To think every woman should have at least £20,000 in savings she can access independently?

This would indeed be a problem.
Maybe women should be allowed to have a higher savings threshold for UC than men; given the misogynist society we still live in and the fact women are always at higher risk of violence in a relationship.

😂Maybe this will be followed by a thread entitled "I think everyone should have a holiday home where they can go and relax"

I honestly wonder what planet some mumsnetters live on!

I am 51. My DH (65) works full time. I am on PIP. We have a mortgage to pay. We have bills to pay. We are on a low income. We have absolutely no savings. If the car breaks down or the washing machine goes kaput or anything like that, we have to buy on credit and scrape to find the money to pay it back over the next few months.
We cut our own hair. Rarely buy clothes. Cannot afford the dentist or opticians. We have a small food budget. We run one car but limit it to one tank of petrol a month.

Where, pray, are we supposed to get the money for savings? Let alone 20k for me personally!!

Ideally every woman should try and have financial independence to enable to them to get out of a situation if need be, but the reality is that people can’t always save a lot of money if they have a lower income and a lot of outgoings.

Not every situation is the same. Some people are just scraping by through no fault of their own.

Yep I call it my 'Vex Money'. So if I hate my job I am not forced to stick it out. I have had this in the past a few times where lack of a financial buffer really forced me into decisions I would not have made otherwise.

I am nowhere near £20k but working on a 6 month expenses buffer. It's going slowly....

But there is still a period while not working that needs to be covered.

Yes but if you’re married it’s difficult.

Only way around it is giving it to a parent to safekeep.

I think every woman should have <insert the thing I have> to really be considered a functioning human, as a minimum.

Laughably out of touch.

I wouldn't have put my family's financial security at risk for the sake of having personal savings. And of course we'd have needed £40,000 in savings for me to be entitled to half of that if we'd divorced.

If you could send me the application form for how I apply for this sum of money that would be super.

I currently have about 50 quid until pay day and my husband has lost his job. So.

Tone deaf @AmusedPlumMember

I was told many years ago, to always have ‘running money’. I have always lived with this rule. Maybe not £20,000 to begin with but I could always access money to get out of a situation. Initially just a credit card that I never really used but had the ability to in an emergency, a small amount of cash. Then a small deposit account, and now more than enough to get my adult children out of trouble if they came to me.

In an ideal world or a fantasy world that would be lovely but speaking as a single parent (child grown up now) I sometimes struggled to pay for food, keeping the roof over our heads and juggling the bills used to give me sleepless nights. I had one terrible year when I ran up a lot of debt that took me ages to clear, but oh the relief when I did. Only managed to start saving very much later in life, I am sure there is nothing unusual about that.

Yep, ideally all women would have an emergency escape fund. (Except obviously they can’t 🫩) But even better, they should have well funded refuge services, access to housing if needed, police would be better trained to spot and deal with VAWG, etc, but that would involve funding social and public services to a much higher degree. Even better than that society takes VAWG much more seriously and deals with the root causes.

The child trust fund policy, which could have given all adults a reasonable amount at 18, disappeared with very little opposition. Alas.

So in your world you can’t comprehend that for many people £20k savings would be life changing? Lucky you…

If I found out my husband had a secret fund of 20k, i'd kill the bastard. No divorce necessary.

Om the other hand, for me to build up 20k, would require finanical abuse and depriving the kids.

I fucking wish 😂

second week of the holidays and I’d be checking into a spa hotel ALONE tbh

The running away fund. I never had access to less than a month rent in advance and the first month rent whilst I had young children
I wouldn’t have had children if I didn’t have it saved first

Yesterday 10k was enough and now this!

I do think we should all have an emergency fund but that might mean enough pocket change for beans and toast. And some don’t have that because their pantry is already bare

Literally every one of your posts since the OP has been to say something like "Well I didn't mean....", "obviously it depends......", "everyone circumstances are different.......", "I wasn't taking into account women on low incomes/women on benefits/women who are SAHMs and rely on their partner's income........".

I don't think anyone would argue that everyone should be financially independent, but if I'm honest I don't think your solution sounds like much of a plan, if it isn't realistic for the majority of people who are likely to need it.

Completely agree. Common sense.

The amount is unrealistic but the thought behind it is sound. I remember being about 19 & probably not very wise & I worked with a lady in her late 40's who had been through a difficult divorce & I always remember her telling me 'have some secret savings, even if you put away £10 a week, always have something put by'. I thought she was bonkers & bitter BUT I'm now late 40's with a lot more life experience & she eas absolutely right (sadly).

When I was with ex, I used to keep a go bag (for me and the kids) and 2k in cash hidden in the house. I didn't even really know why, but it made me feel safer. It took me 2 years after the split to unpack the go-bag and deposit the cash in an actual account.

I think having whatever you can, somewhere safe, for if you need to get out is sensible.

My split cost me nearly 30k in solicitor fees. Having the money to do that is what got me a fair deal. I am a high earner though, so that was possible for me, despite also being the sole carer for my children. It's the biggest reason that lots of women don't get fair outcomes from divorces.