Monthly Spend Calculator
I know its in dollars, but this calculator seemed appropriate to you, my noble readers in the UK:
How Much Money The Average UK Family Pays In Tax
The name of the site is Where Does It Go, so here is a some information on where your money goes in regards to tax.
According to a BBC survey in November 2007, the average income for a family with 1.9 kids is £32,779, or £630 a week.
Assuming 22% tax (20% in 2008) this equates to a family paying £126 income tax a week.
But we’re not only taxed on income, we’re taxed on our outgoings as well via VAT – using the VAT calculator I took some rough figures from the above graph to give a back of the envelope guestimate on how much we pay out in tax indirectly through spending.
We currently pay 0% tax on:
- food
- books, newspapers and magazines
- children’s clothes
And a reduced rate of 10% on:
- reduced rate
- fuel power
- energy saving
- residential conversions
Everything else is at standard 17.5%.
As can be seen from the above BBC chart, the average spend per week for family – £601.20. Broken down I included how much we can expect to pay in tax for each area:
- Food – £60 – No tax
- Alcoholic drinks/ cigarettes – £15 – Tax: £1.50 (Source)
- Clothing – £35 – children’s clothes no tax; assume adults get £20 taxed at 17.5% – Tax: £2.50
- House fuel – £45 – Tax: £2.25
- Household goods – £40 – Tax:£5.00
- Health – £5 – Tax:£0.85
- Transport – £80 – Fuel tax of 80% (Source) – Assume petrol is £40 – Tax:£30
- Communication – £15 – Tax: £2.62
- Recreation – £80 – Tax: £14
- Education – £20, Assume they are books – No Tax
- Restaurants/hotels – £45 – Tax: £7.87
- Misc goods – £50 – Tax: £8.75
- Other – Mortgage interest, holidays, fines, licences – £105 – assume no tax
TOTAL: £75.34
TOTAL INCLUDING INCOME TAX: £201.34
I have tried to err on the side of caution in assigning rough figures, if you have suggestions for modifying this please let me know.
In conclusion: 31% of your money goes straight back to the government. How do YOU want it spent?
Resources:
Online Finance Planners
There are various online planners these days, here are a few of them.
The Snowball Calculator I’ve mentioned before, a great way to organise your debts and it really works.
Various Flash graphs to see how your money grows or falls in the future, including pensions.
Quick Salary Calculator to work out your take home pay after taxes and NI
Budget Calculator from the FSA to see how much you are spending. See more of their tools here.
How much was money worth in 1850? Compare prices now and then with this olde £ calculator
A few travel related money saving sites….
Why pay for hotels when some kind soul will let you sleep on the sofa?
See how much money you’ll get in the exchange rate markets with XE.com
Calculate the ethics of going at all, with this carbon footprint calculator.
A few mortgage specific ones now….
Lots of shoddy mortgage calculators online which try and sell you a mortgage when you’re just after information – the Guardian’s mortgage calculator sticks to the facts.
Is it worth buying a house or investing the money instead? This calculator tries to help you decide.
How much is that student loan going to cost you? Try out the Student Loan debt guide.
A quick way to see how much money you get back out of certain investments is found here.
These investment calculators let you work out you work out how much money you’ll get back in more breakdown detail. You can select monthly, annual, or a single premium.
Snowball Calculator
Carrying on with budgeting help, I came across this method named “Snowballing” which offers psychological methods to pay off debts. If you have several debts, such as loans, credit cards and overdrafts you can use this method by paying the minimum fees on each, then using any remaining cash to tackle them one debt at a time. You can choose to tackle the debt with the lowest balance (psychologically nice) or highest interest (mathematically best)
There is a Snowball Calculator around that can help you work out how much to save I think I’ll check it out.
Tags: budgeting, calculator, tools
