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?

100 of 1800, DH saves 200 of 2k.

Not enough!

10% minimum but I treat it like a bill. Standing order set up for just after payday to transfer into savings account. Then anything left at the end of the month goes in as well.

30% of our joint income.

We very recently paid off ALL the debt, the mortgage was paid off 6yrs ago.
My partners wage (she works PT) covers 100% everything . including fuel and shopping.
I work fulltime and my pay is now surplus.
It's taken us 18yrs to get to this stage. And hopefully 2019 will be the first year we go into without being in debt.

I’m on a final salary pension scheme and my employers contributions to that are an approximately additional 50% on top of my salary.

I also save around 30% of my salary in various accounts.

I’m naturally a saver but fortunate enough to earn enough to squirrel quite a lot away for the future.

Nothing. I get paid weekly and live week to week.

We save 20%, invest 20%, mortgage is 20%, bills about 15%, and the rest is for socialising etc.

Pension comes out at source and we both pay 10% of gross, and our employers top-up by another 12%.

It’s only on the last 5 years or so that we’ve been able to do this. Recession hit us really hard, I lost my job, savings were depleted, DH’s bonus was stopped etc. Thankfully, I was able to get another job in 2013 and have been promoted since, so things are drastically different.
Just saying this if anyone is in a position where they can’t save, or not able to work etc. - things can turn around in a relatively short period of time.

A percentage is meaningless.

I could easily save 90% if my salary was £20k a month.

Currently 9% of gross into a defined benefit pension scheme.

Salary change recently, with a 50% bump in my take-home pay. Before the bump, housing costs were around 1/3 of my pay, and I then saved around 1/3 and spent the other 1/3 on bills and the such. Now housing will only be 20% ish of take home, bills will remain the same, so I'm anticipating that my savings from take home should increase to around 60%.

However, some of those savings will be short term and once I've topped my cash reserves up a bit, I'll be making additional pension contributions, so it's all quite flexible really. I am also very lucky to be a high earner (by national statistics rather than by the absurbly high value that Mumsnet seems to deem a high earner!)

Zero. Overpaying on huge mortgage instead.

About 15% of take home.

£1000 a month into the pension.
£700 to overpay the loan for the kitchen and bathroom, so paying that off at £1100 a month (less than two years to go ..wheeeeee)
£500 into the slush fund, which pays for insurance, car tax, holidays etc.

No credit cards, well we have them, but rarely use them and then pay them off, so therefore no mad interest charges.

Agree with WonTon.

We moved North - South and it damn near did for us financially.

When a bonus we had been expecting didn't materialise, we were on the bones of our arse, this was thirteen years ago, we had to draw up a plan and stick to it rigidly.

I remember doing the spreadsheet and DH saying we need to factor in pensions, and I screamed YOU ARE LIVING IN YOUR FUCKING PENSION..... we were able to start paying into it after a few years of being totally stony stony broke.
So things can improve.

Nothing formally, a tiny amount per month. Haven't worked it out but wouldn't be surprised if over the last year we've actually been in negative savings as have had some surprise costs from the house where things have broken and needed replacing. And our outgoings are about to go up a bit too.

A huge percentage of our income goes on essential bills, travel and childcare - yes we could save more from the little remaining but I want to live a little (I'm talking eating out at cheap places and going on cheap family days out occasionally, not Disneyland and Michelin starred restaurants). We generally live frugally and don't have any debt apart from mortgage. In a few years our childcare costs will go down a little and we'll hopefully be able to save again - if interest rates don't go up too much.

About 20% of our salary but most of that is short term savings for things we know we will need in the next year or that have to be paid for as lump sums eg holidays, bills for kids after school clubs etc which are termly rather than a fixed monthly direct debit. Only 7% of our salary goes into longer term savings. Even then it’s all earmarked for something that we will need longer term eg new car. We don’t save anything just for the sake of saving at the moment. Although that will change when we are no longer paying so much childcare in a few years. We have a lot of equity in our house. That’s our safety net at the moment. I’ve just finished maternity leave so it’s been nothing like this over the last year - in fact we decimated our savings - but the above is the norm for us and will be when I go back to work. We are borrowing a bit more against our house next year to have a cash cushion again.

18% of gross pay into private pension, including employer contribution. What helps a lot is that in the US this lowers your taxable income.

DS just started uni, which is insanely expensive here, so that's where any additional cash goes.

Oh we both have NHS pensions at around 7-9% of our gross pay so that too. Tbh I don’t even think about it as it’s taken at source by both of our employers. But yes very lucky we’re both in a good employee pension scheme

Calculator tells me 13%

Just plug the calculator and it’s only 4% this month. But what someone you saying isn’t saving. Money for holidays and stuff in the house are expenses surely? I think savings mean going to a pension, shares, ISA etc for either retirement or rainy day. Or the next big purchase like house or extension. Unless the holiday is travelling for 6 months that is a big dream kind of thing, not the summer holiday to Spain.

We save nothing, apart from putting into our pensions. We have a nice house, with a nice mortgage, earn between us a little under the 100,000 mark (before tax), but we go out to see live music, own our cars (no lease hire) , take the kids round the world in school holidays...life’s expensive, but it’s also for living. We don’t even wear posh clothes or have cocaine habits! But we have a good time and work hard.

60% of household income?
I can barely make it to the end of the month

Then you should be able to understand that if someone who earns three times what you earn must be able to save over half their salary. If on a good salary, like I said above, the amount you save will vary over your life. When young with no commitments it will be large, when you have small children and large childcare fees and a big mortgage it will be small. As the kids grow up, you start working 100% again and pay off the mortgage then lots of people ramp up their savings before retirement.

It's interesting to see what different people class as savings too. Some people are including pensions savings, others including money put aside for holidays etc. Goes to show that there's a wide range of views.

I'm ok-ish on a pensions front and am investing a tiny bit each month for long term too, but have no real emergency cushion that I can access. (About £600!)

Zero because I currently have a credit card debt. Once that's cleared I'll try and save some, but it always feels like a case of two steps forward one step back what with bills coming in.

I save about a 1/4 after the pension has gone out.

I treat savings like a bill. It comes out the day i get paid. Over the last 25 years every time ive got a payrise ive saved the rise. At one point I was only saving £10 a month.. saving is quite addictive and the more you have the less it feels !

About 15% per month, plus pensions on top.

Some goes into investment fund, some into more instant access savings. We then overpay the mortgage with whatever is extra at end of the year if there's no house projects to spend it one. This means one year in ten, we have paid extra off the mortgage looking at you, shitty boiler