Allowances/Blow Money

[peanut]

For those of you who give each other allowances/blow money, how big a percentage of your income is it and what expenses come from those allowances?

Ours is 3.4% of our income per person and includes:

• Recreation & entertainment
• Clothing
• Haircuts
• Hobbies
• Books for hobbies/recreation/entertainment, and
• in my case, any money used for setting up a business

In all honesty though, DH has agreed that I can keep any proceeds from my crafting "as long as it doesn't get to be too much"...I am supplementing my allowance with some dividend money so I can afford to set up the business. But it is a really tight squeeze and I think the business expenses should come from elsewhere. However, it is what it is and I'm just doing craft shows this year as a result...with a friend who can help share the cost of a table/booth. Plus contemplating having DD#1 help set up a website to sell e-books on. She knows how to do all the coding for this...

ETA: oh, and education is included in our allowance/blow money too.

[hmcart]

We dont really do blow money. Haircuts and other things are just budgeted in. Honestly we talked about it and I think once we get some debt paid off we might start but for now there is no blow money!

[Telephus44]

Well, I feel a little odd admitting this, but our allowances are a collective 9.7% of our income. When we first pooled our money together DH was used to a much higher amount of discretionary income, so this was a compromise amount we agreed on. I'd personally set it lower, but this is what works for us right now.

This covers:
Books/Music/Video Games
Beauty (if I want to get a pedicure or buy a $20 face cream)
Recreational clothing (if someone NEEDS new socks or a winter coat, that comes out of our main account, but if I want something just because it looks good on me, this is where it comes from)
Dining out by ourselves - if DH is at work and runs out to Dunkin Donuts for a coffee, or if I want to eat lunch out with a friend. If we eat out together or as a family that comes from our joint budget
Computer parts (guess this would be under hobbies)


Most of our side income we make we just keep, but it's nothing outrageous. If I make $20 selling something on eBay, that's mine to spend. If DH makes a few bucks by fixing someone's computer, that's his. If it were serious money, then we'd have a talk as to how to handle it.

[Greebo]

Our budget is based on lower than take home - our mortgage is deducted automatically, as is our auto insurance, so our budget %'s from my spreadsheet (shown here) are actually inflated much higher than the real # when factoring in those "outside the budget" expenses.

• Recreation & entertainment 7.45%
• Blow 6.66% (hey, I'm evil!)
• Clothing 1.67%
• Haircuts .83%
• Hobbies 2%
• Books for hobbies/recreation/entertainment 1.67%
• Vacation saving 3..33%
• Date night 3.33%

[nuisance26]

~Our pocket money is 3% of our gross income. My parameters are like Telephus's. It covers entertainment, optional clothes and beauty, events and food out when we go out alone, any toys/hobby supplies/electronics we want to buy that are for our own primary use, little surprises for the kids, special grocery treats and alcohol.
I cut the family's hair and as of this month DH cuts mine. Family meals out, a rarity, fall under my vacation budget. Since I homeschool, we have a separate budget for education.
To sum up, I feel that PM is for anything that is for the primary enjoyment of the spender. So an E-Reader is something I'd have to use PM for, but a dvd player would fall under my Family Fun category.~

[Cricketlegs]

I don't have any percentages I just give us each $250 a month or $500 collectively.

[greekislandgirl]

I have separate line-items in our weekly household budget for clothing, gardening, sewing, hair cuts, toiletries, going out for coffee, going out to eat, and entertainment - which I think covers pretty much everything that's been mentioned so far. Adding all of those categories together, the total is less than 1%, I had never thought about it like that before. I have stockpiled HBA so there's no need for beauty expenses, and gardening and sewing expenses sometimes come out of our separate Stockpile Fund (seeds, thread) if they are stockpile-able. I don't get my hair cut and Dh's costs €8 every few months. We are trying to avoid eating out.

I guess we aren't that much fun LOL.

[Momto5RN]

it can vary - 40$ each a week most times
but i take mine from my paycheck which can be variable so there are times i take no blow money if my checks or low .

seems i dont often spend it on me either LOL alot of times it goes for things the kids need. something i see foe the house - giving one of the kids cash for something they need for school etc

[imagine]

I'm guessing we do not have blow money. Anything that is not a need is discussed sometimes for months before it is bought.

Although we do have a budget category for eating out and that is usually discussed before we do it. Spent $23 for eating out so far. Had to celebrate national pizza week. lol

[MomToTwoBoys]

I wouldn't say that we have blow money, per se. But, we do have an allowance which is towards things that help make us look and feel better. This includes haircuts, gym memberships and the occasional lunch out with each other. It's roughly about 5% of our monthly net income.

[frugal.lass]

My "blow money" is about 5% of my budget but its more like a misc category. Some months it goes to eating out and dry cleaning, other months its a haircut, notebooks for my correspondence class and bubble bath. It's really all over the place and it's not always spent on "fun" stuff for me but I've had problems trying to break it down more accurately so for now, I'm just leaving it as is (its been working for me so far).