To ask your top tips on saving?

[RetroFlowers65]

Dh monthly income after tax, NI and pension is £3750 and we never seem to have any money left at the end of the month. We should be able to save to take the kids on lovely holidays etc but we just can't. I know we are lucky compared to some but could I have your top tips at saving as I feel we should be able to save £1000 a month easily on our income.

Just saw this on Twitter - might be helpful for people reading this: www.stylist.co.uk/life/money-savings-hack-trick-banking-challenge-2018/181762?utm_content=buffera133e&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

I am just hopping in here.....

No kids now, and am single again but have a non live in partner. Yippee. So easy.

I took early retirement a few years ago, great package etc. But income went down a bit of course. But mortgage was paid off and I worked hard before leaving job to pay down every debt I had, change the car and get major house jobs done. So that's done!

I have a note beside me in the kitchen with every DD that comes out and when, and how much. I evened it off and delete that amount from my income. I save X amount per month after that, and am left with a Fun Money fund. The savings are just for discipline, but in reality I don't need to save anymore now, have a substantial emergency fund thankfully.

But I spend the savings on whatever I want.

What I am trying to say very clumsily is, allocate A fund to mortgage, B fund to Bills, C fund for emergencies/savings, D fund for FUN, and E fund for day to day stuff.

I used to shop for the world, buying things I didn't need and being a frivolous twat. No more. I am saving the planet too!

No need to be frugal, just bloody sensible and get it sorted.

Oh and just to mention in case anyone thinks I am goady or gloating or anything like that (perish the thought!), I have had a very tough time financially over the years for various reasons.

It was never easy. But it is OK now. And I love the financial freedom at long last.

Budgeting and allocating are the key.

You don’t have to scrimp on everything when you have that level of income.

Nothing wrong with having mobiles/Sky/shooing at tesco if you can afford it.

You should have some savings on that though. I can’t imagine spending £2k a month on nothing.

Your outgoings are fairly normal.

It dawned on me the other month just how much I spent on my debit card, especially now I have a contactless one. Going to the shop to get milk would result in me spending about £8 on crap that I'd pick up on my way around to the till. Now every month I get paid, I withdraw a certain amount of cash out and use that as much as possible. It's amazing how much you end up saving as for me it's a lot harder to part with cash than just swiping my debit card!

Why don’t you set a goal of saving £x000 extra for the holiday over x time

We did this - it included turning every light off, adding layers in the winter, deleting Netflix etc that weren't used - every little adds up and if you have a common goal it's quite easy to save!

Kids also saved their christmas and birthday money to spend in America which was an added bonus to the usual crap they wanted buy that I wouldn't otherwise allowed

I can relate OP, I've dithered about starting a thread in the past but I know I'd get a proper bollocking so have held off. However I'm quite happy to join a profligate idiots thread.

Our income is a fair bit higher, our outgoings are about double but we should have about 4k left a month and we have bugger all.

I feel like a massive arse about it constantly so will definitely have a good look at this thread and get my shit together.

I just tell myself some bugger has to keep the economy going and interest rates are so low I'm better of spending than saving...

No judgement from me OP; I can understand how money just seems to vanish.

One thing that I found very helpful was annualizing small expenses, so a £2 coffee on the way to work becomes £480 in a year.

Eat a substantial meal before leaving the house if you’re going out to an event. It’s far cheaper to have a big breakfast or lunch at home than pay for food out for a family.

If you’re prone to impulse spending draw out cash for your shopping and leave the cards at home

We do have holidays etc though. I just pay for them rather than saving for them.

OP.

Frugality is not required, you seem to have a good disposable income, it is where that disposable income is going is the problem!

So back to the drawing board. Where is all the disposable (potential savings) income going? Identify that and you are halfway there.

No judgy stuff from me. We (me & OH) were similar to you until I had an epiphany about 12 months ago.

Long story short, whatever we had coming in we spent to zero.

This is because neither of us ever had a savings account. We'd gone through our lives earning and spending and I think it's because when we first earned we did genuinely need to spend it all to survive. At some point in time we had spare cash, a novelty to us, so we treated ourselves. But it somehow got to the point where we were spending to zero out of habit.

We still haven't got a saving account but we do put 10% to 20% into premium bonds every month. We don't feel we have enough in the pot to make off a savings account but we are still saving. We then spend to zero in our bank account, feels like business as usual.

My advice would be to get some sort of separate account and cream off a percentage you can afford to live without and watch it grow.

It really is just down to discipline, if you want to save you will, at the start of the month, its a case of looking to the future and putting saving for the future above continuous treats now. Once you have savings, you won't need service plans, as you can use your savings for car/house servicing costs.

Same with buying cars. We have never had car payments, we buy nearly new for cash - with savings. But it hasn't always been like that, we paid cash for cheaper cars when younger.

We have just under 4k coming in (DH is self employed, could pay himself more as dividends but diverting it straight to his pension).

No mortgage, but we have a DS at uni, so he gets an allowance each month, as does DD at college (both have also worked but not at moment as want them to concentrate on studies). General bills are higher than yours, water substantially so. But - we have only normal TV, no netflix, prime, spotify etc, do you really need ALL those AND movie rentals? Maybe cut back a little.

Mobiles at 7.50/mth, with kids iphones bought as xmas presents (and DS pays his mobile out of allowance). DH and I have cheaper Androids. How many phones do you have between you?

We do buy coffee and meals out and takeaways, but not all the time. We take salads and sandwiches to work. We batch cook so we can take meals out of freezer in the week, when we know we wont want to cook.

We have a good pot of easy access savings and now save each month into S&S ISAs, plus SIPPs for me and kids. Payments are allowed for after bills but before anything else. We are on track to retire at 60, in 5yrs time, as the savings we make each month add up substantially.

We have had mostly summer caravan holidays, but interspersed with plenty of hotel and cottage breaks. But they come out of savings, so if we didn't have savings, we wouldn't do them. We have had 2 long haul hols, and now can afford plenty more, with kids at ages that they can appreciate them.

How old are your DC? Do you have to do Disney this year, or can you wait another year or 2. I find it amazing how little my kids remember from when they were 8/9 and younger.

Well done on starting a DD of £1k a month, why dont you aim to increase that by say £100 a month, for 2-3 months, see if you can easily live on the reduced amount? 1000 a month seems a lot just for treats and drinks, meals out etc.