How much savings?

[Poisongirl81]

Do you have? Im trying to save and wondered what a reasonable amount would be for me and children. Just curious

Odd question.

I doubt anyone is going to tell you how much money they have in savings, and anyone that does say how much they have, may not necessarily be telling the truth.

As for how much savings should you have? How long is a piece of string?

I'm sure financial advisers recommend 6 months wages.

I have been made redundant once and DH has suffered redundancy twice. It was particularly stressful during the period when our redundancies overlapped and we had a baby. The longest period of unemployment was 6 mths - our savings inevitably dwindled to almost zero and ever since that experience, I have prioritised a financial savings cushion of at lease 6mths' expenditure.

I don't even tell my OH if I have any savings never mind post it on MN.
I have £23.54p in my purse if that helps OP .

As a rule of thumb, you need 12 months wages as a rainy day fund. But if you've paid off your mortgage you could get away with having less

As a rule of thumb, you need 12 months wages as a rainy day fund.

Crikey, whose thumb?

I've always tried to have enough savings to cover 3 months of outgoings - gives you a cushion in case you lose your job/get too sick to work etc.

It's really going to depend on a whole load of things. DH and I both have jobs where we have 6 months full pay, 6 months half pay for sickness etc so I feel we would be able to have less savings than those who would only receive statutory sick pay.

I have a little over a year's salary in savings. But as a lot of these are part of share schemes at work, im very exposed to the share price of my company. Im trying to diversify.

We always have three months salary put aside. Or at least three months mortgage payments.

We have three years salary worth of savings.

I grew up in grinding poverty and I now like to save as much as I can.

Why don't you post all the details of your income and expenses per month OP and then we can help you identify how much you could realistically save each month.

Or is that a bit too much personal information to post online

You don't tell your OH what your savings are? Genuine question but is the relationship serious? I can't imagine keeping that a deliberate secret from a dp but then dh and I opened a bank account from 3 months in as we needed to for visa reasons and just pooled from that time.

We have one year salary saved. We live in a small house and live cheap (for London!) but I'm really particular about the savings due to my upbringing.

I love the saying save the pennies and the pounds will follow because I think it's so true.

How would any of us be able to help you and why does it matter how much savings we have.

Personally I have less than a million and more than 0

Well I started saving for DS(7) when he was born, I put £20 away per week for him and he has more savings than me by half. We were kind of level at one point but I've had a few big expenses recently. I still have a a bit of a safety net so I'd be able to pay if my car broke or I needed a new boiler or something like that but I'd not have too much left.

I'd be able to save more if I spent less, I'm ridiculous for just buying stuff, monkey see monkey want monkey get.

We have 6 months wage saved which could last more like 8/9 months if we just used it for only "mortgage, bills and food" - are aiming to get that to 12 months wage - so would eek it out for 18 months if it all went a bit wrong.

Have realised from watching other parents at DC1's school that 6 months unemployed between jobs is not that unusual (we have been lucky) - i'd plan to be able to cover that without dramatically decreasing your lifestyle.