Where does your money actually go?

What should I include in living costs?

Everything you must pay to live: housing, electricity and water, food, transport, school fees, insurance and medical. Not your debt repayments — those are counted separately, because the whole point is to see what is left for them.

What is the minimum expense figure it shows me?

It is Table 1 of Regulation 23A(9), GN R202 in GG 38557, 13 March 2015 — a floor, by income band, below which a credit provider may not assume your household costs fall when assessing you for new credit. If your own figure is higher, yours is the realistic one.

My budget is below the minimum. Is that a problem?

It usually means something has been left out rather than that you live on very little. Measured across 2,429 real DS4U budgets, declared living costs run at a median 83% of income — the regulated floor only replaced the declared figure in 6.5% of cases.

Is this the debt review affordability test?

No. A debt counsellor assesses over-indebtedness under Regulation 24(7), working from your real expenses and your actual credit agreements. This is a budgeting tool that uses the credit-provider norms as a sanity check.