How much "fun money" is reasonable?

[EconDiva]

For me, "fun money" goes to the following:

Dining out
Entertainment (movies, festivals, museums, etc.)
Shopping (clothes, accessories, shoes)


I've been overspending in this category for years. How much do you allow yourself in blow/fun money monthly? What do you think is a reasonable percentage to allocate for this?

[thevirtualguy]

I budget $250.00 every 2 weeks ($500/mth) for "fun money"...

We have 5 in our family and this money is used for treats, movies, dining out, etc.

We find that this works for us and we accumulate no debt while easily staying within budget.

Establishing a concrete budget and controlling our spending has been a real "marriage saver" for us.

Hope this provides some feedback you were looking for.

Cheers!

TheVirtualGuy

[scubatim84]

I think $500 a month is reasonable if you're going to include everything into one category. My wife and I try to take it one step further and break it down in between dining out and other entertainment such as concerts, movies, buying books, buying music, etc. We try to keep it under $100 a month on average for movies/music/books and dining we don't really have a set amount but we try to keep it under $500. Lately we've been keeping it under $300 though, and to be honest with you, the less I dine out the more I enjoy it when I do dine out. The food tastes better at home too.

[chrisburke21]

I think it depends on your savings goals and your income. $500 might be reasonable for one person and unaffordable to another. Take a look at the amount you have set for your savings goals, your bills and other necessary expenses. Then decide how much of the left over you want to allocate to entertainment. This should give you a reasonable figure.

[kork13]

It does depend alot on your income, and also on your priorities. If you're in "super debt repayment" mode, you'll probably only want $100/mo or less for pocket money. But if you're saving tons and in great shape, you can open up the purse strings a bit and enjoy a more generous spending budget.

Personally, I give myself about $250/mo for "fun money" ($100 of that generally goes to eating out). I also save $200-$300/mo in a cash account that is intended for spending however I will. So I suppose you can say $500/mo for me. To look at it in another way, that's about 7.5% of my income, which I'm very comfortable with.

[NuggetBrain]

I think it depends on what falls under "fun money". For us, dining out is it's own separate catagory because we really enjoy eating out, and we also have a small (under $100 total for both of us) clothes budget per month, and a small "misc" budget for things like gifts, BBQs, etc. So fun money encompasses random things like my makeup and his liquor store runs (I don't drink) and the casino and my Kindle addiction and whatnot.

We have $350 in fun money a month.

[disneysteve]

I think it depends on your savings goals and your income.

It does depend alot on your income, and also on your priorities. If you're in "super debt repayment" mode.

I agree with both of these. We can't give you a dollar amount or even a percentage because it really depends on your situation. Do you have debt? Is your emergency fund fully funded? Are you maxing the retirement savings? Is your job secure (as secure as a job can be these days)?

If you are debt-free, have a 6-month EF, are saving at least 15% for retirement and at least 5% for other needs and you want to go to dinner and a movie, great. Have a good time. If not, then you need to rein in the frivolous spending and clean things up first.

[snafu]

Many of us allocate differently, for example restaurants come out of our food category, 4% to clothes, 7% for entertainment which includes travel to a nearby resort. DH & I each get an spend as we please 'allowance' for misc. personal stuff and small gifts.

[Max G]

This is all relative. You should give us a percentage of your total income that you spend on fun in order to figure out whether you "overspend" or not. I actually would take a less stringent position on fun money. If you are young, don't carry any debt and want to spend some money having fun, I think you should. The reason people save for retirement is to have fun and fulfilling life when they are older but nothing wrong with having a fun life while you still young. Again, that's based on the assumption that you are not in debt and only spending what you have.

[sandrark]

I use 2% of my gross income for "fun money." Reasonable enough so that it doesn't hamper other goals, generous enough I can go out to lunch with a friend...

[Slug]

I agree with both of these. We can't give you a dollar amount or even a percentage because it really depends on your situation. Do you have debt? Is your emergency fund fully funded? Are you maxing the retirement savings? Is your job secure (as secure as a job can be these days)?

If you are debt-free, have a 6-month EF, are saving at least 15% for retirement and at least 5% for other needs and you want to go to dinner and a movie, great. Have a good time. If not, then you need to rein in the frivolous spending and clean things up first.

Yeah, as usual I'm agreeing with DS. It completely depends on this other information.

As another data point though, my wife and I each get $250 for fun money. We also max out our Roth's and 401k, carry no "bad" debt month to month and net worth is up $60k YTD. Maybe I need more fun $

[BMEPhDinCO]

We are trying to pay off student loans and expecting a severe loss in income when DH graduates (while looking for a job), so right now, we get $100-150 joint fun (meals out, movies, etc) and $50 each for clothing, hair cuts, lunches, personal "fun" spending. When we were making more, it was $200-250 joint and $75-100 each personal.

I agree with others though, get the rest of the budget in order first, then address all the "fun" stuff. 1-2% of gross sounds reasonable to me though, if you are putting 15-20% in retirement, 5-10% in savings, etc, then it should be a good amount!

[AsiaTraveler]

For me, "fun money" goes to the following:

Dining out
Entertainment (movies, festivals, museums, etc.)
Shopping (clothes, accessories, shoes)


I've been overspending in this category for years. How much do you allow yourself in blow/fun money monthly? What do you think is a reasonable percentage to allocate for this?

It sounds like, whatever you decide to budget, that a cash/envelope system might be helpful for a while. Take whatever money you allocate, pull it out in cash, and when it's gone, you're done for the month. This is one of those categories where it's always possible to overspend!

I agree with everyone else's assessments about needing to look at your circumstances. While I could look at everyone's numbers and slam them, the reality is our circumstances are different. Here's my reality: In our single income household laden with medical bills, we budget $7 a month for entertainment- that includes magazine subscriptions, movie tickets, festivals or the like. Dining out is a part of our food budget- usually it occurs if there happens to be money left at the end of the month. Clothes is its own category at $30 a month. Plus my DH & I each get $15 allowance each month.

That said, in my line of work I also regularly receive thank you gifts from the people that I work with. While individually not large, squirreled away together they make a nice pot of money that is put aside for extra special fun money- anniversary celebrations, etc- so that we are not stressed about money on what is supposed to be special occasions. Other people give me gift cards to restaurants & the movies, so those also help with dates.

Hence, to each his own.

[LivingAlmostLarge]

Depends. We budget stuff like eating out and stuff so its hard to say. Our fun money is just misc crap. Everything else is just accounted for.

[Johansen8]

It depends if we have big responsibilities but for me I use 10% of my income for "fun"