I’ve no savings

[Outnumbered1983]

I’m in my early 40’s and don’t have any savings due to raising my children and working term time hours. I am now in a position to save a little a month but I feel like I’ve completely missed the boat with saving a nest egg for later in life. Am I in the minority with not having any savings? How much should I look to put away each month from now on?

I don’t have any savings either. It does keep me awake at night. But there’s not much I can do until I can start to
earn more - which I am working no. We will be in the minority though. Most people on MN seem to earn 70k + a year.

Of course it's not too late.

In your early 40s you presumably have 20+ years of work to save. You'd be amazed how much savings can build over 20 years if you save consistently.

No-one can tell you how much you should save. That depends on your income, expenditure, and goals.

You’re not a minority at all. On here people will tell you they have half a million put away for a ‘rainy day’, but if you look at the statistics, a large percentage of adults don’t have savings. Our savings were recently wiped out due to having to have work done on the house, so now we don’t have any either. It’s scary because if something else goes wrong, wha do you do, but wages aren’t matching life costs for most of us at the moment and thanks to the war, it’s going to get worse. So whilst it’s not ideal, it’s also not unusual.

I hope you are able to get yourself a bit of a financial cushion.

Starting small by saving a little helps and is better than nothing.

Don't try to compare yourself with others, especially on here <awaits the people who save thousands a month to add to their six figure nest egg to wade in>.

You can only make the best of what you have available. Even starting small and saving a few quid a month will make a difference and seemingly small decisions can help you build up a decent pot. For example, if you get to the end of the month with £50 left and instead of thinking 'we'll get a takeaway' you save that £50, do that for a year you've got a few hundred pounds saved, which will pay for a new washing machine without panicking.

The financial flow chart shows you where to start and how to progress.

The UK Personal Finance Flowchart - UKPersonalFinance Wiki

I have no savings at 60. I did have, but had to use on life circumstances and bringing up family alone. You’ve got plenty of time.

let’s put it this way- if you save you’ll end up better off than if you don’t.

But instead of focusing on saving - beyond an emergency fund of around three months’ living expenses - plan a coherent investment strategy. Read a few of the popular finance books, for instance Personal Finance for Dummies.

invest in equity funds and maximise tax wrappers. Contribute as much as possible to your pension, but also put money in ISAs (in case you ever need a large sum for, say, essential house repairs). Use index trackers (especially worldwide funds) and choose a low cost platform like Vanguard, AJ Bell or Hargreaves Landsdown.

It’s never too late to start saving, Martin Lewis was on the other week saying 1 in 6 adults in the UK have no savings so lots of people are in the same boat.

If I was starting now from zero then personally I would first focus on getting a few months of bills as an emergency fund in a pot that you don’t touch, and once you have that in place I’d start on a household savings pot so that oven/washer etc breaking isn’t a disaster.

Once you’ve got those pots in place then yeah I’d look at where I can save for the best interest, investments etc potentially- those things are great, but I will say if you’re starting from £0 then you don’t want your savings tied up in something where you can’t immediately access them if needed OR where they could be lost on a downturn or bad investment.

Thank you all. I have seen posts on here where lots of people seem to have thousands put away and it definitely made me worry, but I have lived within my means and raised my children to young adults - I made sure they both had a little helping had of £8k each in their CTF’s when they turned 18, and now it’s time to focus on a little helping hand for myself. I opened an ISA in November and set up a £50 standing order. I will up that to £75 this month and aim to have it to £100 per month by the summer. Then see how I’m fixed at the end of each month and see if I can up it further.

loads of people - possibly most - don’t have any savings , and whilst i almost always had some , it wasn’t till I was in my mid 40s that they started to rack up so now is a great time to start

its 20+ years before you retire that a long time

use the first year to see what is possible to save and then work out what balance you want between living for now and saving for future

or save in pots towards goals - the “redundancy “ pot of 6 months expensss, the holiday pot, the long term future pot , the dream bag or car or whatever pot

I don’t have savings and do have debt which can keep me awake at night. But it is what it is for now, our income will change over time and things will hopefully improve. That’s me being optimistic as I’m currently not working. I’m worried about it.

One of the best things you can do, is make sure you have the best pension you can get. Is that something you have? As your employers pay in too.

If you are recently better off, I woul put the difference away as you got by before. So if you are £400 a month better off, put £400 a month away.
You are never too late to save. Something is usually better than nothing.

I work for a local authority and do pay into the workplace pensions. It’s definitely not an amazing pension but it’s better than nothing.

Many people on Mumsnet seem to have frightening levels of debt!!!

Pay yourself first every month!

“The best time to plant a tree was 10 years ago. The second-best time is now.”

Op brilliant !
What you need is the ladder or whatever it's called now.

1. as your doing the savings pot. Get to a grand

Then reduce to 75 and spilt that into 3 for car ,enmeegcy and whatever else. Monzo is brilliant with that .
So that will rock along as well.
Last 25 invest into a broad index fund in the stock market. Board and diverse like world index or something like that.
We use the hargrves app becsuee it's easy to use

Let that start to build up.
25 a month. Eventually that will be your capital and once it's a decent pot you can occasionally skim it off .
Eg I have a limit that I'm happy to skim off becsuee I know it's enough left to buy a car or fix the boiler. Once it goes over that IF I need money I skim a few hundred off and it won't erode my capital.
I have savings in normal cash as well.
And lastly poor man saving premium bonds for tax.
But the key here is the stock market you have to buy into productive companies to make money.
The very loose rule is that saving double every 5/7 years

I earn that and I don't have any savings either, still paying off debts from the divorce. It was worth it though.

Have you been contributing to a pension working in education? Xx

Yes, but I’m not a teacher, I’m a pupil support assistant, so I just have the basic local authority pension scheme.

@Outnumbered1983 people say that's good have you worked out what that will give you ?

Take the threads on here about people having 100k+ worth of savings with a huge pinch of salt.

My house deposit ate mine up. I’ve never managed to save more than £2k before something costs money! My parents think I should be putting more aside, but I don’t think they understand that’s it’s tricky on a single income. I don’t spend recklessly or have expensive hobbies. (Apart from
the cat) but I like to live comfortably.

I’m currently forecast to receive £8500 per annum if I retire at 68, so £708.33 per month. There is no lump sum payment on retirement.