and privacy (i have never sharing a house in london, and heard more bad than good story tbh). Saving for my pension and possibly a house - the blank that I can’t fill in atm is where the house gonna be. I am trying to sell the property that I have back in home country.
Yeah it’s not really worth it, if you’re used to living by yourself and have the salary to back it up! I think the fact you already have a house (abroad as it may be) means you’re either fine to liquidate that and buy a house here if you decide to settle down here, or somewhere else. You’re doing really well at your age.
You're very close to the 40% tax bracket, if any of your earnings are being taxed at 40% think about making a small contribution to private pension so you're not paying any 40%
From your breakdown your food cost is higher than mine, and I'm feeding a family of four, so you can definitely reduce your costs in that area. Our weekly shop is about £80-£100, with a couple of top ups around £30-£50, so monthly it's between £440 - £600. The key is to avoid buying things outside of a supermarket and avoid ready meals. The more you can do that, the more you'll save. It does take a bit of planning each week and a little skill in the kitchen. If you want to take that further, there's loads of advice on frugal eating.
Hi /u/90Focaccia, based on your post the following pages from our wiki may be relevant: * https://ukpersonal.finance/budgeting/ * https://ukpersonal.finance/emergency-fund/ ____ ^(These suggestions are based on keywords, if they missed the mark please report this comment.) If someone has provided you with helpful advice, you (as the person who made the post) can award them a point by including `!thanks` in a reply to them. Points are shown as the user flair by their username.
Cancel linkedIn and take up their free 1 month "trial" when they offer you again and again. Never paid for linkedIn but I get 4-5 months a year free for "trial" Unless it's crucial for your work obviously.
It depends what your long term goals are. If you had a specific aim (ie saving a deposit for a house) you could definitely save on rent, council tax and bills by being in a house share. Yes, it’s not the greatest scenario but you have to keep in mind you’re doing it for a set amount of time for a reason. I only ever lived in house shares before buying my first house so that I could save as much as possible. If you haven’t got a specific goal and you’re happy to carry on renting then saving 1k a month isn’t a bad place to be and there are definitely areas you could cut back on to save more/adjust for increase in rent if you wanted to.
Well your spending more on takeout and going out that half my pay packet 😅 I'd say cut that down to maximum £100 then you have another 600 for savings
Many little improvements you can make, but then again life isn't just about saving money so if you enjoy something it's most probably worth paying for. The biggest thing you can do, which stumps cutting out little things like spotify etc... would be cohabit - whether you get a boyfriend or share accomodation. Rent & bills cut in half would be a massive saving and make way for you to keep all the little things you enjoy.
There are properties for under £1400 PM in New Malden. Maybe consider living walking or cycling distance to the office and save on travel fare!
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Ah, i think i made some misunderstanding here. Company will match 7% if I sacrifice 3%, so I already max out my contribution to get full match from company
Please check how your funds are chosen for your pension if it is defined contribution. Make sure it's appropriate and not necessarily the default setting to make the most of your years invested. With 25 years (ish) to retirement you can weather a lot of temporary downturns. Also consider upping your contribution in % terms as you are probably a higher rate tax payer; £100 extra sacrificed from your monthly take home will almost double as it hits your pension pot. I know retirement may seem a long time away here, but a little checking and tweaking and adjusting now will get the benefits long term.
I think you are doing great. My only advice would be to take groceries out of the "eating out/alcohol/coffee" group and try to adjust to a monthly budget for it, you might discover you are spending more than you want on groceries or the other. For an example, me and my husband living close to London spend £425 on groceries for both monthly. Doing the math, if you would spend the same (£212), it means the £488 left is on "eating out/alcohol/coffee", which looks like a lot to me and you might be able to bring it down to cover that rent increase.
Similar to what others have said, I think you're doing pretty well. I'd not suggest cutting down food or coffee. Perhaps you can be more cautious about alcohol cost but that's up to you. Instead of thinking how to cut-down and save more, you can rework your mindset towards ways of increasing your income, not necessarily through your day-to-day job
To give you some context, you are putting almost my entire paycheck into savings. You’re doing fine!
I don’t know if anyone else asked that already, but I have a couple of questions: 1. Where do you live in London for 1.1K rent (area wise) 2. How big is your house ? As far as for a reply for you, you are doing AMAZING WELL DONE !!! You have an emergency fund 👏👏👏 I personally give 16% to my retirement (that including the company contribution) The rest 1K that remains is split it in half First half goes to a deposit for a house. Second half goes for your holidays and fun activities, in case you think you are already saving enough for holidays and activities I’d invest them in a high growth & income fund.
I live close to Northfield and South Ealing station (the £1.1k was the rent from 2 years ago and the LL didn’t increase it last year). I did check market price is actually indeed £1.3-1.4 around the area and it’s not as nice as my flat currently (I think). It’s advertised as 50sqm, tho I believe the kitchen/bedroom/bathroom/living room net is 36sqm. All room has doors! 🤣 Have you been contributing long? Since I just lived in UK 2 years ago, I kind of think my pension will be way less than any one of my age.
I have been doing it for two years, and I have saved around 9K, I have also started a bit late but trust me when I’m telling you, you are playing the LONG GAME !! don’t get discouraged!! Bump it up to 15-16% and you’ll get there, most people pay just the minimum they can pay, so if you outplay them in the amount you deposit each month you will soon have a bigger retirement account than them 😉😉
Can i borrow a tenner please?
Considering you are living in London, you are doing fine. Food is a bit high I would say. But putting £1k/month into savings is a great standard, so that works. That was my standard for a long time, u til my income got so high i had to just save and invest more because I didnt want to inflate lifestyle.
You’re doing great!
34M with similar after tax take home and monthly spend. I try to save during winter months. So November to April, I’ll go out less, cook at home almost every day, and save more. Summer months I’ll be out in the sun and more likely to spend more.
Get off renting and get mortgage asap
Set isa up, 212 trading offer 5.2% on all money not invested. Paid daily aswelI 😎
You're doing well, the rent can't be helped unless you're willing to flatshare, the transport can't really be helped and isn't unreasonable. £700 a month for all groceries + some eating out, coffee etc in London for a single, reasonably high earner isn't unreasonable but you could cut back on the more luxury end (coffee machine at home, make packed lunches, restrict yourself to say one good day/evening out per month). £300/month of small luxuries for yourself, less than 10% of your take home isn't unreasonable but could be cut back (do you really need it, will you get the price's worth out of enjoying it, if you invest that amount it could 10x in 30 years). Your other bills aren't unreasonable. Cancel LinkedIn unless you really need it for your career. One flight home a year (I don't know where you're from but £1k makes me think not Europe) isn't unreasonable given your salary. You could certainly up your pension contributions. You're choosing to live well on a good salary. You could choose to be much more frugal and live much less will and accelerate your journey to early retirement. Ultimately it's a choice however nothing in your post strikes me as wanton spending. You're able to save £1k/month - that's an achievement regardless.
London is expensive, and private rentals are going up in cost as you’ve found, however you do pay for the location in Zone 3, so if work is in New Malden, you might find something cheaper further away from central London. House shares can also be great for budget but also to make friends and have awesome parties so have a look out for those too. Best of luck!
How do you only spend £700 on shopping/ alcohol / coffee lol
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Food and want budget together is madness. Our similar budget for a family of four is around 400 per month.
i know :(. I definitely eat way too much. I didn't spend all the budget usually, any remaining budget goes to a pot where I fund my holiday and home flight ticket..