Do lots of people have these sorts of savings? Or am I bloody right?!

We contribute 1250/month and then a lump
sum of DH’s annual bonus to a work-sponsored high interest savings account. This is in addition to full pension contributions. We have three children who will be university age in less than 10 years, so we are saving like mad to be able to help cover upcoming expenses for those years. We want to make
sure that we can pay for things like their university maintenance (they won’t be eligible for assistance due to parental income), driving expenses, living costs if they get unpaid work experience opportunities, etc.

We rarely eat out because it is expensive and feels like a waste of money. If you have money to regularly have nice meals out, you have money to save. I’d suggest you go over your discretionary expenditure to see where you could re-direct some of those funds to savings for your future.

Money allocated to be spent later.
Our sinking fund is £500pcm to cover annual service/insurance/tax for car, house insurance, quarterly energy bills etc.etc. so the account total fluctuates wildly.
Actual savings are kept separate.

What are sinking funds?

What people can save is made up of all the thousands of decisions they’ve made before now. I currently only save about 400 a month (half is sinking funds, the rest true savings) I’m currently trying to over pay my mortgage before it renews next year and pay off a new kitchen loan (before mortgage renewal. This time next year I should be saving £1k a month in true savings, £400ish in sinking funds. But I can only do that because I have no childcare costs (DD is 14) and I choose not to upgrade the size of house, and I’ve had significant pay rises since I bought my home 4 years ago.
I do however put 10% in my pension (salary sacrifice) which my employer matches and have managed to get to 40% equity in my house since I bought it so I feel secure if things went really wrong- I still count the Pennys though and I wish I was better at day to day spending

I am gobsmacked by the vitriol on this thread from people who think saving is some kind of evil thing that means you have to live a small, mean life

@mateysmum I agree

A lot of people must have really dull lifes. Saving for stuff that might not happen and feeling guilty about a nice meal as they “only” have £2k savings. Live a little ffs

@Lalalol Financial security gives many people peace of mind. And gives options to eg move house, change school, change job. TBH, I think the "live for the day" mentality may be OK in a good financial climate, but in current financial climate, I would recommend OP prioritises savings over fancy meals out

Depends on your monthly income and expenditure. Unless you're saving for something in particular, general advice is to have six months of wages as savings, to tide you over in case of sickness, redundancy, or unable to work for any number of reasons. During that time, most of your expenses continue, i.e. mortgage, utilities, car lease repayments, gym memberships, food, etc., your only real savings would be commuting and work costs such as food and drink on the move and maybe work clothes.

Someone with a take home pay of £2,500 per month (roughly average) would therefore need savings of £15k for that alone. More if their wages were more, so someone on £4k take home per month would need £48k for "safety".

I don't personally think having savings of £50k for someone on higher than average earnings is particularly too high at all.

Because they're saving for a house move/kids uni fees or property ladder /retirement/rainy day funds. Lots of reasons. Savings doesn't have to mean "dead money".
Overpaying the mortgage is in its way a form of saving because in the long term you will pay massively less on the loan and release money for other purposes.

Is the 50k Inc pension? I’m on £45k and have about £7k savings. Tempted to stop saving soon and overpay my mortgage instead. Why does anyone need £50k savings? It’s a huge amount!

I absolutely loathe the type of posters who kick off at sensible advice and just want to drag others down with them.
So selfish

Anyone who is struggling or not please give MoneySaving Expert a go.
It's a fabulous supportive community on there.
No judgement just helpful advice and lots of tips and support.
The forums have debt free wannabe and it's just amazing how many people in serious ( 60K plus)debt have worked their way out of it , turned their lives around and became financially stable.
So much debt is due to emotional spending and more support is needed

Well said!

Virgin Money has a 10% one at the moment.

I absolutely do. Others don't!

We save a lot (me late 40s, him late 50s). We both jumped around a bit and didn't really settle into our careers until about 15 years ago so we had to make up some time! Individually I save $2,500 a months into my retirement fund, and then jointly we put another $2,000 a month into other savings (largely earmarked for college.) We are high earners now but as I said, we didn't start saving until later.

There's a financial advisor who often says, "Pay yourself first" which we've taken to heart. First day of the month - automatic transfers to savings accounts.

You do realise it’s not a choice between a meal out and baked beans!?

@Sugarcoldturkey
When a certain poster throws the below quote at me (MasterBeth), do you wonder why I think they don't believe in saving. I think I was the one being misrepresented. I 100% stand by my opinion (and that's all it is) that someone with no kids, earning over 50k cannot "easily afford" nice meals out if they only have 2k in savings and IF THEY SO WISH, should look at ways they can increase savings. Many people don't have savings because they have no option, but my take out is that is not the OPs situation. Anyone can spend their money how they like, but at least one poster doesn't think it's worth saving because benefits will pay!

"It doesn't only sound harsh, it sounds completely unreasonable for you to have any kind of say over what anyone else does with their own money. Your prissy "best practice" finance industry nonsense is absolutely fine for you, if that's what you want to do. If the OP feels the joy in a nice meal out while you smugly sit at home with a cold tin of beans on your lap and a lump sum in the bank, it's not your business to tell her otherwise"

To the op.
Open a first direct account regular saver. You can choose when the money leaves your account. Mine goes out on payday. The maximum you can save is £300 and interest rate is 7%. When the year is up transfer the money you’ve saved and the interest you get (gross interest is about £135 ) to an isa. Mine is with Moneybox but there may be better rates around now. Look at MSE!

NatWest regular saver is 6% but the max you can save is £150 a month. Do the same thing with this account. That’s £450 a month which on your wage should be possible. £5500 a year in your isa will give you interest of almost £300 the following year. Compound interest is wonderful. Rinse and repeat.
If you do this consistently you will start to enjoy it and the freedom that having savings brings. I grew up without a lot of money. We had everything we needed and I had a good childhood but there was nothing extra. It’s not a life I wanted for my children. Having a cushion of savings knowing that I can cover living expenses for months if necessary feels better than a weekend away, a lunch or a new car ever could. We still have a good standard of life but we live below our means.

Money is just a means of having what we need to live and we have that so there's no use in worrying!

I posted before I replied to this and tbh it's a worrying take on finances.
As you have 5 DC between you I would consider financial security long term .

@ThisNoisyTealLurker
Have you looked on MSE for advice?
Absolutely brilliant.
If you haven't considered it already they have tools as to how you can pay down your debt effectively then save.
Tbf the Op is on 53K ,no DC and that's what I was replying to.
Good luck!

I work in care and am about to start a course to retrain in a different area so I'm a low earner, my fiancé earns around twice what I do and we have 2 DC each and 1DC together. He still owns a property with his ex wife but she can't afford to buy him out yet. We have £5K saved which was an inheritance and literally nothing else. I have some credit card and loan debts and constantly live in my overdraft. We've just moved in with a family member in order to save for a house deposit so hopefully we'll be a bit better off soon.
I sometimes worry about having no savings but at the end of the day we have a roof over our heads, food in our bellies and our kids are well provided for. We are happy, my fiancé and I are happy and our relationship is solid so I try not to compare myself to others. Money is just a means of having what we need to live and we have that so there's no use in worrying!

Your last sentence has nailed it.
Cognitive dissonance.
No one can possibly have saved without being miserable and a fun sponge
Same on the booze threads.
If you aren't caning it you must be a miserable, unsocial hermit

Saving is a habit
Yes times are rough and there are many people struggling-agreed
However Op is not and that's what pp are replying to.
Society doesn't currently encourage saving it encourages spending
Fine when borrowing money is cheap, those times are gone.
£100 a month is a great start, once you get going and saving is the priority then those expensive meals don't look so appealing.
Most of the stuff people spend daily on are easily subbed so no real loss

Pay yourself first

It’s not just on money threads though I agree those are the worst, people cannot imagine that anyone has a different life style or views than them. Is it a lack of critical thinking or actually is it wanting people to confirm back to them that their views are right so they don’t feel bad?

The likelihood is that most people have a period of old age first.
I'm not scrimping on food and heating in my old age.
No thanks
If I die then my DC will be very fortunate financially indeed.
It's a win win

@MasterBeth
No one is under any obligation to save, free choice etc

But Op is on a reasonable salary , no DC
As they say " a fool and his/ her money is soon parted"

Do you have insurance if either of you loose your job? What happens if the money stops coming in even for a brief amount of time ?

We save loads but earn loads and mortgage is very manageable compared to income

We have kids but are past the brutal childcare costs stage