To ask what percentage of your salary you save?

[whereiscaroline]

I was quite crap with money in my early twenties and now trying to rectify that. I'm trying to save 10% per month of my take home pay but it doesn't seem to be getting anywhere fast. It's going to take a long time to even save an emergency fund. I'm just wondering if I'm not being ruthless enough with cutting expenses and saving.

What percentage of your salary do you save?

Between us we were saving 40% of household income after pensions. Pensions we were saving 4% (DP) and 3.5% me). Now I'm on SSP the % has massively decreased. Managing to save about 20% now of take home.

Less than 10%. My savings have a purpose, if we can save it goes into a home improvements fund (which I also withdraw from monthly) and a car breakdown fund. We can't afford to save much in general.

About 20% but it varies depending on whether it’s an expensive month.

I agree that percentages are a little useless without extra details. When I was on £800 take home per month I couldn’t save a penny.

Now I’m on £1900 take home per month, i save £400, which is just under a quarter I think. My car payment is £300 so that’s gone straight away on payday, or I’d be saving that money too. OH saves a bit more, £500-600 per month (he’s on a similar salary but fewer outgoings than me).

I pay all my bills first. I pay into a work pension. When I was younger I had 3 jobs and saved lots. I still work over time, I have some savings and investments, but I spend some now and enjoy life a bit more than in the past

At your age I started with a £10/month PEP - now ISA! As the years went on I raised it a little bit as and when we could afford it.

If you know you have £22/month left in your bank account save hat. If you have £222/month, save that! If you have £0 then decide on a 'thing' you will cease to buy, and save the cost of that!

Initially it is the habit of saving you need to gain. larger amounts of cash will eventually follow!

Also ask your employer about your pension pot. Once you can save a reasonable amount put half in savings and half straight into your pension. ISAs and pensions get tax 'rebates' so are always worth more per pound saved.

I don't have any kind of system! (which I'm sure isn't good!).
Sometimes I'll live "cheap" for a while and whack in as much as possible. Other times I might splurge and save nothing. What I have saved at any one time is variable too (right now, zero!). Other times I'll get it up to a few thousand but then usually spend a chunk on holidays or on the house. I know I'll never have huge amounts saved on a permanent basis but it doesn't really worry me. I'm a "I could drop dead tomorrow" kind of person!

Agree a percentage is meaningless, it depends on your stage of life.

I was a student for most of my 20s so just accumulated debts. When DH and I started working we were paying off debt at about £1k pcm which was about 1/3 of our combined pay. Still felt rich after being students though. Once the debt was paid off we swapped to saving the same sum, half in short term cash ISAs, half in long term S&S ISAs.

Then we started having kids in our late 30s. Short term savings were decimated over 3 maternity leaves in 5 years, reducing working hours so headline income dropped by 20 % and childcare fees of over £1pcm. Savings went down to a token £50 into each of the ISAs per month (so a tiny percentage of our take home income at that point).

Slowly that has increased, DH got a local job so no longer had to pay for a season ticket, that money went straight into overpaying the mortgage. Then the youngest went to school so childcare dropped to

I thought a percentage would probably be better to not get anyone pissed off or feeling despondent when the inevitable millionaires saving £500k a month all rocked up 

Ooh I did put a winky face there but it's not showing. Here 😉

I think it’d make me feel better if I saw someone saving 70% but knew it was out of £200k if that makes sense? Like, of course if you earn more you can save more. That’s nobody’s fault, just the way it is. Rather than someone saying 70% and everyone buying into the pretence that that could be out of NMW or being a millionaire.

Currently 25% of mine as a minimum and then anything I have left at the end of the month I’ll bing in as we are saving for our wedding. FH saves more but he earns a few thousand more than me but I’ll be catching up in the next year as my traineeship finishes.

However we’re both mid twenties with not much expenditure and pretty good wages (engineer and safety writer).

60 percent of household income excluding pensions.

I read something the other day that said a good general guide is the 50:30:20, so 50% on bills and essentials, 30% on fun and 20% into savings. Me and DH are currently saving for a house deposit as quickly as possible so have deleted the fun category for the next 12 months and are saving 50% of our net months salaries, but after that that's probably what we'll aim to save.

It really varies as I'm self-employed. I always make sure I have an emergency fund in case I have a bad month and there are loads of extra bills. I'm lucky that I don't have huge outgoings though.

Wow some of these answers makes me go

We can’t afford to save anything. We are always overdrawn and hope and pray nothing needs fixing / sorting. I don’t know anyone that saves. We are a low income family in a very low income area.

0-25% depending. I’m a SAHM and my husband’s wage and our monthly outgoings vary considerably every month. Because only 1 of us works, savings are very important to us as we don’t have a 2nd wage to fall back on. That said, our savings are not massive (around 6K), as we still go on holidays, eat well, have gym memberships etc and as a results we aren’t always able to save.

I’m well aware how privileged we are to be able to save at all btw, it’s only in the past couple of years I’ve been able to. We don’t have kids yet (planning our first next year hopefully) and are saving for a house so we’re saving a decent percentage of our incomes towards those goals. Once we buy/have childcare costs I’m sure it’ll be less, but we’ll also have this nest egg to fall back on too.

That said, our savings are not massive (around 6K)

I’m fascinated that you don’t consider that massive! I’m at around £5k and I consider that an incredible amount of money. But maybe that’s cos I spent the vast majority of my life so far on NMW saving zilch. When I saved my first £500 I thought that was riches I’d never imagined seeing in a savings account

SlipperyNettle it’s because when I was working we saved a hell of a lot more. We’ve now only got the one salary, 2 kids and a big mortgage, so we get anxious at having less savings in case OH loses his job or something

It so depends on where you are in life IMO. In my twenties and thirties we saved very little - would save for holidays; starved ourselves to save house deposit and the like, but once spent there was very little left. As we aged, given that we are a one income family (albeit a very good income) we have made it a point to max out on our pension contributions and overpay the mortgage. Now mortgage free, but our financial advisor does not believe I can retire yet. Need to work another two years, and contribute what we would have paid on mortgage to pension ($36,000 post tax) as well as additional post tax to model how we will survive on less income once I do retire. So, long story short, am currently saving 60% of net income.

SlipperyNettle I am the person you refer to. It is much easier to save a large percentage when we are starting with a large number. Lived a long time where the surprise $10 found in a jacket pocket felt like a million dollars, totally get what it is like on the other side. I am trying my best to make sure we don't end up there again, fates willing.

I’m surprised at how much some people are saving!

I’ve just worked out that I put 16% of take-home into a Pension

I put 4% into a saving scheme, but I have to leave it in there for 3 years to get any interest. The purpose of it is to pay for DP’s 50th though. I have no “rainy day” savings

60% of household income?

I can barely make it to the end of the month 

In my early 20s (I'm now 29) I took home £1200 a month after tax, NI, pension.
£150 travel, £400 rent & utilities (room in shared house), £400 savings (10 months of the year; in December I paid for Christmas and my birthday month I paid for a few treats, booked a few gigs for the next few months, and/or a UK short break).
I had £250 a month for food and socialising, which was tight, but I had a goal to save a deposit for a flat so I stuck to it. Having the two non-saving months helped me stick to it the rest of the year.

6%. Two thirds of that in to ISAs for kids and the rest in to a private pension. DH also contributes to a employer pension directly, so this is 6% of the take home salary rather than gross.

I'm a SAHM so money's tight at the moment. We'd love to save more but find as soon as we put it aside it gets spent. Last month was house insurance. This month is boiler service and breakdown cover. Christmas next month, then car insurance in January.... Never ending.