How much discretionary spending per week?

[elessar78]

I'm just curious how much discretionary spending you allow yourselves per week. I know "discretionary" is a matter of definition, feel free to define it with your answer.

After everything is paid and money is set aside for savings, we have $275 left for two people per week.

We're looking to buy a house and I'm doing practice budgets to see how low we can go and still maintain a lifestyle.

[DebtFree&Broke]

We budget $60 a month, but average $85 for a family of four.

So our discretionary spending is almost $20 a week. For us it includes everything that we don't spend enough on to list on the budget. It includes clothes, entertainment, my haircuts, dry cleaning, etc. It's a little tight, I would prefer to have $50 a week for our family, but that isn't possible right now.

I think that you should try cutting your discretionary spending down to $25 per week per person. It would force you to decide what is really worth your money so you aren't wasting it on things you don't really want or need. Plus, you could save an additional $900 per month for your home.

[kork13]

I manage everything by month (just easier for me), and I basically give myself $240/mo. That includes $75/mo for eating out, and the rest for random spending, hobbies, etc.

In total, that's about 3% of my budget, which is right inside my 2-5% spending target...I say "spending target" becauseI have a tendency is to over-save (currently saving over 40%), so I sort of have to set spending goals for myself to make sure I take the time/money to enjoy myself as well.

I consider "discretionary spending" to be basically everything else that isn't otherwise budgeted. So that's after taxes, housing, savings, tithing/charity, grocery, debt payments, auto, utilities, and insurance.... all the rest (for me) is "discretionary).

[elessar78]

We budget $60 a month, but average $85 for a family of four.

So our discretionary spending is almost $20 a week. For us it includes everything that we don't spend enough on to list on the budget. It includes clothes, entertainment, my haircuts, dry cleaning, etc. It's a little tight, I would prefer to have $50 a week for our family, but that isn't possible right now.

I think that you should try cutting your discretionary spending down to $25 per week per person. It would force you to decide what is really worth your money so you aren't wasting it on things you don't really want or need. Plus, you could save an additional $900 per month for your home.

That's awesome. Yes, our number is on the high side and I think that I will try to slash it drastically. Right now, I allot myself $50/week but after monitoring it—at least half of that goes to waste. I think I'll really try to push us to get down to something like $25/person/week.

Note: We don't actually burn through that entire amount. Much of it is just rolled into the next week's budget. In other areas of the budget, we live frugally so I think that's why there's that left over.

[elessar78]

I manage everything by month (just easier for me), and I basically give myself $240/mo. That includes $75/mo for eating out, and the rest for random spending, hobbies, etc.

In total, that's about 3% of my budget, which is right inside my 2-5% spending target...I say "spending target" becauseI have a tendency is to over-save (currently saving over 40%), so I sort of have to set spending goals for myself to make sure I take the time/money to enjoy myself as well.

I consider "discretionary spending" to be basically everything else that isn't otherwise budgeted. So that's after taxes, housing, savings, tithing/charity, grocery, debt payments, auto, utilities, and insurance.... all the rest (for me) is "discretionary).

Again, that's awesome. Yeah, I was struck by the amount and I need to divert that money. Too much allotted in the "discretionary" spending category is just too much temptation (for me at least). I'll freely admit will power isn't my strong suit so I just try to remove the temptation ahead of time. Plus for real emergencies, I can just pull it back out of the savings.

[Eleanor]

Well, I just came up with a new budget because I recently moved, started a new job, and acquired a bit of credit card debt for the first time. In the new budget I have set aside $200/mo for discretionary spending. This sounds like a lot to me, but I have a feeling I'm going to be cutting it close each month for some reason.

The money will likely be spent on alcohol, coffee (I only buy coffee when I'm at coffee shops), eating out (right now I'm not eating out at all but I expect to eat out once every two weeks), parking (there is NO free parking in Miami), and clothes.

Ideally, I would like to be able to reduce this number to $150, or decrease the amount I spend on groceries to compensate.

[tan fish]

For me my main discretionary costs are those related to eating out. We eat out on average 2-3 times a week, and those are at relatively inexpensive restaurants (i.e. no more than $10 per person). So that comes out to about $40 or $50 a week I am guessing. Once a month or so we'll go to the movies (another $20). That's about it. Everything else goes into savings. Of course, now and then we'll spend quite a bit on a vacation for example, but I see that as less discretionary as it is an investment in our mental health. You know what I mean.

[Goldy]

My wife and I both have fun money accounts and we each get $500/mo and usually we have most of that left over at the end of each month. I probably use about 200/mo on a regular basis on clothes, hobbies and entertainment. Whatever is not used in the month just stays in the account for either big purchases or vacations.

[DebtFree&Broke]

My wife and I both have fun money accounts and we each get $500/mo and usually we have most of that left over at the end of each month. I probably use about 200/mo on a regular basis on clothes, hobbies and entertainment. Whatever is not used in the month just stays in the account for either big purchases or vacations.

Oh I am so jealous