How much do you have saved

[Sergio4]

And how much of your salary do you save every month?

I have about a thousand saved and save around a few hundred a month as I am looking for a better job

Bugger all

We live in a small house (mortgaged) with 3 kids, semi rural so we run 2 cars (buses are of the 2 a day variety), I work part time and do the school runs, my husband works full time. I work at an accountants and earn about £17000 for 21 hours a week and husband earns about £45000. We have about £28,000 saved and kids have about £7000 in total. Other than the cars (nothing fancy) we live frugally BUT we do go on holidays and outings so don't scrimp there. Husband and I just have workplace pensions only. We don't struggle financially(ie can pay the regular bills easily) but I am very cautious about taking on bigger house/better cars as you never know what's around the corner. Where we live, a lot of the Mums have huge Range Rovers but I just have a Suzuki Swift, I don't think we can afford huge cars without me worrying (plus I hate them and could not be bothered parking one of them on the school run). I wanted to buy myself a top from QD last week that was a Marks and Spencers one, it was £2.49 but I was still debating whether I needed it or not. I am 41 and husband 33 by the way, he has a degree and I don't.

Personally: 0. I had my first baby only a couple of years into my career and maternity leave, another baby and then childcare has meant that I have only ever had enough money for mortgage bills and necessities.
DH however has about 20k. I also wouldn't own a home if it wasn't for him- all the deposit was money he earn overseas plus a contribution from his parents. I would be renting as I've never been able to save a lot and don't have wealthy parents. Obviously this money is for us but he saved it.
I start a new job in a few months and am just about to finally be rid of very large childcare bills so I have a plan in in place to save properly for the first time in my life.

@windygallows I read a thread a while ago about savings and money, can't for the life of me remember the details.
Anyway it made me really consider things. I no longer work due to ill health, my husband earns a fairly good salary and we're comfortable. What it made me think about was that yes I would get paid a huge lump sum should he die and obviously everything in accounts.
But it would take time for everything to be sorted and as an unemployed person, where the hell would I get the money from to survive until things were all sorted.

I've since been saving and increasing what I have in my own accounts (we don't have joint accounts and never will) to make sure that I'm not in the position of being penniless at a time when I'd be grieving.
Obviously it might be me that dies first and then he'll get my insurance policies.

Nothing and never can as something always comes along to swallow it up

The world would be a better place without people like doomraider, unfortunately.

I put £350 a month in my work pension which they match at 12%. I’ve started this later in life, 45, and can only afford it as my husband earns enough to get us by.

These threads always make me think most rich people are awful people who I wouldn't ever want to be friends with.

I don't have any savings at the moment I certainly would not call myself irresponsible, got sick a couple of years ago and had to use up all savings just to keep a roof over our heads and feed my children ,still trying to get back on my feet , I can certainly understand why people wouldn't have savings , I was actually very good at saving , obviously if I had a choice I would have loads saved

Slutty do you and your DH have joint accounts or could he put money in savings each month just for you to avoid the kind of situation that you are worried about? That way you'll always have your own emergency fund.

Nothing saved we live month to month. Our mortgage is interest only. However DH is sole beneficiary in 2 separate wills so I try not to worry to much. It'll all work out in the end.

I wonder about those people who save nothing. Who do they expect to look after them when they stop work?
@doomRaider
As you are wondering...When you barely earn enough to pay the bills and eat in today’s world of rising costs, it’s pretty difficult to find spare money to save 🙄

@doomraider - you are clearly a prize (Highly privileged idiot). Lots and lots of people struggle, really struggle, month to month. Perhaps if you expended a bit more energy realising how damn lucky you are (and it is luck by and large to have ended up as a wealthy person) and a little less looking down your nose at those less fortunate then you would be a nicer person.

I don’t have any savings, just a credit card debt. I do worry and feel guilty. I just find it hard to give up things like nights out and infrequent holidays which would be the only way I could afford to save anything. Those treats keep me motivated to work full time, to not go mad being trapped in my unhappy relationship. If I just worked 5 days a week and never socialised or went on holiday or took my child on nice days out, I feel like my life would be really unhappy and depressing. I honestly can’t see a good solution to this problem.

Agree with windy gallows most of the women on here only have savings because of their partner or because their partner earns enough to support them so they can put by money each month.
As a lone parent with no help from dd dad I find by the time I've paid bills rent etc there is just nothing left to put by.

I’ve got £500 at the minute, I did have £5k but I had to buy a new car recently which was unplanned and I paid cash.

I earn £15k part time and I save £100 a month plus pay 10% into my pension. £250 towards joint mortgage and £250 towards bills.

DH has got £20k in investments and it is only to be used if we can’t pay the mortgage or put food on the table.

Seems like a thread for boasting to me.
I get the feeling most of those laying bare have had it easy, maybe inheritance or just another lucky BB!!

30k (earned by me re previous comment) it’s my 6months outgoings emergency fund plus some that earmarked for house improvements. I left a relationship with a gambling addict 5 years ago with c20k debt he’d wracked up in my name. Bought my first house 2.5 years ago paying 50% of deposit etc myself. Also have healthy ish pension- c70k aged 31. Expect zero inheritance so only myself and my partner to rely on.

Ps I have 2 kids and dd dad pays nothing

Save £20 a month into a government pension thing for self employed DH. That will go up when he earns more. Save about £50-100 a month towards house deposit (into a LISA) in the vain hope that one day we will earn enough to get a mortgage, have £850 currently!
£500 ish saved in holiday pot, which will do food and days out when we go up north in the summer.
I will have an NHS pension but it won't be great by the time I get it and I'll have 30-35 years if I stay until retirement.

My parents have no savings, no property and Mum only has state pension to look forward to as mental health issues (and alcoholism) prevented her working for most of her life. Saving is not something I was raised to consider, but I am trying.

We rely a lot on benefits at the moment and I almost feel guilty for saving as I feel we should only have enough to survive, which is usually the case...

We have about £40K in cash savings, £5K in Premium Bonds from when MIL gave us some cash and I’ve saved about £5K in my personal savings account since I started working in September.
I don’t really have much of a pension at all (I was at home with the kids for 10 years) but DH should have an OK one when he retires. I am now paying into a decent pension scheme (public sector) but as I’m quite ancient to start doing so, there won’t be much in there in 20 years time when I’m due to retire!
We don’t have an enormous mortgage (less than £200K) but our house is worth quite a lot following some massive improvements we’ve made over the years so we have quite a lot of equity. We’ve been on interest only for 10 years though so aren’t really paying that off yet.
We’re hoping to use our savings as a deposit to buy another property to let out or rent out which will then serve as my pension fund. That’s if the interest rates don’t shoot up massively!
I was very poor growing up and didn’t really have any savings so I try and make sure I save as much as I can whilst trying not to spend frivolously.

@user1490465531

I’m a lone parent. Have been for 5 years. And I earned more than my partner when I was with him. He does not pay child maintenance.

All my savings are solely from me, no partner supporting me or giving me money,

I know what you mean @mrCharlie ! I thought that too But then I decided that I definitely need to try harder to save and cop myself on so this thread has helped me really.
(Even though some people might have lots of money in the bank, they might not necessarily have ‘saved’ that money, which is quite hard to do!)

Maybe this thread is like the opposite of those people who post online with photos of all their fancy stuff and try to make people jealous? Maybe if they posted their bank balance then it would show the entire picture, because you can’t have everything.

Many people have savings through hard work and being careful with earnings. It is not unusual. At 22 though, I was in a similar situation to OP, but time and effort on her part can change that around by 40's. Need to upgrade education/skills and reach higher in terms of job prospects, then when decent money coming in, always put away as much as you can for as long as you can, then later in life when more expenses come along, can ease up a little more on savings side, but earlier savings will have more time to grow. Pension is tax efficient.

Not enough at the moment... I prefer to have around 8-10k floating around, but it's down to just over £2000 right now. Between house renovations and DH having a few gaps between contracts it's been eaten right up but he does earn a lot contracting and is about to move to a very well paid one. He's been on it for a few months, so I expect he's got a few k saved by now. But with the new contract if he puts half aside each month for tax, and then draws down enough for bills and a fairly generous amount of spending money, that should still allow him to save about £2k+ a month while he's on the contract.

We've just cut down our mortgage repayments so I've started saving £100 a month, but he is also going to pay back into my savings as I've said I've put a lot of money into keeping us afloat and I'd like to build it up again. I know it's 'our' money really, but I like to have some that I know where it is and how much it is. He's likely to get a big rebate from HMRC this summer and we might just put that in there (well, probably half of it because always assume they'll want half if it back again fairly soon!)

We do have family on both sides who would help us out of a hole if real disaster struck, but we'd rather not have to ask.