What is a normal amount of money to spend per week on food/entertainment/clothing?
"I'll start with a question... Is the 63K before or after taxes?  The short answer to your question on how much is reasonable is: ""It depends."" It depends on a lot more than where you live, it depends on what you want... do you want to pay down debt? Do you want to save? Are you trying to buy a house? Those will influence how much you ""can"" (should let yourselves) spend. It also depends on your actual salary... just because I spend 5% of my salary on something doesn't mean bonkers to you if you're making 63,000 and I'm only making 10,000.  I also have a lot of respect for you trying to take this on. It's never easy. But I would also recommend you start by trying to see what you can do to track how much you are actually spending. That can be hard, especially if you mostly use cash.  Once you're tracking what you spend, I still think you're coming at this a bit backwards though... rather than ask 'how much is reasonable' to spend on those other expenses, you basically need to rule out the bigger items first. This means things like taxes, your housing, food, transportation, and kid-related expenses. (I've got 2.5 kids of my own.) I would guess that you're listing your pre-tax salaries on here... so start first with whatever it costs you to pay taxes. I'm a US citizen living in Berlin, haven't filed UK taxes, but uktaxcalculators.co.uk says that on 63,000 a year with 3 deductions your net earnings will actually be 43,500. That's 3,625/month.  Then what does it cost you each month for rent/utilities/etc. to put a house over your family's head? The rule of thumb they taught in my home-economics class was 35-40%, but that's not for Europe... you'll know what it costs. Let's say its 1,450 a month (40%) for rent and utilities and maybe insurance. That leaves 2,175.  The next necessity after housing is food. My current food budget is about 5-6% of my after-tax salary. But that may not compare... the cost to feed a family of 3 is a fairly fixed number, and our salaries aren't the same. As I said, I am a US expat living in Berlin, so I looked at this cost of living calculator, and it looks like groceries are about 7-10% higher there around Cardiff than here in Germany. Still, I spend about 120 € per week on food. That has a fair margin in it for splurging on ice cream and a couple brewskies. It feeds me (I'm almost 2m and about 100 kilos) and my family of four. Let's say you spend 100£ a week on groceries. For budgeting, that's 433£ a month. (52 weeks / 12 months == 4.333 weeks/month) But let's call it 500£. That leaves 1,675.  From here, you'll have to figure out the details of where your own money is going--that's why I said you should really start tracking your expenses somehow... even just for a short time. But for the purposes of completing the answers to your questions, the next step is to look at saving before you try spending anything else. A nice target is to aim for 10% of your after-tax pay going into a savings account... this is apart from any other investments. Let's say you do that, you'll be putting away 363£ per month. That leaves 1,300£.  As far as other expenses... you need some money for transport. You haven't mentioned car(s) but let's say you're spending another 500£ there. That would be about enough to cover one with the petrol you need to get around town. That leaves 800£ As far as a clothing budget and entertainment, I usually match my grocery budget with what I call ""mad money"". That's basically money that goes towards other stuff that I would love to categorize, but that my wife gets annoyed with my efforts to drill into on a regular basis. That's another 500£, which leaves 300£.  You mentioned debts... assuming that's a credit card at around 20% interest, you probably pay 133£ a month just in interest... (20% = 0.20 / 12 = 0.01667 x 8,000 = 133) plus some nominal payment towards principal. So let's call it 175£. That leaves you with 125£ of wiggle room, assuming I have even caught all of your expenses. And depending on how they're timed, you are probably feeling a serious squeeze in between paychecks. I recognize that you're asking specific questions, but I think that just based on the questions you need a bit more careful backing into the budget. And you REALLY need to track what you're spending for the time being, until you can say... right, we usually spend about this much on X... how can we cut it out?  From there the basics of getting your financial house in order are splattered across the interwebs. Make a budget... stick to it... pay down debts... save. Develop goals and mini incentives/rewards as a way to make sure your change your psyche about following a budget." "As THEAO suggested, tracking spending is a great start.  But how about this -  Figure out the payment needed to get to zero debt in a reasonable time, 24 months, perhaps. If that's more than 15% of your income, maybe stretch a tiny bit to 30 months. If it's much less, send 15% to debt until it's paid, then flip the money to savings.  From what's left, first budget the ""needs,"" rent, utilities, etc. Whatever you spend on food, try to cut back 10%.  There is no budget for entertainment or clothes. The whole point is one must either live beneath their means, or increase their income. You've seen what can happen when the debt snowballs.  In reality, with no debt to service and the savings growing, you'll find a way to prioritize spending. Some months you'll have to choose, dinner out, or a show. I agree with Keith's food bill, $300-$400/mo for 3 of us. Months with a holiday and large guest list throws that off, of course." "Zero? Ten grand? Somewhere in the middle? It depends. Your stated salary, in U.S. dollars, would be high five-figures (~$88k). You certainly should not be starving, but with decent contributions toward savings and retirement, money can indeed be tight month-to-month at that salary level, especially since even in Cardiff you're probably paying more per square foot for your home than in most U.S. markets (EDIT: actually, 3-bedroom apartments in Cardiff, according to Numbeo, range from £750-850, which is US$1200-$1300, and for that many bedrooms you'd be hard-pressed to find that kind of deal in a good infield neighborhood of the DFW Metro, and good luck getting anywhere close to downtown New York, LA, Miami, Chicago etc for that price. What job do you do, and how are you expected to dress for it? Depending on where you shop and what you buy, a quality dress shirt and dress slacks will cost between US$50-$75 each (assuming real costs are similar for the same brands between US and UK, that's £30-£50 per shirt and pair of pants for quality brands). I maintain about a weeks' wardrobe at this level of dress (my job allows me to wear much cheaper polos and khakis most days and I have about 2 weeks' wardrobe of those) and I typically have to replace due to wear or staining, on average, 2 of these outfits a year (I'm hard on clothes and my waistline is expanding). Adding in 3 ""business casual"" outfits each year, plus casual outfits, shoes, socks, unmentionables and miscellany, call it maybe $600(£400)/year in wardrobe. That doesn't generally get metered out as a monthly allowance (the monthly amount would barely buy a single dress shirt or pair of slacks), but if you're socking away a savings account and buying new clothes to replace old as you can afford them it's a good average. I generally splurge in months when the utilities companies give me a break and when I get ""extra"" paychecks (26/year means two months have 3 checks, effectively giving me a ""free"" check that neither pays the mortgage nor the other major bills). Now, that's just to maintain my own wardrobe at a level of dress that won't get me fired. My wife currently stays home, but when she worked she outspent me, and her work clothes were basic black. To outright replace all the clothes I wear regularly with brand-new stuff off the rack would easily cost a grand, and that's for the average U.S. software dev who doesn't go out and meet other business types on a daily basis. If I needed to show up for work in a suit and tie daily, I'd need a two-week rotation of them, plus dress shirts, and even at the low end of about $350 (£225) per suit, $400 (£275) with dress shirt and tie, for something you won't be embarrassed to wear, we're talking $4000 (£2600) to replace and $800 (£520) per year to update 2 a year, not counting what I wear underneath or on the weekends. And if I wore suits I'd probably have to update the styles more often than that, so just go ahead and double it and I turn over my wardrobe once every 5 years. None of this includes laundering costs, which increase sharply when you're taking suits to the cleaners weekly versus just throwing a bunch of cotton-poly in the washing machine. What hobbies or other entertainment interests do you and your wife have? A movie ticket in the U.S. varies between $7-$15 depending on the size of the screen and 2D vs 3D screenings. My wife and I currently average less than one theater visit a month, but if you took in a flick each weekend with your wife, with a decent $50 dinner out, that's between $260-$420 (£165-270) monthly in entertainment expenses. Not counting babysitting for the little one (the going rate in the US is between $10 and $20 an hour for at-home child-sitting depending on who you hire and for how long, how often). Worst-case, without babysitting that's less than 5% of your gross income, but possibly more than 10% of your take-home depending on UK effective income tax rates (your marginal rate is 40% according to the HMRC, unless you find a way to deduct about £30k of your income). That's just the traditional American date night, which is just one possible interest. Playing organized sports is more or less expensive depending on the sport. Soccer (sorry, football) just needs a well-kept field, two goals and and a ball. Golf, while not really needing much more when you say it that way, can cost thousands of dollars or pounds a month to play with the best equipment at the best courses. Hockey requires head-to-toe padding/armor, skates, sticks, and ice time. American football typically isn't an amateur sport for adults and has virtually no audience in Europe, but in the right places in the U.S., beginning in just a couple years you'd be kitting your son out head-to-toe not dissimilar to hockey (minus sticks) and at a similar cost, and would keep that up at least halfway through high school. I've played them all at varying amateur levels, and with the possible exception of soccer they all get expensive when you really get interested in them. How much do you eat, and of what?. My family of three's monthly grocery budget is about $300-$400 (£190-£260) depending on what we buy and how we buy it. Americans have big refrigerators (often more than one; there's three in my house of varying sizes), we buy in bulk as needed every week to two weeks, we refrigerate or freeze a lot of what we buy, and we eat and drink a lot of high-fructose corn-syrup-based crap that's excise-taxed into non-existence in most other countries. I don't have real-world experience living and grocery-shopping in Europe, but I do know that most shopping is done more often, in smaller quantities, and for more real food. You might expect to spend £325 ($500) or more monthly, in fits and starts every few days, but as I said you'd probably know better than me what you're buying and what it's costing. To educate myself, I went to mysupermarket.co.uk, which has what I assume are typical UK food prices (mostly from Tesco), and it's a real eye-opener. In the U.S., alcohol is much more expensive for equal volume than almost any other drink except designer coffee and energy drinks, and we refrigerate the heck out of everything anyway, so a low-budget food approach in the U.S. generally means nixing beer and wine in favor of milk, fruit juices, sodas and Kool-Aid (or just plain ol' tap water). A quick search on MySupermarkets shows that wine prices average a little cheaper, accounting for the exchange rate, as in the States (that varies widely even in the U.S., as local and state taxes for beer, wine and spirits all differ). Beer is similarly slightly cheaper across the board, especially for brands local to the British Isles (and even the Coors Lite crap we're apparently shipping over to you is more expensive here than there), but in contrast, milk by the gallon (4L) seems to be virtually unheard of in the UK, and your half-gallon/2-liter jugs are just a few pence cheaper than our going rate for a gallon (unless you buy ""organic"" in the US, which carries about a 100% markup). Juices are also about double the price depending on what you're buying (a quart of ""Innocent"" OJ, roughly equivalent in presentation to the U.S. brand ""Simply Orange"", is £3 while Simply Orange is about the same price in USD for 2 quarts), and U.S.-brand ""fizzy drinks"" are similarly at a premium (£1.98 - over $3 - for a 2-liter bottle of Coca-Cola). With the general preference for room-temperature alcohol in Europe giving a big advantage to the longer unrefrigerated shelf lives of beer and wine, I'm going to guess you guys drink more alcohol and water with dinner than Americans. Beef is cheaper in the U.S., depending on where you are and what you're buying; prices for store-brand ground beef (you guys call it ""minced"") of the grade we'd use for hamburgers and sauces is about £6 per kilo in the UK, which works out to about $4.20/lb, when we're paying closer to $3/lb in most cities. I actually can't remember the last time I bought fresh chicken on the bone, but the average price I'm seeing in the UK is £10/kg ($7/lb) which sounds pretty steep. Anyway, it sounds like shopping for American tastes in the UK would cost, on average, between 25-30% more than here in the US, so applying that to my own family's food budget, you could easily justify spending £335 a month on food."
Well, I'm from the Netherlands, which is also kind of a 'nanny' state, usually supermarket goods are fairly cheap (bottle of 1,5L Coca Cola is $1,42, a 24-crate of beer is around $11). But gasoline ($2/L), diesel ($1.60/L) and tobacco ($6-8.50) are quite expensive.  Basically we have an extra tax on certain (unhealthy and environmentally harmful) goods so you get a basic consumer tax of 19% (soon to be 21%) + 15-250%. For example a pack of cigarettes of $6.50 is $1.71 without taxes right now.  But for some reason alcohol isn't taxed as heavily, where tobacco gets upwards of 250% extra tax alcohol only gets 5-15.5% extra taxes. "I posted a comment in another answer and it seems to be approved by others, so I have converted this into an answer. If you're talking about young adults who just graduated college and worked through it. I would recommend you tell them to keep the same budget as what they were living on before they got a full-time job. This way, as far as their spending habits go, nothing changes since they only have a $500 budget (random figure) and everything else goes into savings and investments. If as a student you made $500/month and you suddenly get $2000/month, that's a lot of money you get to blow on drinks. Now, if you put $500 in savings (until 6-12 month of living expenses), $500 in investments for the long run and $500 in vacation funds or ""big expenses"" funds (Ideally with a cap and dump the extra in investments). That's $18,000/yr you are saving. At this stage in your life, you have not gotten used to spending that extra $18,000/yr. Don't touch the side money except for the vacation fund when you want to treat yourself. Your friends will call you cheap, but that's not your problem. Take that head start and build that down payment on your dream house. The way I set it up, is (in this case) I have automatics every day after my paychecks come in for the set amounts. I never see it, but I need to make sure I have the money in there. Note: Numbers are there for the sake of simplicity. Adjust accordingly. PS: This is anecdotal evidence that has worked for me. Parents taught me this philosophy and it has worked wonders for me. This is the extent of my financial wisdom." Set aside the amount of grocery money you want to spend in a week in cash. Then buy groceries only from this money. The first week make it a generous amount so you don't get rediculous and give up. And stick to it when you are out of money (make sure you have some canned goods or something around if you run out of money a day short). And do not shop when you are hungry. This is a big and complex topic, but it's one I think people get wrong a lot.  There's a lot of ways to treat a child's pocket money: Tell a kid that they're getting $10/week allowance.  Help them keep it safe, but don't give them access to it: Put it in a drawer in your office, or a piggie bank on a high shelf.  Encourage them to save up for a big purchase.  Help them decide what to spend it on.  When they find something they want, talk it over with them to make sure it's right for them. This seems like a good approach, because it encourages thrift, long term thinking, savings, and other important elements of real life.  But it's a TERRIBLE idea.  All it does is make the child think of it as if it wasn't really their money.  The child gets no benefits from this, and will certainly not learn anything about savings. Give the kid $10/week.  Full stop. This seems like a bad idea, because the kid is just going to waste it.  Which they will.  :)  That's the point!  There's NO way to learn except by experience. Try and shift control of discretionary spending to the child as and when appropriate.  Give them some money for clothes, or a present for their birthday, and let them spend it.  If they're going to be spending all day at some event, give them money for lunch.  And if they misspend it - tough!  No kid is going to starve in one day because the spend their lunch money at a video arcade, but they will learn a valuable lesson.  :) You have to be careful here of two mistakes.  First, only do this for truly discretionary spending.  If your kid needs clothes for school, then you better make sure they actually buy it.  Second, make sure that you don't end up filling in the gaps.  What you're teaching here is opportunity costs, and that won't work if your child gets to have his cake and eat it too.  (Or go to the movies and STILL get that new Xbox game.) Have them get a job.  And, it should go without saying, give them control of the money.  It's incredibly tempting to force them to save, be responsible, etc.  But all this does is force them to look responsible...for as long as their under your thumb.  Nothing will impart the lessons about why being responsible is important like being irresponsible.  And it's sure as hell better to learn that lesson with some paper route money when your 14 than with your rent money when your 24... Track your expenses. Find out where your money is going, and target areas where you can reduce expenses. Some examples: I was spending a lot on food, buying too much packaged food, and eating out too much. So I started cooking from scratch more and eating out less. Now, even though I buy expensive organic produce, imported cheese, and grass-fed beef, I'm spending half of what I used to spend on food. It could be better. I could cut back on meat and eat out even less. I'm working on it. I was buying a ton of books and random impulsive crap off of Amazon. So I no longer let myself buy things right away. I put stuff on my wish list if I want it, and every couple of months I go on there and buy myself a couple of things off my wishlist. I usually end up realizing that some of the stuff on there isn't something I want that badly after all, so I just delete it from my wishlist. I replaced my 11-year-old Jeep SUV with an 11-year-old Saturn sedan that gets twice the gas mileage. That saves me almost $200/month in gasoline costs alone. I had cable internet through Comcast, even though I don't have a TV. So I went from a $70/month cable bill to a $35/month DSL bill, which cut my internet costs in half. I have an iPhone and my bill for that is $85/month. That's insane, with how little I talk on the phone and send text messages. Once it goes out of contract, I plan to replace it with a cheap phone, possibly a pre-paid. That should cut my phone expenses in half, or even less. I'll keep my iPhone, and just use it when wifi is available (which is almost everywhere these days). Your question is rather direct, but I think there is some underlying issues that are worth addressing.  One How to save and purchase ~$500 worth items This one is the easy one, since we confront it often enough.  Never, ever, ever buy anything on credit. The only exception might be your first house, but that's it. Simply redirect the money you would spend in non necessities ('Pleasure and entertainment') to your big purchase fund (the PS4, in this case). When you get the target amount, simply purchase it.  When you get your salary use it to pay for the monthly actual necessities (rent, groceries, etc) and go through the list. The money flow should be like this: Two How to evaluate if a purchase is appropriate It seems that you may be reluctant to spend a rather chunky amount of money on a single item. Let me try to assuage you. 'Expensive' is not defined by price alone, but by utility. To compare the price of items you should take into account their utility. Let's compare your prized PS4 to a soda can.  Is a soda can expensive? It quenches your thirst and fills you with sugar. Tap water will take your thirst away, without damaging your health, and for a fraction of the price. So, yes, soda is ridiculously expensive, whenever water is available. Is a game console expensive? Sure. But it all boils down to how much do you end up using it. If you are sure you will end up playing for years to come, then it's probably good value for your money.  An example of  wrongly spent money on entertainment: My friends and I went to the cinema to see a movie without checking the reviews beforehand.  It was so awful that it hurt, even with the discount price we got. Ultimately, we all ended up remembering that time and laughing about how wrong it went. So it was somehow, well spent, since I got a nice memory from that evening.  A purchase is appropriate if you get your money's worth of utility/pleasure. Three Console and computer gaming, and commendation of the latter There are few arguments for buying a console instead of upgrading your current computer (if needed) except for playing console exclusives. It seems unlikely that a handful of exclusive games can justify purchasing a non upgradeable platform unless you can actually get many hours from said games.  Previous arguments to prefer consoles instead of computers are that they work out of the box, capability to easily connect to the tv, controller support... have been superseded by now. Besides, pc games can usually be acquired for a lower price through frequent sales. More about personal finance and investment "Just my 2 cents, I read on the book, The WSJ Financial Guidebook for New Parents, that ""the average family spends between $11k and $16k raising their child during his first year"".  So it might be better for you to make a budget including that cost, then decide how much money you feel safe to invest." Aside from what everyone else has said about your money (saving, investing, etc.), I'd like to comment on what else you could spend it on: Spend it all on small/stupid things   that, while stupid, would make me   happier. For example take taxis more   often, eat often in nice restaurants,   buy designer clothes, etc. I'll be   young only one time. You could also put the money towards something more... productive?  Like a home project.  Convert a room in your living space into an office or a theater-like room.  Install hardwood floors yourself.  Renovate a bathroom.  Plant a garden of things you would enjoy eating later.  Something that you would enjoy having or doing and can look back at and be proud of putting your money towards something that you accomplished. I make it a habit at the end of every day to think about how much money I spent in total that day, being mindful of what was essential and wasn't. I know that I might have spent $20 on a haircut (essential), $40 on groceries (essential) and $30 on eating out (not essential). Then I realize that I could have just spent $60 instead of $90. This habit, combined with the general attitude that it's better to have not spent some mone than to have spent some money, has been pretty effective for me to bring down my monthly spending. I guess this requires more motivation than the other more-involved techniques given here. You have to really want to reduce your spending. I found motivation easy to come by because I was spending a lot and I'm still looking for a job, so I have no sources of income. But it's worked really well so far. Only select items. First - I agree, beware the Goldfish Factor - any of those items may very well lead to greater consumption, which will impact your waistline worse than your bottom line. And, in this category, chips, and snacks in general, you'll typically get twice the size bag for the same price as supermarket. For a large family, this might work ok. If one is interested in saving on grocery items, the very first step is to get familiar with the unit cost (often cents per ounce) of most items you buy. Warehouse store or not, this knowledge will make you a better buyer.  In general, the papergoods/toiletries are cheaper than at the store but not as cheap as the big sale/coupon cost at the supermarket or pharmacy (CVS/RiteAid). So if you pay attention you may always be stocked up from other sources. All that said, there are many items that easily cover our membership cost (for Costco). The meat, beef tenderloin, $8.99, I can pay up to $18 at the supermarket or butcher. Big shrimp (12 to the lb), $9.50/lb, easily $15 at fish dept. Funny, I buy the carrots JCarter mentioned. They are less than half supermarket price per lb, so I am ahead if we throw out the last 1/4 of the bag. More often than not, it's used up 100%.  Truth is, everyone will have a different experience at these stores. Costco will refund membership up to the very end, so why not try it, and see if the visit is worth it? Last year, I read and wrote a review of a book titled The Paradox of Choice. The book's premise was the diminishing return that come with too many things to choose from. In my review, I observed how a benefit of Costco is the lack of choice, there's one or two brands for most items, not dozens. If you give this a bit of thought, it's actually a benefit. "Keep a notebook. (or spreadsheet, etc. whatever works) Start to track what things cost as few can really commit this all to memory.  You'll start to find the regular sale prices and the timing of them at your supermarkets. I can't even tell you the regular price of chicken breasts, I just know the sale is $1.79-1.99/lb, and I buy enough to freeze to never pay full price.  The non-perishables are easy as you don't have to worry about spoilage. Soap you catch on sale+coupon for less than half price is worth buying to the limit, and putting in a closet.  Ex Dove soap (as the husband, I'm not about to make an issue of a brand preference. This product is good for the mrs skin in winter) - reg price $1.49. CVS had a whacky deal that offered a rebate on Dove purchase of $20, and in the end, I paid $10 for 40 bars of soap. 2 yrs worth, but 1/6 the price.  This type of strategy can raise your spending in the first month or two, but then you find you have the high runners ""in stock"" and as you use products from the pantry or freezer, your spending drops quite a bit. If this concept seems overwhelming, start with the top X items you buy. As stated, the one a year purchases save you far less than the things you buy weekly/monthly." A Budget is different for every person.  There are families making $40K/yr who will budget to spend it all. But a family making $100K of course will have a different set of spending limits for most items. My own approach is to start by tracking every cent. Keep a notebook for a time, 3 months minimum. Note, for homeowners, a full year is what it takes to capture the seasonal expenses.  This approach with help you see where the money is going, and adjust accordingly. The typical goal is to spend less than you make, saving X% for retirement, etc. The most important aspect is to analyze how much money is getting spent on wasteful items. The $5 coffee, the $10 lunch, the $5-$7 magazines, etc. One can decide the $5 coffee is a social event done with a friend, and that's fine, so long as it's a mindful decision. I've watched the person in front of me at the supermarket put 4 magazines down on the counter. If she has $20 to burn, that's her choice.  See Where can I find an example of a really basic family budget? for other responses. I have friends that have to buy very large shirts. A plain red pocketed shirt in their size costs at least $20 at a physical store if they even carry their size.  You just can't beat the options and price an online retailer can offer. I don't know of any rule of thumb for travel. In general, what you spend on entertainment should be what you have left after paying for the more mundane things in life -- housing, food, electricity, and so on -- and setting aside reasonable amounts for retirement and emergencies. Entertainment varies widely as a percentage of one's income. Someone making minimum wage and trying to support a sick wife and three kids probably has pretty much zero left over for entertainment. Someone who makes a million a year and has no debts might spend 50% or more of his income on entertainment. Yes, I've heard rules of thumb for charity, housing, and retirement that are probably at least useful ballparks. But for entertainment? No, I think that's just what's left over. You should see what your average weekly purchases are and set that aside in your checking/current account, then you should typically not be in danger of overdrawing. Doing this exercise will also help you get a better understaning of your spending and spending habits. For example if on average you spend $500 USD a week then put say $575 USD in your current account and you should not be in danger of over drawing and then having to go into your online account and make the transfer. I always tell people to setup a budget and to stick to it as best as they can, earmark money for dining out, entertainment, anything they can think of that they would spend money on, this way they can keep track of where it goes and how often and quick it goes.