To ask how much you have in savings and what you are saving for?

[Watermelonade]

Before anyone jumps on me, this is not a boasting thread. A few years ago we had nothing and felt like we were drowning, so now I am very cautious with money and save, save, save.

I have 8000 which is strictly for emergencies and is never touched.

Then I've just started a holiday fund which has a small amount of 550 in it.

What about you?

YY to premium bonds, I've always had a couple of grand it there and win £25 about once a year, which is more than the interest I would've earned even before COVID hit. I've just topped it up to the max using the gift I've received and I can't wait to see what I win now @Figmentofmyimagination has got me excited (first draw is July)!!

In comparison to some not much at all, however I have paid off my 1000 overdraft which I have lived in for ten years...

I have NEVER had savings accounts before so I have opened three

We are hoping to move at the end of the year/beginning of next so I am saving 200-300 per month to save toward things we need.

Also saving 100 per month for Christmas (it could do with being more but this is without leaving myself completely skint)

Saving 50 a month for a trip away we have booked next Easter

I have spent this year to date working to pay off debts, increase my credit score etc

22k between me and dh. If everything goes well with our business this year and we take the salary we expect to then this time next year we will have 132k in savings.

We have no mortgage and the money will be used for an attic conversion with bathroom, new bathroom on the middle floor and an extension on the back plus new kitchen.

It won’t cover all that I don’t think so will have to save more for the extension. The garden wants re vamping (there is a lot of rotting decking) so all savings are accounted for

@FirTree31 I have recently opened a Plum account and it saves for me. I do save other stuff too but the Plum is like magic. It takes bits of money from your account which is apparently 'based on algorithms'. I really don't miss what they take. In 3 weeks I have built up 76 pounds. The direct debit amounts can be really random e.g 6.87 or 9.82

@FirTree31

I budget and transfer all the money I am planning to save that month on payday. I save 1/12 of annual bills each month eg house insurance as it is usually cheaper to pay a lump sum than instalments (if there was a crisis I could repurpose the lump sum and choose the instalment option). In the two council tax free months I put the money into savings.
Even though I am a high earner I used to take my lunch to work. It was easy to spend £5 a day on canteen food I wasn’t enjoying.
If you get a pay rise or overtime don’t automatically add it to your budget, perhaps add half and save half.
I have savings goals and will break them down into smaller steps eg if I wanted to save £1000 I would do it with mini goals of £100 as it is more achievable. That way the small things like rounding your account or saving the change feel worthwhile.
Skint Dad has some good mini saving challenge ideas.

@FirTree31

I'm another one that saves on payday. I have two pots. One is my annual expenditure such as insurances, annual boiler service, cats jabs and surplus for vets, amount for car repairs. I also put an amount in for clothes/ shoes etc.

I then have a second pot which is longer term savings - so trying to get to 3 months salary and then things for house / new car. Will take about 6 years to get there though!

I use a budgeting app called money dashboard which imports my transactions from my bank and credit card and automatically allocates them to my budgeting pots based on vendor. Sometimes I have to reallocate. This way I can see where I am for month. I also try and have all my DD's come out early so again I know what I have left.

I use a cash back credit card but transfer weekly to pay it off.

Like Chaz mentioned, not absorbing pay rises into your regular budget is a great way to build savings. I think it’s really nice to allow yourself a treat with the first pay check of that rise, but I tend to then adjust my salary sacrifice into the workplace credit union to add in that amount and keep my normal budget as it was before the rise - cod I would have been managing fine at that level.

About 700 quid. Less than my credit card debts, so the savings will be used to repay the cards when the 0% interest periods end.

Lots

Early retirement.

About £13-14k between DH and I

We were initially saving for my maternity leave which has just started so we haven’t dipped into it yet

We are also saving for a fantastic holiday but doubt we’d spend more than about 2.5k on that

Long term we want to extend or move so will try to increase savings where we can

At the moment I'm child free and all my savings are going toward funding an early retirement. I'm lucky as my housing comes with my job rent and bill free so have been able to buy and rent a house totally cost neutral as the tenants rent covers my mortgage (and a little bit more which we put in a holiday fund) so compared to 99% of the population we are very well off but yea basically it's all in funds and stocks and shares Isas which will hopefully allow me to retire at 55

LondonCaIIing
About 90K
Want to buy a house outright but 90K would buy me nowt
Will have to keep saving for a few more years.

Depends where you're looking! grin

Yeah, well where I'm from, it would only get you something dreadful in a rough area - where you would be a target - especially if you are female.

£18k saved in 10 months , had a temporary promotion and banked every penny of the extra income plus extra - no idea what I’m saving for to be honest just like a good emergency fund based on past experiences. On pay day I’ll hit the £20k target and the promotion is becoming perm so I might look at buying a rental property

I'm trying to save up 5k by christmas, have 3k saved already. I'm thinking of going back to freelancing as I hate my current job/boss even if the money is good and the position relatively stable. I'm probably bonkers for doing this in a recession but I'll go insane if I don't have some sort of escape plan.. and for the escape plan I need a financial cushion.

I've got about £18000 in one account and £1500 in an emergency account. Had more but son was at uni, he's now going back to do a Masters and DD 15 will be off in two years so will be broke again but it's worth it. The original amount in the first account was from my divorce and selling the marital home.

I don’t know why people are surprised that threads like these are fascinating to people. It’s frowned upon in British culture to openly discuss money, which means it’s secretive and quite fascinating to peer into other people’s circumstances. Also satisfies people’s nosiness. Shows them they’re doing well or could be doing better. It’s just interesting to some. My friends and I (early thirties) have always said how strange it is that we discuss literally everything, the most intimidate details of our lives, yet it’s a social faux pas to ask your friend what they paid for their house or what their pay rise was at work!

Anyway to answer, currently we have approx. £14k sat in the bank in general savings. We recently bought a house last year after renting for a decade so we sank £18k into that and have been building back up since. It’s mostly there as a safety net as I’m on mat leave and my pay will be coming to an end for a few months soon then I’m back on less hours with nursery to pay for. But we plan to draw from it for a few house bits, maybe a little uk weekend away in a couple months, I also have to use a bit on a lease car underpayment.

It brings me a lot of peace of mind, I went bankrupt seven years ago and for the first decade of my life struggled big time on no more than NMW, working multiple jobs at a time and living in house shares. At one point I couldn’t afford a £7 prescription even though I was very ill. The stress of money troubles is horrendous for your mental and physical health. I still pinch myself that I can sleep at night feeling financially secure now. Will never take it for granted.

@Sharkerr
It is weird and if more people discussed pay and prices paid for large things people might find they then are able to get better deals or better pay by having the knowledge of what others are worth etc

Me personally £30k, £350k in a mortgage offset, and in total (all in inc business money on which tax will be due), £1m

Unfathomable from when I was unemployed, in overdraft and did Christmas for £30 15yrs ago.

Saved to have children (I wanted to make sure mortgage and bills were covered while I was on statutory maternity pay).

Currently saving to get all the "advisories" on the MOT of my (17 year old) car sorted or potentially replace the car, depending on which option is cheaper!

I'd like to move house at some point too (currently in 2 bed flat with 2 children. Would love another bedroom and a garden but as I am only working part time this is a long way off.

£0

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I have £5,000 which is half way to the £10,000 I need for a fleur di lias tummy tuck privately following a 7’stone weight loss I did without surgery. The tummy tuck I need is the extensive one as I have about 7lbs of Empty skin.

I also have £100 for Christmas so far.

I Should reach my savings goal of £10,000 by the end of the year and have the surgery next year 🥳🥳🥳

I have 18k which I’ve saved up over the last 10 years. Not a huge amount especially as I want to put it towards a house deposit but I was surprised to learn it’s considerably more than a lot of my friends have saved up (all late 20s) especially when I earn the least. I like having the money there, it makes me feel secure. I’ve been very lucky and privileged to have been able to save.

When you're saving for the future, when is the future? If you want to do the canals of England(sounds great to me) why not do them next year. The problem is we never know the future and so many people put all their dreams to the future and never get there or do not have the health to do what they saved for. 3 months expenditure, regular pension contributions and then everything else for a specific reason and do it or buy it when you get to the target

Exactly, Rebel!

At the moment about 6.5k saved between the two of us towards for our first home deposit. We have saved hard this year with the extra money luckily coming from me working from home hence no petrol fees (about 200pm) and him having to work some night jobs.

We have had to take a chunk of that to pay for a new clutch for one of the cars.

We don’t have one big pot our tactic is to have loads of little pots everywhere. We have two help to buy isas, a joint savings acc, a jar of note cash, a jar of change cash, a rolling government savings account and we are both saving small amounts with a credit union. It all adds up!!