Money saved per month?

[Newbie1999]

Looking at our finances to see what we can afford house/mortgage wise, and feeling a bit nervous about the amount of money we’ll be saving each month after mortgage/bills/spending allowance. Think it’ll be about £400ish (it’s currently over £2k). When we buy, we’ll be saving from scratch again. With 2 kids it’ll be a bit scary for me having not much rainy day money for a while.

How much money do manage to save per month?

I should add, I know that a lot of people can’t afford to save at all and we’re very lucky! Just wondered if the new savings amount would be generally seen as a decent amount.

Depends on the month. Sometimes £1000, sometimes £100.

Numbers are a little pointless as it’s all relative. I’d say 30% of your net income would be a healthy amount

We save diddly squat each month, we have about 2 months worth of mortgage and bills in the bank but we can’t add to that. I think on MN you will get a major range of responses from those who save 000s to those who have nothing and or negative balances

@HintOfVintagePink You’re right, this would have been a much better way of phrasing it!

I felt strange when I moved and couldn't afford to save. What I had been saving for was to move, so it didn't really matter. I have "savings" and savings. One is saving for specific things (holiday, new bathroom as the current one is the reason we could afford this house!) and the other is an oh shit fund. I'm not sure what it is for, but if anyone gets a long terms illness or we get a big emergency, it is there. If we don't spend it, I'll use it to pay living expenses when I'm fed up of working but not old enough to draw a pension!

I was worried about this when we first bought a house, but then thought about it this way. You've been saving hard for a house deposit (I assume), Once you have that house you no longer need to save for a house deposit. So it doesn't matter that you'll be saving less as you will have less to save for. Also as long as your mortgage is a repayment mortgage and not interest only you'll be paying off a chunk each year which is effectively long term savings.

This month was about £1300. Usually it's about £1000.

My husband usually saves similar.

Save about 30% of our net income. It’s not too difficult because we’ve only been a dual income household for the last 3 years and our outgoings are about the same as when when we were a single income household.

Even as a % it’s hard to generalise. You don’t say how old your children are, and we save much less now we are paying nursery fees for DD, but that’s life and once that stops we’ll go back to saving a higher %.

But, when we first moved we were hardly saving anything. And then we had a child so we were eating into our savings!

We've been here for almost seven years and it's because we have both more than doubled our salaries in that time.

Most FAs would advise no more than 30%-33% a month on a mortgage/bills depending on savings etc.

It depends, we tend to save & then spend. Have some savings separately for a rainy day.

It's normally always a bit tight once first few months of house purchase.

When we buy, we’ll be saving from scratch again. With 2 kids it’ll be a bit scary for me having not much rainy day money for a while.

Buy a smaller house and then you can maintain a greater cushion..

Why are you going from 2k a month to £400? Bigger house?

Over the last year we have averaged £2k a month into savings. Covid has undoubtedly helped with that. That represents about a third of our combined net income.

Yes we were fortunate to save quite a bit over the last year. Spent it on a new kitchen though!

Have I read it right ?
You are currently saving over £2k a month, and are worried that, once you buy a house, you will only be able to save £400 a month ?

So you are spending £1600 a month on mortgage ?
Or aren't you paying any bills now ?

Seriously, I don't know if you are deliberately coming on here to gloat, or are just a bit insensitive, but £400 a month isn't an amount you need to use the word "only" in front of, if you are saving that after paying a hefty mortgage and all your bills and expenses.
Really, most people do not have that sort of income.

When we just bought our last house, we not only wiped out our savings, but actually borrowed a few hundred from the dc's account for the first couple of months to tide us over.
When I bought my first property 30 years ago, I was literally balancing pennies each month - I used to put a 10p coin into a jar every time I used the phone, to make sure I could pay the bill when it came. I lived on jacket potatoes, beans on toast etc for much of the week, to make sure I could pay bills. This isn't meant to be a poor Yorkshireman sketch, but that really is a LOT of money for a couple of family to be able to save on top of all their bills and a huge mortgage.

This only makes sense if you are living rent free now, surely? Rent can't be £1600pm cheaper than potential mortgage?

In which case, yes, you will have less disposable income if you buy your own place, obviously.

I try for £500, but sometimes I forget and it just sits in the current account. We had a look at our finances recently and we have saved over 25k since the first lockdown on not going out and holidaying!

I usually save around £600 a month (25% of take home). Some of that goes into short term savings though, so sometimes comes back out. Equally, sometimes I save extra so then that all evens out overall.

Around 50% of household income gets saved. We are lucky in that neither of us spends much on ‘stuff’ and lockdown is certainly stopping our eating out habit!

When you first buy, money is always very tight until pay rises etc mean things ease off after few years. Being able to save anything in the early years of a first mortgage is quite an achievement let alone £400 pm.

Everyone is so different in their circumstances. There will be posters saving greater amounts than other posters even earn.

As a single parent I don't really save a lot, maybe £100/month if I am lucky but it is more short term for birthdays, Christmas etc