To be worried about not having savings............

[primitivemom]

We don't have any savings ( trying to build a nest egg at the moment) and i worry about what would happen if my dh lost his job ie paying the mortgage debts etc. We have quite a lot of outgoings and just about manage but if the worst should happen , i think we would be pretty much in the shit. Im disabled so cant work so we rely on dh salary to keep us. Does anyone else feel like this or is anyone building some sort of nest egg at the moment?

[Iamnotloobrushphobic]

Well, quite. You had savings to use. If you hadn't, you would have been in financial difficulties. Therefore your savings were essential

Well obviously. But we now dont have any savings because we used them and now DH losing his job would put us into severe financial difficulty. Just because people have savings doesn't mean they always will and it doesn't mean that they will never face a financial crisis.
We planned within reason before having children but we could still end up in real financial difficulty because sometimes unavoidable shit happens.

[Badders123]

We had nothing when we married (which is a bit unusual now I think)
No tv, borrowed really old nasty furniture.
But over time (we waited 4 years to have kids) we bought stuff.
in reality babies are quite cheap.
I slept in a drawer for my first few months of life apparently :)
It's when they get older it gets spendy £££££

[SatsukiKusakabe]

We went ahead with having children despite not having a cushion though, as timing and health reasons took priority at that time. If we'd waited...we'd still be waiting and might never have had them. Certainly not these 2 particular ones.

It is a worry, it should be the aim if possible, but what's the end game really? My Nan might never have had kids if she'd waited to afford them, never had savings, always rented. But she had 3, they had jobs and families, life goes on. There is the ideal and there is reality for lots of people.

[futureme]

I am so in a different world from anyone who is worried that 10k is not enough in savings and must be built up again soon.

[OurBlanche]

I would assume that the poster who said that is older, futureme.

We wiped out our lifesavings 18 months ago, to buy this house. We had been renting a lovely house we couldn't possibly afford to buy for a decade, other similar for the decade before. We saved like Billy-O (whoever he was ), lived very frugally, GYO, garden gate sales/swaps, Freegle, etc, and then chose to buy and start saving again.

So we too are looking at our 18K, what would have been our rent over the last 18 months, and hoping it grows soon, as it has to do double duty, now we have to maintain the house ourselves, as it is also our main retirement pot.

Remember, I am 50 now and my jingle jar saving, scrimping and scraping every penny in my mid 20s, including the ones at the back of the second hand sofa, was the start of that.

You really do have to take a very long view on it. That and be happy if you can start a regular saving account/ISA, even if it is only a tenner a month. It will all build up... eventually.

[whois]

Yes, I would worry about not having savings. What you I do if I got fired/made redundant? What would j do once sick pay ran out? What would I do if I became disabled?

Obviously not everyone is in a position to be putting money away though so it's not as easy as just saying 'everyone should have savings'.

[ChazsBrilliantAttitude]

I agree with OurBlanche don't be afraid of starting small. Don't let the feeling that you can't do much saving stop you doing any. Keep building that nest egg. Look at your outgoings and see if anything can be trimmed e.g. moving to a sim only contract, dh taking his lunch to work.

[MardyKnickers]

I found this on fb the other day, I thought it looked quite good for an easy and quite painless savings plan.

I haven't double checked the math on it so hope I don't embarrass myself now !!

[Lweji]

Unless you are on the bread line, it is possible to save a bit by buying less or cheaper things.

Exactly because kids need warm, dry homes, food and clothes. Sometimes we may need those savings to fix a roof, put down a deposit, get a new machine, car, whatever.

I hate getting into my savings when I have a lower income and tend to adjust my spending than to keep digging into the savings.

Putting aside a regular amount and adjusting your outgoings accordingly can work well.

[Iamnotloobrushphobic]

That savings plan would not be achievable by many mardy knickers. After the first couple of months a significant amount of savings are required (over £200 for the final four weeks). I don't know many people who could achieve the last 4 weeks and nobody who doesn't already save or have a lot of surplus income.

[OurBlanche]

I tried that many years ago, mardy knickers it got really hard to keep up with.

So I went back to my jingle jar - I am a creature of habit, so I worked to my strengths

Little and often has worked for me. Even now I won't save £50 in one go. I will save a series of £5s, as I have them to hand. Nowadays I use internet banking and will sneak £5 or £10 into the saving account, every now and then. I have been known to move the pennies that were left the day before payday into that account. That savings account is earmarked for holiday, Christmas, birthdays, disasters, etc. At the end of this month whatever is left will be earmarked for the end of year ISA top up.

I know that makes me sound obsessed, but these days I probably check once a week or so. It doesn't take long once you know your own spending patterns.

[Lweji]

DawnOfTheDoggers

You are right that we can't predict what will go wrong. Which is why it was a good thing you started off with those savings, as if not, then things could be now much much worse.

[primitivemom]

thanks for all the replies, so how much should we aim to have? maybe so many months salary? just wondering if the shit hit the fan, redundancy etc what would happen { sad }

[Walkingintheraindrops]

I actually never worry about this. I think it depends a lot on personality and how you Chanel your anxiety.

Also like a few others we ripped through an absolute fortune in savings in 10 years of redundancies lost businesses, legal fees etc and in a way it's worse to have the money. There is a certain relief in finally phoning everyone up and saying "it's all gone now so back off fuck face" I understand most people will not find themselves in that position however

[OurBlanche]

The rule of thumb is to aim for 6 months worth in easy to access savings.

I started mine in an instant access account, nigh on 0% interest but I could get to it if/when needed immediately.

Then, when I had an idea of how much/little I could save monthly I started a DD into a higher interest account, 28 days notice, I think. I started a small DD and then transferred money in, if there was any available.

Have a look and see what you bank will offer immediately. As you save more they might start to offer better products - they do that, quite a lot!

But all of that only counts if you have no debts. As they cost more than you could get in interest for any savings account. The links I gave way upthread explain the logic of it more.

[Helloitsme90]

We have savings now (for sad reasons- losing a relative and coming into money) but when I got pregnant in my early 20s, having only just graduated, me and my husband where in financial dire! We made it work (with a lot of help from my parents, lucky me) but we would have been in a bad financial position if not and we did struggle along for 2 years. It was not the right time to have a baby- but YES it was. My OH had to move cities for his job so I had to give mine up anyway and my dad got very ill. He managed to meet his grandchild before he died (at 60) That is something no amount of money can help. My point is- people shouldn't be judged for not having a safety net and sometimes these things have a way of working themselves out. If we hadn't gone through with the pregnancy, my dad would have passed away never knowing any grandchildren. He adored his nephew and gives the family great comfort

[Babyroobs]

It must be a big worry when you only have one earner in the family and you cannot work. I expect if your dh lost his job you would get help with benefits, especially if you have children. We have some savings which was a small inheritance, it is tied up in an ISA so I'm not sure how accessible it is. I often worry that if one of us died ( morbid I know) we would struggle to pay for a funeral even.

[bigkidsdidit]

We've never had any. I was doing my PhD until we got married and then we had children immediately and bought a flat etc etc. It's only this year, now one child has gone to school and the other is getting his free hours, that we're putting money away. Ah well. It worked out ok and we can save a decent amount - out childcare bill has gone from £1600 a month to £500!

[bigkidsdidit]

Anyway, ref your other question - we are working on one year's mortgage in one account and £100 a month into another to cover disasters.

[LikeASoulWithoutAMind]

I think the figure it's advised you should aim for is 3-6 months' salary. There is no way most people can amass that kind of sum overnight though. But better to save a little each month than none at all.

We were very glad of our savings when dh was made redundant. It was a really horrible time as it was.

[tiggerkid]

It would definitely worry me to have absolutely no savings. I am not really sure what to suggest here as I understand that many people literally do need every penny they have just to pay basic expenses.

Without knowing all details, I can only suggest sacrificing things like cable TV, downgrading internet and mobile phone plans, getting rid of 2nd car if there is one, switching grocery shopping to a cheaper supermarket etc plus putting away however little is possible and whenever possible.

Also maybe consider selling anything your family no longer needs.

As I've said I don't know the details of your situation though and I've not read through all posts here, so perhaps you are already doing all of this.

Getting some sort of insurance to ensure your family home is protected is important in case anything happens, so given there is only one income, this should be a consideration.

Having said all this, I know it's easy to give advice when you aren't in the situation in question!