How much do you have in your emergency pot?

Nothing plus debt. I’m going my best to get out of it and plan to save £100 per month for an emergency stash. There’s always someone better and worse off. No point being anxious just do your best to put as much aside as you can.

£3k, we have no credit cards so that money is basically our savings/emergency fund and fun money. I generally try to avoid letting it go below £2000 in case of suddenly having to move, appliance breakdown or family emergency visits (my family live abroad)

£200 and a credit card for emergencies, single parent to a disabled DC who I have 50/50 court ordered custody of and I have to share the DLA, Carers allowance and Child Benefit with ExH while having all the expenses for the DCs disablity

3k in savings and 1k in premium bonds.

Nothing. I'm poor.

10k in premium bonds

Whatever I find down the back of my sofa cushions! Between needing to fix cars, ultimately needing a new car, needing a new dishwasher, etc etc any pot we manage to save up ultimately ends up being used to replace something at the moment. Maybe we are just at the pace where everything is of the age is is breaking and needs replacing 🙈

Can I ask what your strategies were to save that much on your salary?

We typically have about 2k we can get our hands on.

We have equity and good enough credit that if we were really and totally fucked we could explore mortgage holidays, remortgaging, loans or using our full credit card levels.

Be aware of the 3-6 months earnings saved rule of thumb because having more that 6k can affect universal credit and 16k for jsa payments so I wouldn't aim to have more than that - it's better off overpaying on your mortgage imo.

Had no idea what privileged position I was in. Single parent, worked part time until about 12 month ago. Now earn about 37k. Have about 13k in savings. Own car outright. No credit cards, although I'm aware I should really. No debt apart from student loan and mortgage.

Since being on my own I have been incredibly strict with myself. I have a number of different savings pots for different things. I have £3,500 in an 'oh shit' account, £6000 that I can't get hold of easily, £3000 in a random not sure account, £200 in my holiday account, a few hundred in Christmas/birthdays, a hundred or so in a clubs and school trip account. I also add to my daughters isa and overpay a small amount on to my mortgage.

I have dd going into the various bank accounts each week, a hark back to when I was really hard up and needed to save smaller amounts. I got so used to being hard up I think I'm still fearful of spending money.

Nothing at all. I’m not working (MH issues), DH earns 27k a year. Still paying a mortgage.

I have £150 in a savings account in my name and my husband has £1700 in one in his name. I earn 15k a year he earns 55k. We share money though, or rather he shares money with me. He also has a credit card he lets me use for emergencies which I think has around 1k on it.

When my DCs were small and DH and I both worked full time we only ever had a couple of thousand but DH had a large overdraft facility for emergency use and a credit card with a big limit again for emergencies only. We also used to overpay on the mortgage each month so we had 'banked up' some overpay - this was in case we ever needed to stop paying the mortgage for a few months in case of job loss or whatever. Thankfully we never really had to use it as we were very lucky with job security Now retired so our money habits are now totally different.

@mindutopia We have a household income of over £100k a year though so I’m not sure we’re average.

That places you in the top 5% of earners, which is very far away from the 50% mark.

Every time we get a lump sum, something comes along to wipe it out. We swing from several thousand to minus at least once a year.

@brownbearbrownbear123 The consensus I hear is that people should aim to have 3 - 6 months of living expenses saved up in an emergency pot that can be immediately accessed, so maybe that's what you can aim for.

I have £12k away for emergency funds or for saving towards buying a larger house.
i did have 20k, but I have been off work for 7 years while raising my children and mostly surviving off my husbands very modest income.
I have recently returned to teaching (two days a week) and we plan to save that salary towards buying a larger house. We live very frugally though - most of our money has gone on doing the house we bought 5 years ago up. We cook from scratch, never eat out, drink wine at home, buy second hand clothes and do cheap family days out..

Me personally, in my personal savings, I have £1500, but I’m out of work due to long term sickness (cancer).

Collectively, we have a business and most of our family money sits in the business rather than in personal savings. We pull about £50k out a year to overpay our mortgage, so £50k, I guess?

We have a household income of over £100k a year though so I’m not sure we’re average.

We have enough for emergency repairs and unexpected problems, plus an emergency credit card. We didn't always have it though and our DC are now 18 and 14 so life is easier in some ways.

We've prioritised overpaying the mortgage and have a cushion so that we could freeze payments for 18 months and still be comfortably up to date with terms so that helps with the anxiety.

It really is. How can it not be?

£15000. Until 2 years ago I was on a modest income - 32k. I save about the same as I did then.

It’s actually gone down recently as I’ve had a lot of medical bills as the NHS refused to help me.

£200. No credit cards.

I was emotionally and financially battered after a recent redundancy, and feeling very anxious about money. At the moment, my emergency pot is around one and a half months expenses. I want to get that up to three months expenses by the spring. Ideally, I want six month expenses in my emergency fund but that will be longer term.

I'm paying off my mortgage alone - I think I'd feel more relaxed if I had a partner to share costs with.

We ran the numbers but overpaying on a large mortgage saves more than building up monthly savings from scratch to overpay. Comparing rates isn't always straightforward.

After years of being in debt, then slowly paying it off, we have 3000 in an emergency savings account. Another savings account for two lots of car maintenance, with between 1000 and 2000 in, it goes up and down and we add to it monthly.
Other expenses such as holidays and birthdays have their own savings pots, and I don't dip into other money to fund those.
I would try to spend less on the house if you can and prioritise a savings account.