Budgeting for personal entertainment

[kunoichi]

I am wondering how much you guys budget each month for personal entertainment. That is going out to the movies, renting movies, plays, sporting events and the like. I am on a debt reduction budget so I generally don't spend more than $40-50 a month. I just went to a movie and tickets were $8 each, ouch!

[LuxLiving]

Re: Budgeting for personal entertainment

I budget $2.00 a month. That's one matinee movie a month sans popcorn!

[Broken Arrow]

Re: Budgeting for personal entertainment

I don't have a budget for that.

If I want it, then I'd have to take it out of the food budget (which I admit is relatively big).

In other words, I'm trying to "encourage" myself to spend less on food by using other enjoyments as an incentive. On the other hand, I also enjoy eating out sometimes, and I count that as a form of entertainment. So, it makes sense for me to lump them together anyway.

[ren]

Re: Budgeting for personal entertainment

Well, I don't quite budget for that, but I allow myself $30 a week of 'funny money' for eating out, going to concerts, that sort of thing.

[rduell]

Re: Budgeting for personal entertainment

I don't have that in the budget either, simply because there isn't enough money to include it.

[shepav]

Re: Budgeting for personal entertainment

We have budgeted ourselves $20 each for whatever money, and then $40 for entertainment money. So basically $80/month. We're trying not to spend that though - we're hoping to see how much we can save from that every month!

[kunoichi]

Re: Budgeting for personal entertainment

Thanks for the great replies here. I am leaning toward cutting that out of the budget all together for now. That extra money could have some other uses right now. For whatever reason, that is a foreign concept to most of the people I speak with.

[MonkeyMama]

Re: Budgeting for personal entertainment

My budget would be $0, but dh's is $20 for netflix. $60 if you include cable. He uses a lot of his allowance for DVDs. But movies are his life and he doesn't spend money on much else. I am trying to get him to a buy some clothes for winter and he rather have some DVDs - LOL - whatever.

We rarely go to a movie but maybe a few times a year we will got to a matinee. I can't even remember the last time we did though. For the most part we don't have entertainment outside of our home in the budget. As you see we spend plenty with rentals and cable and such.

[kealina]

Re: Budgeting for personal entertainment

we don't have a budget amount per se as it depends on what happens... birthdays, coupons, special deals, vouchers, etc all affect the amt we spend every month... but since i've been tracking our expenses i will say that the most we've spent is $25 and the least $2 in a month and that generally we lean closer to $5-10 every month...

[Ima saver]

Re: Budgeting for personal entertainment

We don't go to movies or watch tv very much. Our big form of entertainment is eating out or going to parties. (which are free) I budget about $100 a week for eating out, but I spend very little on groceries.

[poundwise]

Re: Budgeting for personal entertainment


Presently less than $10 a month for entertainment.

[Broken Arrow]

Re: Budgeting for personal entertainment

Thanks for the great replies here. I am leaning toward cutting that out of the budget all together for now. That extra money could have some other uses right now. For whatever reason, that is a foreign concept to most of the people I speak with.

What I did when I set up a budget is that I took everything that I wanted to fund, and sorted them in the order of priority. I made sure that every expense listed was as low as I can make it. Then, depending on how much I my net take home is, that's the cut off line for what can be funded and what can not. At least, it puts things into perspective for me anyway.

[beeblebrox]

Re: Budgeting for personal entertainment

I really don't budget it out much, but I get discounted movie tickets which makes our movie going experiences a little cheaper.

[The Budget Man]

Re: Budgeting for personal entertainment

I think that having money available for personal entertainment is very important. I keep money available in the Day-To-Day section of my budget where I have the most flexibility.

One of the major causes of budgets failing is people pretending that they don't have personal expenses... rubbish, we all do.

If you watch what happens to people who are "helped" by some of those do good organisations that teach people to be overstrict with their budget.

The story goes like this...

The person or family is in a difficult position so they go for help. Over a period of months the people climb out of their difficulties, all the while hating their budget.

Then the day comes when they're back on top. Within weeks thair situation is worse than when they started. They've hated their budget so much that they throw it out the window the moment they can.

So when we are helping someone climb out of trouble they need to budget in a way that will suit them. Ignoring entertainment and other social expenses just sets people up for failure.

Enjoy Your Money
The Budget Man

https://www.PersonalityBudgeting.com

Where you discover how to budget in a way that you will be happy to continue with!

[Diolla]

Re: Budgeting for personal entertainment

When we were cutting our budget I gave up Netflix and DS gave up Gamefly ($29 a month, ouch) so I budget $20 a month for renting movies and games. Compared to the $49 a month we were spending it seems like a good compromise.