AIBU to ask HONESTLY…no tall tales!?

It's a pointless question.
2x minimium wages, paying for 2 nursery places is going to leave an awful lot less cash than 2x higher rate tax payers with Grandma doing a required childcare.

If you want to save more, is there anything you can cut back on? If the answer is dropping from 2 takeaways a week to 1, go for it. If the answer is to cut out eating a meal everyday, or turning the heating off, there is nothing to save.

We run out of money half way through every month so no saving here. We are higher earners but still paying nursery fees every month and have a big mortgage which is about to go up (gulp). Our kids are 3 and 6. I’m hoping it eases off when youngest goes to school next September.

About £600 each month. Some more, some none depending if annual bills are due. Savings got emptied on my last mat leave, so working to build it back up.

We earn £103k a year combined, in a medium COL area. Childcare, mortgage and groceries eat our wage.

It’s a pointless question because we’ll all have different incomes and outgoings.

If you post your income and outgoings, people may be able to suggest where you can make savings.

I don't understand why you don't see how people can save. Some people just earn a lot more than you do. Without comparing salaries and outgoings it's a completely pointless question!

At least £500 and overpay the mortgage by a couple of hundred every month too. If we didn’t book holidays would be able to save a lot more but currently paying £400 a month towards them to spread the cost. My partner has his own savings, unsure how much he puts away each month. It works for us

Only feel bad if you are wasting money. If you are not saving anything at all but getting your nails done once a month and a takeaway coffee once a week - well that’s 50 a month you could save. If you are not saving but spending money on swimming lessons for dc - that’s a justifiable expense imo.

There is too much variance in your demographic.

A younger couple with young dc will likely have a lot less disposable income than an older family with older dc who have experienced a different housing market & childcare days are behind them.

Not much maybe £100 some
months (but we have about £20k in the bank for things that go wrong or we need) i’m a sahm - if i worked full time we’d save most of my income (minus childcare) so would have a lot more so have made that choice to go without for the benefit of being at home and are comfortable with the choice as i could earn & we could save more if need be.

As a single parent, I never understand this.
I would be laughing if I had 2 incomes and only had to pay half of the bills.

How much do you both earn?
And what are your outgoings?
Do you live in a very expensive area?

Family of five, 4 adults and and 1 child. 2 Adult children pay £85 each a month they are with us 80% of the month.
total income (of 2 adults/child benefit /board)
£5000
total outgoings (of 2 adults/child inc food/petrol /socialising etc)
Roughly £4200
we put £500 in investments, £150 over pay on mortgage and anything else goes in savings account

Ill help you out hun, bloody £0. In loads of debt but hey ho! We had kids young so hopefully will have some money later in life to be able to live a little before all our bones start hurting!

We do save some money but we also have interest free credit card balances - different people would probably make different decisions.

A couple in their 30s who bought an expensive house and had kids young are going to be in a very different position to a couple in their 40s who had kids later and bought a house a decade earlier. Just specifying a family of 4 is far too wide a criteria.

Nothing. I get a bonus each January which I used to be able to save but now it just gets used for paying off the small amount of debt that we now accumulate during the year, and used for Christmas costs.

Things have been noticeably very much tighter for us over past few years.

so saving nothing, but just trying to be grateful that we can afford the basics and debt isn’t growing.

Something does need to change though because it’s really not a decent way to live.

A few hundred per month into a regular saver. I have a workplace pension and DH also pays several hundred into his private pension automatically each month. Surely it totally depends on your income and outgoings.

You cant even compare how much you save without the basic "what's your income?" And how much is your mortgage??

Agreed.

nothing most months, occasionally the odd £100.

These threads never make the OP feel any better so I don't see the point of them.

Everyone earns differently, everyone spends differently, people live in cheaper or more expensive parts of the country etc.

There are so many variants, it's ridiculous.

But you've done the virtual equivalent of going into Waitrose and asking the women with the nicest coats how much spare money they have.

MN is disproportionately affluent and threads like these always attract those keen to tell the world how much money they have and how financially responsible they are.

Which puts off posts by the people in debt, or those who live month to month or even those who earn lots of money but blow it all on fripperies because they know they'd be called irresponsible by those who 'couldn't sleep at night unless they had at least 6 months outgoings in savings and a good pension and certainly wouldn't be buying anything non essential until they were in this position'.

I dread these threads. I’m old and save nothing and have never been able to since I got my first job. I can only imagine it’s down to inherited wealth or sheer puritanical tightness - neither of which apply to me. 🤷🏻‍♀️

5 of us and we save £300 per month but only started doing this around 18 months ago. I have friends who save significantly more and friends who save nothing.

As a family of 5 with two full time incomes, in the days before the cost of living went through the roof, and with an affordable mortgage taken out in 1996...enough to afford a couple of holidays a year, a good Christmas, house maintenance and a car without credit. In terms of money set aside for the long term, nothing.
I started long term savings for the first time during lock down (nothing to spend on) at the age of 50, and with no dependent children.

£0. I’ve been in debt since the first week of university.

£1300 a month.
Joint income of 85k, 2 kids but no childcare costs, both wfh so no travel costs, mortgage of £900 which we overpay by £150 each month.
Edited to add, this doesn't include pensions