2/5 of people have less than £100 in savings

[Jorginho5]

your thoughts?

I am not surprised. Everything has gone up in price but many people are struggling to either: find a full time job or better job than the one they currently have.

www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/saving/article-4348544/Two-fifths-UK-s-workers-100-savings.html

If I couldn’t work, my partner’s job would still cover mortgage, bills, etc and vice versa. Even if we both lost our jobs we could get locum work.

We are in a good financial position and I appreciate it. Saving rates are low at the moment. FINANcially it makes more sense to overpay the mortgage than to save. If we just worked and didn’t spend on things that improve our quality of life, holidays etc, we would burn out very quickly.

No, I won't need 'good luck'. It is called working hard, saving sensibly and taking out necessary life insurance/critical insurance cover etc

Aww bless if only it was that simple. What if you get made redundant from "working hard"? Your savings deplete in a few months and you're just the same as us poor people with no savings

Or interest rates rocket and you can no longer afford your mortgage? Insurance ain't gonna save you then.

What if your insurance doesn't pay out because your illness isnt quite critical enough to claim but is critical enough you can no longer work? Again your savings will only last so long.

I wouldn't be so smug If I were you.

I suppose this is all relative though. The 2 out of the remaining 3 may have lots of assets but no cash.

I couldn't go on a holiday without at least 1k saved as an emergency fund for boilers/growth spurts/emergency dentist appt etc. Camping hols in this country excepted as they can be as cheap as being at home if you have the kit.

Also we have life insurance so if one of us dies the other one will finally have some spare cash!

@User1478944

fair enough over paying your mortgage normally gives you the chance to take a break if needed, so that is like having a little savings. Personally I'd still want a couple of months in easy to liquidate funds as well. But I'm kind of talking out my ass as we own out right, have savings and can live on less then the lower earners wage.
We still pick berries to make all of our squash and sauces and grow all our potatoes, rear pigs etc but we like to save money and live the good life

I think this thread is bringing out a bullying nature.

I understand where savvy is coming from but she or he worded it poorly.

I say this as someone from a poor migrant family but now I’m much more comfortable thanks to my parents guidance and hard work.

I may have very very good savings and I’m lucky that my work allows me to do locums and be able to put away quite a bit each month but I also don’t have the expenses others have.

Bottom line is I know how lucky I am but on the other hand the work I do is highly skilled and I do work bloody hard.

Flamingofridays... i have enough in the bank to cover 3 months of earnings (from saving sensibly) plus a substantial amount more if I touch my ISA. Guarantee I would find nother job in that 3 months.

As for interest rates, I personally would never be on a tracker mortgage for that exact reason.

Call it niave all you want, but it is my reality.

You can't guarantee anything.

You are naive. Very very naive.

I think people call in naive when they just haven't achieved it themselves so want to kid themselves into thinking it isn't possible....

As I say, it is irresponsible to have children until you can actually afford them. Having £100 in the bank/surviving month to month does not meet that.

“PurpleTigerLove

I don’t there are many wealthy people without savings , high earners yes but not wealthy .
Wealthy people tend to plan for the next generation while those without money plan for the weekend”

I agree to some extent- it depends what you mean by wealthy. I was thinking MN wealthy (which sometimes means £30k wage!) but we (both) earn 6 figures and don’t have any savings. That’s fairly common I think. If you mean wealthy as in old money, I agree there is family money tied up (not in savings which is a traditionally working class way of financial planning, but in other investments.

But savings get spent. Think of how the house buying threads go on here- do you think many people in their mid 30s who managed the mean feat of saving a £50k deposit to buy a home still have £10k stashed away for a rainy day? Of course not! If they did (and had any brains) they simply would’ve bought sooner. And how long will it take them to replenish their savings to that level? 5,6,7 years? So you can see how there are many people, who for the medium term, could be very high earners and no savings.

Secondly, I have been through the worst financial situation you can imagine (it was hell hell hell) and you know what savings do? Not much. Buy you time. Serious financial problems don’t need 3 months, they need years. And the more savings you have the faster the wolves come circling and take them. So it’s not all that.

Now I’m in the lucky position to have a highly portable career where there is a professional shortage, and 3 months notice period. That’s 3 months safety net in my mind, and I’m lucky to have it. I try not to beat myself up that we don’t have more.

Savvy- I can afford my children but don’t have savings. Savings aren’t an indicator of whether or not one lives hand to mouth

PurpleTigerLove re your question about contingency funds for long term sickness, redundancy etc for those of us on a decent income but no savings: I guess we are knocking on a bit now and have had a few periods of me not earning, (redundancies!) and have had enough to get by without luxuries. When the kids were little, I worked very part time and brought home £850 per month. DH was on a lot less money too. We lived more frugally then and I know we can do so again. We aren’t into material possessions (I have an iPhone 5 on a £12 a month package) so having lived on less and being made redundant has already happened and we coped.
DH is a leading expert in academia in his field so he will never be short of a job. He was offered some additional short term work for the Saudi government which would have been very lucrative and we’d all have had business class flights paid for and a nice family travel opportunity. He turned it down for ethical reasons and being able to do that feels like “money in the bank” to us.
But yes, we do need to be at least a little more responsible.

I've got £7k worth of debt. Good job annual income for us both is £60k. I hate the debt. It makes me sad. I've got £500 saved up and the only way I've done that is use the chip savings app. It sweeps money from your current account to a separate account and uses an algorithm to decide how much u can afford to save. £5 here and there all adds up. I love it. If u use this code CNKHSW u get an extra percentage of interest. So do I- currently 2%. No other savings account offers this!
I love it. to everyone struggling

savvy nawwww. I have achieved it myself. We could pay our bills on one wage. We are insured etc but I'm not going to kid myself that we will never be properly properly skint.

This is really sad and incredibly damaging for our health.

I have absolutely nothing in savings

I have over 20,000 in savings and DH has similar but I try to live on my wage although we do dip.into it for Christmas and holidays and plan to do so for at least the next 5 years after which DH will hopefully get a job again and we can start replenishing savings. Oddly I get quite worried about money.

I think what Savvy meant was you shouldn't start a family without being able to have sufficient saved up and plan ahead as to how you'll pay for everything. But she's naively not taken into account how circumstances might change between deciding all is OK to conceive and your child arriving and growing up.

Likewise, leave it too long and you may not get the children you might want.

We earn 120+ between us. We have fairly chunky pensions but £0 savings. I'm not surprised and I don't think it's unusual at all. It's only recently we're not paying down debt.

At the risk of getting shit down in flames I think people with less money are more likely to have a fallback in savings because they can't access cheap loans / credit.

Savvy for fuck sake, have some compassion!

No one choses to live down the wire (other than those people on 100k, madness) but things have really gone to the shit when we are suggesting you need to earn X to have a child. Of course we should be encouraging better financial provision, let's start with improving wages!

I agree Aprol. When I read the posts about people going hugely without for years to save £20k I’m thinking... but you can borrow £20k at less than 3%.

When we had our first baby we were mid house refurb and thousands a month was going on that- both cash and debt which was basically drawn down and reborrowed whilst we got the house sorted. We could afford bills, food and luxuries like holidays and expensive baby stuff but we had no savings. Although we had much spare cash per month once babies were born that started going on childcare, classes and fun things for them.

Can more than afford. Our children have more than most. Still no savings.

We were well off we had baby ds but the nursery fees Jesus Christ 900 odd quid s month. Best get saving a lot more £££ savvy your 3 months costs won't cover much nursery time!