What % of income do you spend on Fun?

[debtfreeme]

5% or about 200 a month. I dole it out to myself as my allowance for the week and it needs to cover everything that is fun: movies, dinners, coffee, treats, etc. for that week. Some weeks I spend it, others I don't and it gets saved, or what ever is left gets saved towards a vacation.

I do also save for vacation each month into a savings account.

[Leraldo]

It's not necessary to spend money in return for quality of life. Many of life's most wonderful aspects are free for the taking - enjoying the great outdoors, time with family and friends, creative cooking at home. Be careful not to buy into the fallacy that spend = happiness.

I absolutely agree with you but the original question was about money for fun. My main idea is if you like something very much but it costs money - try to find money for it. I still recall my first trip to Turkey when I had to pend quite a lot of money. You can't by memories if you missed the right moment...

[ronantheconan]

Personally, I'm quite not the fun guy. I view working as fun and I think I'm really getting old fast, despite that I'm only 27. There are times that friends forced me out of my nutshell (my workstation), if that counts, well I spend like 2% of my monthly income.

[melaniemathis]

I usually spend 10% of my income for fun. 5% I will spend it like watching movies, playing badminton weekly. While the other 5% will go to my savings for my yearly travel with my hubby and children.

[Eagle]

I have been married 2 years. I'm 30 years old. My wife lets me control our finances and in those 2 years we have paid off all our debt except our home and have been saving for retirement. But I have realized not everyone enjoys saving as much as me. So does anyone out there put aside a portion of their income for fun, entertainment, or things like that? Even if its not an exact percentage, what can the men and women on this forum suggest I do?

We probably spend about $100-150 (maybe around 3-4% depending on the month) or so on "fun". We have adult allowances (we recently bought a house so that number has gone down a bit) and we set aside money for entertainment (Netflix, movie rentals, etc.).

We also have kids so membership to the local Zoo and local Science Museum are also yearly expenses.

We do like to do things that are free. For example, we try to go to the local public library once a month. We can rent DVD's and check out books for free.

What are you and your wife's interests?

Bottom line, life is too short. Enjoy the ride along the way.

[Eagle]

Thank you both.

Another point when I say fun includes things like vacation and the like.

We try to save up for vacations. We set money aside each month for when we do fun things. Or we just put it in that month's budget.

When I think of fun I think of blow money or miscellaneous expenses...

[optimist]

I spend about 6% on my budget on "fun." About half of that is travel, and the other half includes clothes for me and my kid, eating out, tickets to movies/concerts, manicures and haircuts, etc. I would like to spend more on travel and possibly on personal care, but until I reach my financial goals I'm going to try to keep this category of expenses low.

[danthecashbackman]

Budgeting

Budgeting for me require discipline for both myself and my wife. Oftentimes we have a friendly argument about what is priority in the type of entertainment or destination for travel; however, the cost is always paramount and we cannot pass a very good deal that comes now and then.

[danthecashbackman]

Budgeting

Sorry, forgot the numbers - we budget between 5 to 10% targeting the 5% but sometimes reaching 8-9%. This way we don't put pressure on us for overspending - and most often the trip is very good, relaxing and fun.

[danielhermann]

I would say don't sacrifice your today for tomorrow. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. You need to have some fun and some me too time too as a family. You need to eat out once in a while, go for movies/ plays/ dances/ cultural programs and go for vacations at least once a year. In fact, holidaying is the best time to bond. For a family of four, vacationing costs nearly 30% of our annual expenditure. This includes fare, accomodation and stay. The accomodation cost is high in our case because the kids do not like to stay in budget hotels so we really splurge. But each and every cent was worth it. Of course, during the year we are all busy with our lives to really take time out.

[Permanent Temp]

I found that with having debt over my head for many years I tend to say oh I'll just take 70 dollars out and make it last a week but I can't so it goes on my credit card and that is a bad cycle.

I took time to track all my spending over 3 months and come up with an average and those amounts are funneled into categories. That did work until I started paying off my car aggressively now those numbers are slim and the same pattern is happening.

It will back and balanced in the next check. I set aside aprox 100 a month when that system is up and running.