How much do you have in your savings account?

[Eurydice84]

Just that, really. I am trying to save up for some big expenses (house renovations) but I am worried about blowing up the majority of my savings and starting from scratch again.

I upcycle a lot of stuff and to a good standard - mainly for fun, not to make money. However, to quote money made from the Money For Nothing programme is not really achievable for the majority. The reason it sells for so much is because it is a well known person / designer who has put their name to the upcycle. There is no way they would sell for that price without this link / involvement. Having said that, I agree money can be made but just not THAT much unless you have someone who already has a strong social media presence that will colab with you or, you already have one yourself.

Exactly. You could probably repurpose the metaphor about if 1000 monkeys bash away at a typewriter, one of them will produce material worthy of being the next Shakespeare into if 1000 people spend enough hours stripping down old typewriters and other similar junk to fashion into jewellery or other 'crafts' then perhaps one of them will make more than about £2.50 for their efforts.

£10000. But when it is soent it will not be able to be save again as it was an inheritance. So I’m really scared to use it

@Bluehonda yeah I am 'skint' as in I have no savings and live in a rented flat.
What comes in each month pretty much goes out each month.
But I am not in any debt. Bills get paid. Food and clothing bought. We don't go without. If there was any circumstances where we suddenly needed money for an unexpected expense we have family that would help. So it's all ok.
I would love to have more money in my life but life doesn't always work out that way.

What kind of a wanker comes on to a thread like this and proudly exclaims "blimey you lot are all skint".

£4300 in ISa.

£1000 in everyday saver.

But easily dipped into the everyday saver for things such as opticians and MOT.

ISA covers holidays etc.

Finding it hard to build them up currently with cost of living

£2k

Sometimes you just have to take the attitude that money is FOR things.

Yes! Absolutely this

This sounds dumb but I genuinely don’t understand how people have savings of 40k/50k/60k. That just seems crazy to me but maybe that’s because I have £0.00 lol and that’s probs the most I’ll ever have in there

No, the Moneyfornothing woman sold those typewriter bits to shops which advertise on the net. Easy to find.
Too many people are quick to say “It’s all right for you/her/them because...” when they haven’t used their noddle and tried for themselves.
Read all that I wrote about putting some cash in China. If you think it’s crass, you haven’t read or understood. If you just want to take the p out of me being up all night for health reasons... well, um...
If £200 of the £500 from the typewriter went into China while you were watching it, and you sold when it had only gone up a bit, what’s crass about that? “Ah but you don’t know what’s going to happen”? Sure but you control when you buy and sell. If it’s been going one way and the situation isn’t changing, it’ll probably be up tomorrow.

I’ve been doing things like the above all my life, which is how I got to have enough around to not worry how much within a few %. It works, so don’t sneer.
Nowt special about me, except I suppose I’m tight.
If you’re happy with nothing spare, fine, but I wouldn’t be. There’s always something you can do to change that.
If you want zero risk that’s a hard life. But get something for nothing from freecycle, make it better if you can, then sell it.

The thread’s not all about people with nothing.
Message is, if you want to change the situation, you can.
I'm surprised how many people want to say thay have no spare cash.
It seems to be a thread for people who want to declare that.
I wouldn't/didn't want to stay with "nothing spare" so I found ways to change it, without any special skills. It's up to you if you want to change it or not.
I’m not an internet troll and I’m not interested in arguing with them so I’m out of this convo, unless someone wants to ask something.

Too many people are quick to say “It’s all right for you/her/them because...” when they haven’t used their noddle and tried for themselves.
If you’re happy with nothing spare, fine, but I wouldn’t be. There’s always something you can do to change that.
If you want zero risk that’s a hard life.

Many, many people are not in a position to risk what little they do have. So that's as ignorant as it is arrogant.

£2800.

In August we had 16.5k, moving house plus fees and unexpected related expenses etc decimated it right down to £0 by October. Yikes.

So we pooled most of my income into savings since then, got it up to 3.5k. Urgent house repairs mean it's gone down a bit, and it'll be at about £300 by the end of this week thanks to work being done on our bathroom.

Again, we're putting lots of my income into savings for the forseeable while my husband takes care of all the bills, so it should increase. Albeit slowly.

I'm about to go on Mat leave so I'm getting twitchy about not having a lot of savings left now. Luckily every big purchase to do with the house and baby is done and we're now just saving for emergencies.

Aiming to get it up to 10k by the end of the year.

@Eurydice84 16 pages of responses, OP. What conclusion are you coming to?

I really appreciate this thread as it's both encouraging and a reality check.

I was skint 2 years ago (like crying because I didn't have bus fare kind of poor) but have managed to save just over £5,000 in a Help to Buy ISA, £1,700 in a Stocks & Shares ISA, £80 in an instant access account (need to build that back up again), £250 in Plum investments and £900 in a foreign bank account for my big dream to escape the UK one day! One can dream aye.

I've started saving daughter's child benefit into a JISA for her which has about £700 in it now.

Hoping to top my instant savings up a fair bit more but am going to be out of work soon so on the hunt for any job at the moment to tide me over. These numbers could very well change depending on how quick I can get back into work.

Single parent in my mid-30s.

To everyone struggling I really hope things take a turn for a better with those in power making better decisions for equality. Being poor is not a moral failure nor is being wealthy a moral success. Life isn't fair and some people work their butts off just to get by and inequality will keep it that way unfortunately.

You can slice the maths any way you like @Bluehonda but when your “few %” means + or - £200k, it’s both odd and ironic that you’d be here giving us the benefit of your financial wisdom. Lecturing “skint” people about money and how to make it with some bizarre craft scheme, is just not cool.

£4k. We just bought a house which used most of our savings - it was at £60k this time last year. Slowly we are building it back up again!

Because its anonymous?

You really think a hacker will somehow be able to get someone's real ID and bank details, passwords etc from a post on my?

Even if they did, they’d find the £0 I mentioned upthread 😂

Down to

£5k sinking fund
£3k general savings

As we just spent £20k on renovations and although it felt awful transferring the builders that money it is an investment. The money you spend renovating your house you should get back as such in equity. If you're unsure speak to a local estate agent before you go ahead with the work as to whether or not they think it will add the value back to your property

Both retired. (recently) only one of us of pension age. (I was a child bride ) eight years younger.

£30, 000 in the rainy day fund.

£250,000 on deposit

No debt, no mortgage.

We are planning a couple of trips this year to European destinations, including Prague for Christmas markets.

We are hoping to do a big holiday in 2024 we have started planning a trip to St Vincent and the Grenadines, we really want to do it, but as someone said up thread, the more you save the less you want to spend, so we are a tad twitchy....🙄

We are low spenders anyway, today we had a health anniversary clear of......................... to celebrate, we went to our local had two drinks and a light bite each, the bill was £45 we sat and watched the rain falling and the river in full on boil and just chatted, and that is us happy for another two weeks or so.

Disclaimer: it wasn't always like this ten years ago we were drowning in debt. So hold hard and hunker down it can pay off.

This sounds lovely.

10p

@sleephelp2022

@sleephelp2022 Please ignore the previous post I was trying to tag @Sleepysophie when my battery decided to have a moment and then discharge. 🙄

What I was trying to post, was that the afternoon was lovely and after thirty four years together I love the fact that we still want to do things like that, I always appreciate it because twelve years ago we had a £10,000 overdraft and we lived in most of it.

£230 that I only put in last month after starting a new job. Saving up for something that I know I need to pay for in a few months that will be over £1,000 - £1,500. I am trying to divorce my husband and now I need to take him to court. I was unemployed there for a good few months, ( I was doing contract work for a few years - a long contract came to an end and I couldnt pick up anything else) my solicitor made a legal aid application for me which I was granted, but now as I thankfully have a new job, I will not qualify. Soooooo, back around the houses we go. I had a few years ago £20K, but it is all gone now due to trying to separate / divorce and I was very ill with my husbands behaviors so took a package to leave my employment. No income until I was "well", I had to draw on these savings, leave matrimonial home, rent on my own etc, then went month to month on wages, always overdrawn.........