Or do you call this normal?? Savings!!

[Tryingtostayyoung]

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?!

Sorry my mistake, I misread drummergirls post I though she said "loss of equity"- I though she meant the insurance would somehow cover for some losses.

I agree though, we own a 5 bedroomed property, lots of equity and some mortgage. My kids are older teenagers so OH and I won't need such a big home in 10 years time. We will downsize too, and release that money probably to the kids, or maybe just fritter it away in our old age!!
We do however have savings equivalent to the mortgage we still owe.

In our late 20s with 2 DC, I was SAHM we had no savings, DHs good salary just about covered all the expenses......

Now we're mid 30s we did have around 25k but it's being eaten up by mortgage and solicitor fees on our rented home (we moved abroad 3 years ago and rent here but kept UK house) - non-paying tenants and needing to evict really adds up!! I would never advise being a landlord unless you have enough to cover no rent for a year and to evict.......

But we have a good amount of equity in the house, over 100k, we could release if needed. Plus where we live DH gets an end of service gratuity which is approx 15% of his total earnings in the country - that's whether he's made redundant/sacked/leaves voluntarily so longer we're here it adds up to a good chunk of cash.

We've got £10k in 'proper' savings, which all came about when I was made redundant but managed the situation so that I went straight into another job. We have a further £3k, but that is a pot of money to draw on when I begin maternity leave in October to top up mat pay in case I only receive statutory. The aim is to have around £7-8k by October, but I may also need to dip into my redundancy savings if I don't receive enhanced mat pay. We'll see.

We have a 4 bedroom house, one 5yo and one on the way and over £100k in equity. When we were discussing my redundancy we were actually quite relaxed about the whole thing. I knew my redundancy would give us a buffer of a few months anyway, but we also agreed we'd downsize if necessary. You cut your cloth according to your means and although we're what I would describe as comfortable, we're not particularly materialistic and know we have enough behind us in assets to put a roof over our head and food on the table until better times.

Thanks Barbara and hesterman, that's what I meant.
(Too early in the morning)

I have £1500 in savings and £450 in my current account. I also have a credit card with a £2.5k limit if I need it.

Up until the weekend I worked in retail and was in a long-term relationship with my now-ex fiance. I am SO grateful I have separate savings from him, as I'm having to uproot my life and move six hours away from everything to my parents.

I have a job lined up to start next week, but that wasn't guaranteed, so I'm really grateful I had the sense to save up while I could. It's not much but it means I can support myself in terms of food, bills etc. for a while without relying on my parents.

I save approximately £200 per month. I'm a single parent and I have around £8000 saved but this will be wiped out when I move shortly. I never was a saver but since my divorce I have been pretty focused on ensuring that I have money stashed away.

Realistically, how many 20 something property-owners have significant savings, unless they are being helped out by their parents? Most of the people saying they have large savings are much older than this.

In our mid-late 20s DH and I probably had a few month's mortgage payments in an ISA (or Tessa as they were known back in the 1990s). It was around age 30 that we were able to start making more significant savings - both of us got big promotions, and interest rates fell so our mortgage payments went down. For several years we were able to save my entire salary, which went partly into cash savings accounts and partly into investment funds.

Most 20 somethings are probably either still with their parents or in debt if anything rather than having savings - I know we were at that age.

The OP is doing quite well to be a young couple with a SAHP and having something in savings. Most people on this thread are older and probably much more affluent than average.

I'm 25, bought my first house 2 years ago with DP, combined household income is about £26k. I cover all the bills and the mortgage from my wage (£20k) and DP just pays for our food. No kids yet but when we do, DP will be SAHD.

We are trying our best to save, i manage about £100 a month into savings but only have £500 in there at the moment. DP has about the same amount in his savings but recently lost his job, so until he finds something that might get reduced.

I have a pension but as I'm only 25 I doubt there's much in that yet!

I'm due to inherit a house mortgage free worth about £150k in the next 10 years that's currently rented out. The profit from that per month will be about £500 which will all go into savings so we have a plan, but in the meantime things are precarious!

Early 30's, 1 (old) car, £115k mortgage. No other debt, £10 in the savings account. It seems that every time we almost hit £1k of savings, we end up having to spend it. With every pay rise, our bills/cost of living has risen. It's quite discouraging really.

I've realised that there will always be someone with more than you and someone with less than you.

I'm mid 30s and out of my friends (who are aged 30-35) some have mortgage free homes and loads of savings, others have no savings, live in rented flats, have no pension. Some have had help from family, some have inherited, some earn loads. Everyone's situation totally varies.

I try not to compare myself with others, and just try to save what I can afford while enjoying life at the same time. I agree it's sensible to have a few months living expenses saved just in case, if you can afford to.

£3049 saved but we don't own a house and I will soon be on maternity leave for a year. By the time I'm on leave we should have about £7,000 saved but about half will be eaten up when I'm on leave.

When I go back we won't really be able to save much as we will have childcare costs. It worries me.

We are early 30s by the way.

I'm 23, buying a house depleted our savings massively but have around £14,000. It makes me stressed!

I am astonished people don't have savings.

Really Orda1 I take it you've heard of food banks, unexpected illness and such?

Is anyone in the thread using a food bank though?

They may well be. Or are you not allowed to comment if you're in straightend circumstances ?

MN may not be typical demographic, but poor people use this site too. I know cause I,m one of them.

How you can be astonished that people(even well educated,high earning) wouldn,t have savings, shows an astonishing lack of imagination I think.

Came close a few years ago when dh lost his job. I did a week's shopping for five people with nectar points and £25ish from the loose change jar.
Without this we would have had to resort to a good bank. Fortunately our finances were straightened out by the time the food ran out.
How many of you can access your savings very quickly? A lot of high interest accounts require notice to withdraw funds.

Food bank- not good bank.

Not really rolling, I just believe in planning for those unfortunate possibilities. If I become seriously ill my mortgage will be paid off, that's the point of insurance.

Two high earning (med rep, and dr) friends find themselves in a huge hole this year. One child in Uni, and unfortunately have paid a fortune in to get treatment for their seriously anorexic daughter.
They,ve remortgaged, sold shares etc...
Life can and often does throw a curve ball.

We don't have much in cash savings but have about £550k equity in our house (bought at a good time 17 years ago). We have an offset mortgage so can dip into that when needed.

We are late 30s and have about £30k in savings, but I have to be completely honest and say that we were gifted some money a few years ago and have managed to hang on to it. Before that we had about £4k, and that was on a joint income of about £80k. Never been great at saving. We are fortunate to now have a decent whack of equity. When I was mid twenties I had fuck all and was living on the promise of good health, good credit and a strong work ethic. I got lucky and nothing bad happened.

Wow so many different perspectives. We obviously did have large savings as we bought our house but we put everything into it (we put down 35%) and then had to do it up so we are basically saving from scratch again now so feel like for our age were doing well as one person said as I don't even earn anything now.