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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

Or do you call this normal?? Savings!!

137 replies

Tryingtostayyoung · 10/05/2016 20:53

So just looking for opinions, DH works full time, I'm a SAHM and we are both under 30 (not sure if this is relevant but thought I would say because we've not been working as long as people who are say late 30s). We live in a 3 bed house with one DD, mortgage to pay, 2 cars etc etc (sorry giving all these details to paint a picture)
what do people generally have saved? I think me and DH have ok savings, currently £1500 in the joint and I have £900 and he has around £1000.
Was talking to one of my best friends and they seem to have a lot more which made me think are we not saving enough?!

OP posts:

DrHarleenFrancesQuinzel · 10/05/2016 21:54

None (well I say none, but I do have £300 in the bank, but thats to exchange for Euro's in a couple of weeks). Late 30's earn just under 18K. 3 DCs (2 in school, 1 starts Sept). DH is SAHD so no childcare issues (but obviously only only 1 wage coming in too)

DrHarleenFrancesQuinzel · 10/05/2016 21:56

Cantgetmyoldnameback I too am a spender (like DH unfortunately), how did you change your attitude? I need to get out of the bad habits, but its difficult.

Janefromdowntheroad · 10/05/2016 22:05

OP you will get a very biased response on here not indicative of real life at all.

75k in savings, i know people who won't see 75k their whole lives

Save what you can comfortably put away without going short each month

LuluJakey1 · 10/05/2016 22:07

We are 37 and have paid off out mortgage ( house worth about £340,000). We have about £180,000 in savings. It sounds like a lot but it will not go far with small children- university fees etc to come.
We have been lucky in that we both had property that we had bought at a good time, we both inherited small amounts of money, we overpaid the mortgage and have managed to pay it off. We save about £2500 a month and were hoping to be able to retire early.
However, we have just started our family -DS almost 17months and we are now wondering about TTC again. So we still have lots of expenses ahead of us- nurseries, universities and everything in between.

Cantgetmyoldnameback · 10/05/2016 22:09

DrHarleen

I had a breakdown of sorts, was off sick from work for four months with anxiety and depression. It was almost completely work-related and once I started to feel a bit better I had a real think about how I could get out of the job I hated so much and was making me ill. I decided to start over-paying my mortgage and saving as much as I could as I knew that when my mortgage was paid off I would have more freedom to change jobs. I virtually changed my attitude over night - instead of living for today or next week I became much more interested in paying off my mortgage as quickly as possible and building up some savings as security.

I then got a great opportunity which allowed me to re-skill, and I was able to take voluntary redundancy which paid my mortgage off. I'm now in a lower paying but much more rewarding job with no mortgage . But I've still got that saving mentality despite having more disposable income now.

Until four years ago I had never saved a penny!

One thing that really worked for me was putting my saying things into premium bonds. That way, every time I put £100 away I thought to myself that's another 100 chances of winning! I know people will say tha premium bonds aren't the best place to put savings, but it worked for me and it also made me very reluctant to withdraw any unless I really need to do because I would think of the lost chances of a prize!

Cantgetmyoldnameback · 10/05/2016 22:13

Savings, not saving things! Lol

BeauGlacons · 10/05/2016 22:18

When we had ds, a £160,000 mortgage, (albeit high equity in the house). I had some "my money" in the bank but not much else. We could just about cover the mortgage, bills and food with barely diddly squat left. DH was (is) self employed and we never knew for about 18 months to two years if enough would come in to cover the bills.

DH was 36 when it turned. DS was poorly and I gave up work which we hadn't planned.

DS is 21 now. It all worked out but not without a risk or three !

TheRollingCrone · 10/05/2016 22:18

Sweet Fanny Adams!

I got no diamonds, got no wealth
I got no man, but I got my health

specialsubject · 10/05/2016 22:19

Remember that premium bond prize odds have gone down, and the money in them is shrinking with inflation. True figure for that is about 2-3% or more.

Choughed · 10/05/2016 22:19

What insurances do you have? E.g. I have permanent health insurance. It costs about £250 a year and will pay £12k a year if I'm unable to work due to illness. That, along with work sickness benefits means that we could cover the mortgage and live if I couldn't work (I am the main earner).

We have some savings - about 5k I think - but mainly we overpay the mortgage with any spare cash we have.

titchy · 10/05/2016 22:21

You should have enough to keep you going for three months if you're both working, and six months if you're a one income household.

Not that we do....

Iflyaway · 10/05/2016 22:22

As a guide you should always have at least 3 months mortgage put aside.

This makes me laugh cry really

When our kids or anyone else can't even get employment, deposit for a mortgage or even a fucking normal rental priced house...

TaIkinPeace · 10/05/2016 22:24

the vast majority of UK households have no savings at all
MN posters are deeply unrepresentative of the general population

and with savings rates as crap as they are its always better to pay down debt :
£3000 of un used credit card limit will do you for a rainy day better than a poxy savings account earning less than inflation

Purplehonesty · 10/05/2016 22:27

We have only around £6.5k in savings accounts.

I have recently started my own business so most of my money went on that. We are trying to build it up but we have a summer holiday to pay for first so dh is doing extra shifts at work to top up the small account and I am adding cash as and when I get it.

It's a nice feeling to know we could replace the washing machine if we need to but I would prefer to have some more stashed away. It's just not doable at the moment.

YaySirNaySir · 10/05/2016 22:28

Enough that we overpay the mortgage and could pay it off in one go if we wanted, have a few holidays a year, an emergency fund, a large deposit for a holiday home and some savings for early retirement. We also have pensions. But we have been saving for 20 years longer than you op.

blue25 · 10/05/2016 22:29

14k in savings. We've stopped adding to savings for now and overpay the mortgage instead though.

dalmatianmad · 10/05/2016 22:31

Both 40, two teenage dc's.
We both work full time for the NHS, live in social housing, two cars....
Have literally NO savings, we just about manage every month, we both pay into the NHS pension although I've froze mine for 6 months to free up some extra cash.
I wish we had savings, but we get by, dc are happy, we do a bit of overtime and book a holiday once/twice a year. We could do more overtime and start saving but I really can't be arsed

ingeniousidiot · 10/05/2016 22:31

About £2k in 'immediate' easy access isa savings, for car stuff, household, holidays etc. - £100pcm goes into that, but it never manages to creep much above £2.5K. There's £14k in a slightly more difficult to access isa which isn't touched. I'll get about £20k in 6 years time from an old endowment policy for a house I no longer own.
We have no other assets though house/mortgage, and only run a cheap runaround car (main car is company).

pearlylum · 10/05/2016 22:32

I save rather than overpay the mortgage. We are only paying 1.4% mortgage rate and I can get higher than that with a savings rate.

RebeccaCloud9 · 10/05/2016 22:32

My DP (an accountant, and it shows!) has saved religiously his whole life and isn't into gadgets/cars/clothes + is tee total anyway so never spends much on himself meaning we paid off our mortgage last year and have c. 25k in savings. But the plan is to put that into our next house if we ever find one to move to! So we won't have nearly as much set aside after that. I'm not a regular saver but try to put whatever I don't spend into a separate savings account straight away at the next pay day. Some months it's nothing, other times a few hundred. We also put a regular amount into the joint each month then when we have enough, skim some of that into joint savings account.
Both early 30s, 1 dc. Both have pensions through work.

DisgraceToTheYChromosome · 10/05/2016 22:40

14k in a deposit account, no mortgage, both 56 earning earning about 55k pa. In theory, we should be putting away 1000 a month.

However, we've had a chain of illness, car and house disasters plus DW's uni bills, and while we rarely hit the overdraft, we haven't paid in for over a year.

JustBeingJuliet · 10/05/2016 22:40

I'm 3 months into a new job, after a year surviving on about £3 a week more than we needed to cover everything, and I'm £1000 a month better off. I'm splitting that 3 ways, so £300 a month off the credit card that I racked up paying for essentials the last year, £300 into savings, as I don't want to have to use the credit card again if something breaks, and the rest so as we can actually have a treat every now and then and not feel like we're struggling. The debt should be paid off before the end of this year and then I'll add the extra money into a different savings account, so as I have one long term account and one for things like the new kitchen I want etc. I'll feel happy when I have 6 months salary saved, just in case I lose my job.

AuldYow · 10/05/2016 22:40

All my savings are allocated - car, holidays, children, house, Christmas etc. I have standing orders totalling about £600 every month topping the accounts up which covers most things. Unfortunately the 'holiday account' never has as much as I'd like in.

But as for locked away, rainy day money we have zilch!

Backpfeifengesicht · 10/05/2016 22:49

I'm late thirties, dh is mid thirties. We have about 80k in isa's and about 250k invested in stocks and approx 40k in the bank. We rent currently. Want to to know a secret? I don't think feeling financially insecure ever goes away completely. We're ttc right now and both panicking that we won't be able to provide for our potential child(ren). We were both okay during the last recession but many around us weren't and these were people in what were once secure professions (teaching both at school and university level, academic research etc...) I also have friends in Japan (teachers) who had their pensions wiped out in a financial scandal and barely recovered a minimum of it. You hear about people who lived through the great depression hoarding money under their mattresses and buying the cheapest of everything even though they're wealthy. I kind of understand this behaviour now. Sorry to sound like the voice of doom!

StickTheDMWhereTheSunDontShine · 10/05/2016 22:57

That's a good "oh shit the washer's broken and the car needs new tyres" buffer, but you probably want to aim for increasing it to cover a few months of "shit, I've been downsized."

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