In the UK a lender must count what you are committed to pay, your essential household bills and the costs that are hard to cut, such as clothes and childcare. Many ask for recent bank statements to check the figures you give.
Mind My Money adds up the last twelve months from your own statements, on your own computer.
This is for households in the UK about to apply for a mortgage, or for a decision in principle, who will be asked what they spend each month and would rather know the answer before the form asks. It is taken from the FCA's lending rules and from MoneyHelper, both read on 30 October 2026 and linked below.
Asking about your spending is not the lender being nosy. The FCA's rule for mortgage lenders, MCOB 11.6.5, says a lender must take full account of your income after income tax and National Insurance and, as a minimum, of three kinds of spending: what you are already committed to pay, your household's basic essential expenditure, and its basic quality-of-living costs. The next rule, 11.6.6, says it “must not rely on a general declaration of affordability”. A line saying “I can afford it” is not enough.
MoneyHelper puts the same thing from your side: lenders “assess the monthly payment you can afford by reviewing both your income and outgoings”, and most cap what they lend at about four and a half times your yearly income, often less (MoneyHelper).
These are the FCA's own examples (MCOB 11.6.10 and 11.6.11), with the items MoneyHelper adds. Each lender has its own form, but the figures it asks for fall into these three.
| What the rules call it | What goes in it | Where your own figure is |
|---|---|---|
| Committed expenditure | Loans and credit cards, hire purchase and car leases, child maintenance, alimony, and whatever else you are contracted to keep paying after the mortgage starts. | The agreements themselves, your credit report, and your bank statements. |
| Basic essential expenditure | Food and washing, gas, electricity and other heating, water, phone, council tax, buildings insurance, ground rent and service charge on a leasehold, and essential travel, including to work or school. | Your bills, and the direct debits and card payments on your statements. |
| Basic quality-of-living costs | Spending that is hard to reduce: clothing, household goods and repairs, toiletries, basic recreation, some non-essential travel, and childcare. MoneyHelper adds gym membership, eating out, and subscriptions such as streaming services. | Only your statements: these are the card payments nobody sends you a bill for. |
MoneyHelper says lenders “might also ask to see some recent bank statements to back up the figures you supply”. The FCA's guidance gives payslips and bank statements as examples of evidence of income, and says a lender told about your loans and cards should check them, for example on a credit reference search or on your card or bank statements (MCOB 11.6.13).
For the household costs the rules give the lender a choice: it may take your actual spending, or use statistical data for a household like yours (MCOB 11.6.12). Either way, the figure you write on the form is one the statements should bear out. The awkward moment is a monthly figure from memory beside three months of statements that say something else, usually because of payments nobody remembers making: a subscription started on a free trial, an app billed through Apple or Google, an annual insurance that renewed on its own.
One more thing the lender does that you can do too. Unless your rate is fixed for five years or more, it has to consider likely interest rates over at least the first five years (MCOB 11.6.18), and MoneyHelper suggests asking yourself whether you could still pay if rates rose. With your monthly figures in front of you, that question has an answer.
Mind My Money does the adding up from your own statements, on your own computer. You sign in to your bank yourself in a browser; it downloads every transaction the bank lets you export, names the company behind each payment, and writes a report for the last twelve months that shows where the money went, with every regular payment listed by what it costs a year. Nothing is sent to us. It does not tell you how much to borrow, or from whom: that is between you and your lender or broker.
Runs on your own computer, and the app is free.