To ask how big your financial "safety net" is?

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Having been made redundant twice and being in private rental, this is something that I worry about at 3am think about from time to time. We have roughly the equivalent of three months' salary in savings. If my job went tits up the small amount of redundancy I'd get means we could, with some strenuous belt-tightening, eke it out to four, possibly even five months. We are trying to save more but can only afford to put a tiny amount away each month - it will take about 18 months to save another month's salary.

It's certainly better than nothing - and I have been in the position where I had literally no savings or safety net at all - but it's not much either, in today's world of 200+ applications for a single job. AIBU to ask how you'd fare if the plug was pulled on your regular income?

3 months income (that's not necessarily the same as surviving for 3 months... I guess we could survive on it a bit longer esp as we put money into savings and obviously would stop doing that if living on savings).

We have a car loan about the same as the savings though - wasn't the plan but my previous car became totally unreliable as soon as it came out of warranty and I had intended to drive it for 10 years + but instead had to replace it. Car loan was a better idea than wiping out savings as otherwise we'd have been stuck if another unexpected "emergency" came up, and if one of us couldn't work I guess we'd get rid of one car!

Where we live there are always jobs of some kind especially if you are willing to travel or do odd hours/ weekends so both not working at all could only happen if one of us became disabled/ critically ill which we do have insurance for (though I know insurance companies sometimes shaft people by finding loop holes).

About two years but my outgoings are low and will be a bit lower after DD goes to university later this year. On the other side though - I've been a lone parent (zero maintenance) for 18 and a half years and have been obsessed with saving and security so have paid off the mortgage and saved at the expense of time with DD and a relaxed life!

Until recently we had 4 or 5 months' net income as a rainy-day fund. Maternity/parental leave and a major relocation have eaten that down to about one and a half months'. We also have very modest pension plans and long-term savings and some savings accounts for the children which we don't touch (but may use if we have to for big school trips, expensive educational stuff etc in the future).

Our jobs are pretty safe and I could easily go freelance if I had to and earn similar amounts to now after a start-up phase. Dh couldn't atm but his line of work is in reasonable demand and he has good experience so we should be OK.

Zilch, after redundancy & finally buying (after 5 years renting) in our 40's.

2 sets of childcare fees mean we live 1/2 the month in overdraft & aren't saving.

However, DD will get her 3-year/15 hour funding later in the year, which will reduce childcare by 2K annually. And when she starts school in 2 years, it will only be £350 a month.

If really stuck, we could sell my flat (it has about 100k equity). But I'm reluctant to do that as it's for my pension provision & DC's future.

Fellow 3am worrier here! Though it was 4.35am this morning

We have 1 month'sworth at the moment. We did have 3 months of basic living costs saved (mortgage, bills, food, travel - no treats/activities etc) but had to dip into it quite heavily over the past month due to things going wrong. Everything comes in 3's as they say (or 4's and 5's in this house!)

When DH gets paid at the end of the month we'll start trying to build it back up again asap. We would ideally like to have at least 12 months worth stashed. DH has a reasonable salary but i don't work due to chronic illness and we are well aware of the strain of being a 1 income family.

Prolly yes it is, 15k is the average. 22k providing a mortgage has been paid of is loads. Many people don't have 22-23k gross as a wage whilst raising a family.

Prolly the state pension may be 10k person but it won't be double for a couple .

We have 6 months worth of net income in accessible funds. We could stretch that to cover us for 9 months in comfort or longer if we made painful cuts to expenditure. There are also other savings (for an extension at the moment) that could be diverted if needed. I've been made redundant 3 times so far (I work in IT and mainly for startups, it's in the nature of the game) so this is really important to us. The good news is that it has never taken me more than 6 weeks to find work.

There is also enough in life/critical illness insurance to pay of the mortgage and then some if something happened to either one of us, with additional cover provided by my employer if it happens to me (DH is a SAHD so he'd need the additional funds, the assumption is that I'd still be able to earn something close to my current salary).

Pension wise we don't have enough. DH will go back to work in a year or so and then we'll need to significantly increase contributions.

Financial safety net? What's that? We live hand to mouth here.

Roughly 37p.

We have an income from property that would cover the basics. Other than that about three years of necessary outgoings in savings. Work in totally different industries so unlikely we would both be made redundant at the same time anyway.

I have 6 months - I could probably stretch that to 8 by living very frugally.

We've got 12 months wages for both of us.

Usually only a few £k in savings that often gets swallowed up down to nothing, but my DS has redundancy insurance as his job is the much higher earning out of us and in risky area, so think we'd be covered for 3/4 months.

sorry thats DH not DS!

if it was my salary we were comparing to we have about 8 yrs worth of salary as savings, if it was DHs salary we were comparing it to we have about 13 yrs worth of savings. this doesn't include any redundancy we would get, both work in completely separate industries so unlikely we will both be made redundant.

If we had to live off that money rather than think of it as salary then we could nearly double the amount of years we could live off the money because we don't ever spend all our income and there are things you wouldn't be spending money on if you didn't have a job so your savings would go further.

We had a period where DH was unemployed we managed ok for 6 months until he found another job.

We currently have 2 months wages saved, these things happen and to have no safety net would be a worry for us.

Andnowitsseven Sorry but you are wrong there. DH and I have both had our pension forecasts recently and we are both going to get the full new pension in 5 years' time. I will get £8K+ ( sorry- not actually £10K as quoted) and so will he. We also have our own occupational pensions and DH's is a final pension salary.

Enough for a weeks shopping, just. DH was out of work for 6 months recently and it brought home how little we managed to save when he was working.I want to get some savings built up, but neither of us have very well paid jobs and surviving month to month is hard enough.

The aim is to eventually have enough for a holiday, we haven't had one for years and I really want to take DGD to the seaside before she starts school in a couple of years.

I disagree too that £22K is a huge amount to live on as a pension. We have done the sums to see when DH should retire and worked out we'd need at least £25 K to be anything near the standard of income we have now. Our income as pensioners will be in excess of £50K.

right now sweet FA.

We are trying to build up some savings. DH is aiming for 6 month's living costs but having nearly lost our house in a foreign country I want a year's worth now that we are back in the UK.

Our costs have gone down considerably, we no longer have to pay to get DC's teeth checked, or stump up around £100 if they both need something like anti biotics. That make as huge difference.

My heart rate as gone up writing that, which is why I want a year's expenses saved.

Prolly so the current system of paying people a couple rate of pension will be scrapped? That's excellent news thanks.

www.which.co.uk/money/retirement/guides/state-pension-explained/how-much-state-pension-will-i-get/

Each gets their own pension

Polly £22k gross is over £1800 a month , assuming you have paid of a mortgage that really is a very generous amount.
You must have a very high current standard of living if £1800 a month disposable income feels like not enough.