To wonder if I’m being too frugal?

[utterlybutterly8]

DH and I had an extravagant year in 2018 and spent about £6k beyond our means on a holiday, weekends away and various other treats. The £6k came from our own personal savings, so we were fortunate in that we didn’t take out any loans or credit cards.

This year I really want to boost our savings pot and am determined to pay the money we spent back into our savings account. We’ve paid back just over £2k so far (£450 per month).

We’re both self-employed, neither of us are high earners and paying this much into our savings each month means we have about £40-£50 each per week to spend on “fun” after everything else (except about £10-£15 each on travel fares) is paid. It’s obviously a reasonable amount but not huge - and it rules out holidays, makes it difficult to buy new clothes when old ones wear out and so on.

If we continue on this financial regime we will have paid back all the money we spent last year into our savings account by February, at which point we will obviously have a combined £450 extra spending money a month - a great amount.

However, DH is fed up with my strictness over this and says we should reduce the monthly payments and take twice as long to pay ourselves back - if not longer, as he thinks life is too short. Whereas my view is that I’d rather have eight months of relative frugality, forego a holiday and treats this year and clear the debt (to ourselves!) quicker.

AIBU to tell DH that I would really like to stick with the plan? We currently have £8k in savings and want to use the money to make improvements to our house.

Eating out is an expensive habit

Yes - DH is a real foodie and eating out is one of his favourite things to do. I think that’s what he’s missing!

£40-50 per week each on fun is loads!
I would look at reducing that even further. I'd lighten up for a birthday or a special gig or something but for the sake if a few months to get your savings back on track I'd knuckle down and throw as much as I could into savings.

Personally I like to do little personally challenges from time to time to see how little I can spend money on my self. Excluding regular bill's, petrol and food I have hardly sprntvanything since 22nd May.
I drew £100 out then and have £86 left!
Ive been out hiking and mountain biking with friends, has friends round and been busy.
Next week is going to be expensive though so I'll have to restart my challenge the week after!!!

I drew £100 out then and have £86 left!

That’s seriously impressive!

Yes - DH is a real foodie and eating out is one of his favourite things to do. I think that’s what he’s missing!

You know you can buy nice food and cook it at home? Even invite friends round who will bring the wine.

Otherwise he’s like one of these “ sportsmen” who only ever watches sport on the TV but is an expert.

*utterlybutterly8

I drew £100 out then and have £86 left!

That’s seriously impressive!
I saw some shoes I liked ( but didn't need) same with a new cook book- I have 87 cook books as well as cooking magazines so walked away!! I did buy a Cranks cook book for £1.00 in a charity shop so I'm not that thrifty!!!

How old are you?

Life is about a balance of fun and saving but I would feel unable to spend heaps if I wasn't making some kind of pension saving.

£8k doesn't seem like a lot of savings if you are self employed. Do you have critical illness cover etc?

I don't save. My income is too low for there to be any point at all in saving - most people on low incomes are aware that the idea of having 'six months' salary in savings is bullshit, because it would take something like six years to save that much and why bother? It's like the endlessly-repeated stupid advice to the young to give up their lattes and avocado toast if they want to buy property.

I understand that SGB and I’ve been there for many years. That does change things somewhat, in terms of life philosophy and approach to money in general and living for today.

But OP is not in that situation and so it’s prudent for her to put money by.

*You know you can buy nice food and cook it at home? Even invite friends round who will bring the wine.

Otherwise he’s like one of these “ sportsmen” who only ever watches sport on the TV but is an expert*

That just sounds really snide.

I do actually agree on cooking and enjoying great food at home. You can get a couple of very good steaks and a bottle of excellent wine, and still spend far less than you would on what’s often a gamble in a restaurant (it doesn’t help that we’re both very good cooks so often find restaurant food a bit meh for the money).

I do love eating out, but we also love cooking together and having a good night in for far better value for money.

@ReanimatedSGB I think the point that's trying to be put across to OP, is that they are in a position to save (£40-£50 a week on "fun" is a fair chunk of money, more than many people would have spare) and it can be much more precarious being self-employed than being employed, so a buffer of savings would hopefully get them through any hard times. I understand that for those on a low income saving can be extremely difficult.

Six months’ salary probably isn’t realistic, but pension provision isn’t.

Home improvements are usually non essential.

State pension will be bugger all and may well be zero for under 70s by the time we retire!

SGB
I get your point that some people just can’t build up meaningful savings because there is so little to spare.
However, if someone does have disposable income then it is worth them thinking about building a safety net not just having lovely meals out.

I’m thinking three months worth of salary sounds like quite a good amount of time to find another job if we needed to. We have two months worth in savings at the moment.

The home improvements aren’t essential but would make our home so much nicer - and much easier to sell if we could no longer make the mortgage payments for whatever reason.

Our retirement plan was to sell the house (we’ll be mortgage free by the time we retire, obviously) and relocate to a smaller property in a cheaper area. But after reading this thread I’m going to look into paying into a pension as well.

Our current financial plan doesn’t include Christmas or birthday presents for family, so I will have to add that to our borrowings and perhaps finish paying ourselves back in March or April next year rather than February. If we do get the expected £2k bonus from work that will help enormously - but that’s not a given at this stage.

This sounds like better than my normal life, so I wouldn't count it as frugal!

But how about if you have two frugal months then a week off or something? I do that - I pay into a savings account monthly, and use that to fund our holiday and christmastime etc. I don't hold back then. But I think my idea of not holding back and your husband's may be very different......

You really do need proper financial advice. If you are both self employed do you have critical illness cover?

Go with hubby or split the difference, you could be dead in a year.

Some posters on here seem to be firmly in the "save all you can" camp (like me!) while others are more "live for the moment" (like my DH). I think the best way forward for us will be to find a compromise, so we can have continue to save but have a bit more fun along the way.

I think only one person has said not to bother with saving anything. The majority of posters have suggested compromise, and a few have agreed with your stance.

It's important to have savings, if you can afford it, but it's equally important to have some fun too, and do some things you enjoy, just be sensible about it.