To ask how much savings you have

[mrsshears]

nosey old bag emoction

32, husband 35 (he is not great with money - I'm the saver), we have 100k euros savings, mortgage of about 165K so we might pay off a chunk of that, have one investment property that currently doesn't make us money, no pensions.

Given we are in Ireland and everyone is up shit creek we are doing ok. For me the way to save is not to have the impulse to buy. I'm not a shopper, I consider everything/all luxuries I buy, I don't automatically think I need to treat myself or I don't buy into the 'you are worth it' media campaign. I don't think new things should reflect your self esteem. I save pretty easily. My husband can spend when he is in the mood, but I reign him in a bit.

I love the security of savings and would love to be mortgage free as soon as possible.

Oh another savings tip- use cash as much as possible and don't use credit cards.

have 2 babies, if we had any more, wewouldn't be able to save.

Quite a lot in savings but we have a fairly frugal lifestyle. Prior to having children, we paid off the mortgage instead of spending the excess. Only luxuries are private school fees and nice holidays once or twice a year.

So - this thread has prompted me to want to start looking after my money a bit more. I want to start saving £300 a month, over 15 years that will give me 54k (plus a bit of interest hopefully)

Whats the best way to do it? start off with saving then move it to an ISA? then bonds? Or just all in a savings account?

Begger all. I had about £200 left over from my bonus which we spent on holiday.

The baby has about £1500 which we could probably steal if we needed too. All her CB is paid into there plus an additional £200 a month. We could probably afford another £150 a month but we overpay the mortgage instead which makes much more sense to us at the moment.

Cash - none
Non cash assets - 40kish
Mortgage - huge but no we have equity (but not much)

Debts - 10k on credit cards - not good.

DH is worse than hopeless with money but I am going to get us in order. I have been getting lots of inspiration from here and money saving expert.

What has really bought this home to me is the terrible state poor finances can get you into. My parents lost the family home when they were made bankrupt 3 years ago and live hand to mouth. It was mostly poor planning and overspending which spiralled out of control rather than a business failing or one of them losing their job. As selfish as this sounds, I don't want to do this to my children. Its not the loss of money or assets to pass on once you are gone but its the burden of reliance my parents have on me to support them. As you can see from the above we are not in a great place ourselves but for example today, the tyres needed replacing on my Dads car. I had to pay for them (with a credit card) as he has no access to credit and never budgets for car repairs (don't even get me started on that). It's a crazy situation for anyone to be in, let alone 2 people who have worked all their lives but now have nothing to show for it. I can only see this getting worse once they are both retired as neither of them have any pensions other than the state.

have zero savings... but really think its something kids should be taught - whether by school parents or whatever - I do think a lot of ability with money comes down to personaility, attitude to money, attitude to loads of things but some amt of education on the subject may well have benefits for some

Having sold our house recently, we have £500K but this is earmarked for another house purchase as soon as we find one that we want (we have been renting for the past year while we wait for more houses to come on the market). £100K of ISAs/shares and £150K of pensions. Late 30's & early 40's here. No inheritances. We have made approx £300K from 3 house sales over the last 12 yrs. Six figure household income and save at least 1/3 of our income due to a relatively modest lifestyle. 2 DC at state schools. We waited until early/mid thirties before starting our family so had about 7 years of having a high household income during which we paid down our mortgage approx by £100K. Our luxuries are nice holidays and good restaurants.

About £55k savings and we own four houses - one for us to live in, two rented out and one DH is working on renovating at the moment. No mortgages on any of them.

We are both self-employed, DH flips houses and I do catering work, so our actual income isn't that huge or steady. But the two rental properties bring in enough for us to live on when they are occupied, so we are usually able to pick and choose our projects and take time off pretty much whenever we feel like it - and for us, time is more important than a bigger income.

We are well matched with our attitudes to money too, both prefering to save rather than spend needlessly.

Depends how you define savings. We paid off the mortgage 3.5 years ago but maintained the line of credit since it's cheaper than getting a new loan. This year we redrew against it to re-do the kitchen.

Currently we owe a few thousand on the mortgage, and own about the equivalent amount in shares. Only other liquid asset is a $AU5K artwork, which we bought as an investment. Only other debt is my $AU40K student debt. So we're in the red all in all, but we do have the ability to ride out several months of unemployment without the house being repossessed, which I guess is the point of having savings.

I agreetortoise holding onto the house come what may is my driving force. My Mum learned taught me that when Dad died, if you can ride out the worst and still have your home then you will probably be OK.

Monkey do you really have to move now? Only it would make a lot more sense Rom what you have posted for you to stay put for now.

Naff all :(

We have just over 40k in cash savings. We save £890 every month into an ISA and we have also bought a house in France which will be a cash asset when we retire (that costs about £500 a month). I save all the time, even small amounts monthly which build up nicely over time. I also save for my DDs pensions every month -making mental note to do the same for the boys(!). I do have one debt from my Ex husband which is a couple of grand and I could pay off but don't because it is on 0%. I have two rental properties which show a good return and I stash the extra money from them in case the mortgage rate goes up - these are interest only and I will sell them or remortgage them in 20 years time as they will always provide a good income (depends if i can be arsed to be a landlady by then). My DH does have a small works pension but it is not big enough, I do not have one at all - we are 40 and 41.

We have had and will have no inheritances or help from parents - I think our joint income is about 110k gross so when you balance that on how much savings we have it is not that impressive - we have only really been saving for under two years. I have however been very very skint in the past (when my marriage broke up) and actually could barely afford to feed and cloth myself and my dds so I do think that now having savings and back up if the shit hits the fan means the world to me.

I'm really impressed with how you've turned things around for yourself. How easy is it to have a buy to let mortgage these days? Have often thought myself that it would be a good nest egg, if I was able to put a foot on the renting out property ladder. It's a good idea to have an interest only mortgage on the rental properties.

Hmmm. Food for thought......

Still not easy to get a BTL morg, need at least 25% deposit and they will want the rental income to be more than morg. We do ours on repayment as we want them to be paid off in full to supplement pension.

If you self manage the properties then it saves money but in my opinion the properties need to be local. It works well for us as I am a SAHM and it gives me a little job/interest away from the kids but property maintanance and dealing with tenants is not for everyone!

Posted earlier on in this thread.
Now seeing how great so many of you are at saving I'm feeling a bit down, as don't really have anything to save at the moment.
We have put everything we have in to our home, we have paid off our mortgage in full. Our house is worth alot 1.5 mill, but it is in bad repair. DH wouldn't ever move, kids don't want too either, big garden, shabby house (not chic)
In a great area though. Every last bit of our income now goes on sending our kids to private school, my little one has yet to start. School costs 30K a year. We are the typical property rich but cash poor. Kids hate the second hand uniform, but it's just tough. One day maybe I can persuade DH to move and free up some of our hard earned cash.

Wow what a fascinating thread! Thanks for starting it OP.

I'm 34, dh 39. I'm currently on mat leave with ds2 and just found out I'm going to be made redundant with a £35k payout - woohoo to say I am delighted is an understatement. We also have another £35k in isa's plus about £200k equity in house (which to me doesn't count as savings). Dh self-employed so I worry about his earnings (luckily without reason so far) and make him pay £500k per month into his pension. He earns £60k pa and I earnt £45k before mat leave.

Not sure what to do with my redundancy payout. Dh thinks we should get a buy to let flat as a pension pot and I think we should chuck it at the mortgage. Looking for inspiration on how to make the right decision as I've no brains for figures at the moment!!!

Used to have large savings.Due to DH's illness and then going to Uni we have about £400.

However now he is back at work, we have re-organised our finances, and plan to save quite a bit.-hopefully :)

We have a joint income of approx £75k, our outstanding mortgage is £40k and our current savings are £82k. I manage to put about £800 - £1300 away each month. I am quite frugal when it comes to savings. We are both 33. I don't see any point in becoming mortgage free just yet as the rates are so low.

In our case we have several hundred thousand pounds of savings but several hundred thousand pounds of mortgage. Some of the savings are in cash. But there are good reasons not to pay the mortgage off.

We save over £2,000 a month, but are very lucky to be able to do so

We have a lot of savings - but we're 50 and paid off mortgage years ago, before we had DD, so we had some good saving years while we were both working full.

Can I just say that I got my buy to let mortgages in the days when they gave them away to any old person (and you could self cert....) I borrowed 120% on one and put the deposit on the second - ah the good old days!!!!!!!!!! I did the at the end of my marriage (not knowing that at the time) and got left with two houses - one in such bad repair it wasn't let-able without a good deal of work - I had to tell more lies and borrow another 5k to do the essential work as my exh swanned off leaving me massively in the lurch - I worked overnight for a couple of months to decorate after I paid for the heating etc to be done- I did cash in hand cleaning in the daytime just to make ends meet as I could not get access to benefits. This house after all this trauma turns an almost £800 a month gross profit - the other house pays for itself. So I am smug now but I can tell you I almost had a breakdown being a single parent working all day and all night to make it all happen. Given the current climate I would never have these houses and at the time I had to take beta blockers to cope with the stress of it all.....

I do know how lucky I am but I do have a lot of anxiety about being in that state again so I do save for everything. I always look like such a carefree decadent bitch but really I am very very sensible!