To ask how much you save every month

[HukkaPukka]

I'm just getting on top of things after covid-related financial mess and managing to put aside about £300/month. How much do you put in your savings/ISA on a monthly basis? Do you save/budget/feel it's a priority? I'm trying my absolute best to budget to the finest detail now and save every penny. Last year taught me not to take anything for granted.. Just interested how everyone else feels?

I save £650 into house renovation/wedding/holiday fund and £100 into my car maintenance fund. Fiance does similar but I think he's £700 into house/Reno fund.

I'm also now saving up for a new phone as my contract is coming to an end and I want to but one outright so that's whatever I have left at the end of the month. Which is a lot more right now as I can't socialise.

We have no kids and we've just bought a house. We earn ~80k between us (pretty even split).

Me £450
DP £750

Split between holiday, general/emergency and moving house accounts

This will reduce to around £600 once we move house

@listsandbudgets I wish I could also save as much as some of the other posters.. But I think even putting away something is a win at the moment.

We don't have a set "savings" account but do try to pay into our lifetime ISAs. I think these are great with the Government top up ( 25% if you pay in up to £4000/year). We try to reduce the years left on a mortgage when we renegotiate ( when are fixed terms are up) so this is like overpaying the mortgage. I think the main schemes for savings should be pension based especially for the tax relief and people should really look into what their employer can contribute.

When "our" fixed terms are up .

Usually £1200 but during lockdown it’s been more like £1500. That’s my own personal savings, DP saves on top of that.
But we are saving for a house deposit so probably budget a bit more than if we weren’t. And we currently have no children.

£85 Xmas 2021. I put £85 and DH puts same amount in
£50 a month for ds birthday later in year
£50 a month for DH birthday
£50 in my car service/mot fund
Between £500-£800 goes in to my savings account a month. This varies but 500 minimum
DH separately saves between £800-£1000 per month in our savings account. Sometimes more but covid has brought earnings down

About £700-£1000 a month, I've doubled my income in a year and previously had to budget to the last £, so I now continue to live as I did previously and skim off the additional I now earn. Difference being when I need to replace things I can straightaway (new vacuum last month). Saving for a property deposit for when I finally get a settlement from my STBXH.

When I get paid I put aside £675 to savings. If at the end of the month (day before payday) if there is anything left in my personal spending account I do a sweep and transfer surplus to fun savings for holidays etc.

I started saving when I became a young single mum and realised how vulnerable I was.

I saved even when on benefits many moons ago (£2 a week). When I started working I started by saving £50 a month. Whenever my wages go up the savings go up by 70% of the raise.

Currently save £800 a month and I'm single - with all children over 18.

I do dip into the savings for big things like renovations or a big holiday but no for small everyday things.

I put £2,000/month in savings each month. I also put £275/month into a separate pension. DH puts £1,000-£2,000 savings each month. We put £100/month for each DC. Plus any money gifts from family. I’m not keen on kids having a huge pot of money when they turn 18, just enough for a house deposit or university.

DH also tops up a holiday/treat pot which we keep at £10k but there has not been much movement in the last year obviously.

Paid off mortgage last year and house renovated so maintenance is low. Also changed job with significant salary increase so increased it to £35k per annum.

Had years of being skint and in the last few it feels like we can let up a little

Why do people save thousands a month but not into a pension scheme where they can get tax relief? What are the concerns people have about pensions ( I am new to this and worried I am missing something major)?

Loads at the moment as we're now late 40s now so looking retire within 5 years.

£3,300 (£1,650 each) into S&S ISAs to make up maximum allowed per year
£1,500 extra contributions into my pension (DH's is defined benefit)
£1,250 holidays but haven't touched that in last year so we will probably add to my pension to get full higher rate tax relief back.

We're very, very lucky to have no mortgages or car repayments etc., both have free phones from work, and DD is older and self-sufficient now (although we did help with house deposit recently.) Our regular outgoings are pretty minimal.

The upsides of a pandemic is that there is nothing spent on outdoor entertainment and restaurants. Putting away 500 on Saveday (The day after Payday) and then at the end of the month, anything not spent goes into savings too. I'm obsessed with direct debits within my accounts so I can siphon off my income into little pots.

@yoyo1234

Why do people save thousands a month but not into a pension scheme where they can get tax relief? What are the concerns people have about pensions ( I am new to this and worried I am missing something major)?

What you can do with pension savings is relatively limited in that it's locked away until you're 55 and withdrawing is only tax free to a limit, so depending what you want to do it might be taxed anyway.

It's better now that drawdown is allowed, but still not completely free to do what you like with the money unless you lose the tax-free aspect, so people sometimes prefer to save money in other ways.

Not a lot, £100 a month savings, and then save the change £30 a month lots earn far more than me

We budget for £1,000 a month normally, and it usually winds up being between £500-£800. At present with no childcare costs it's about £4k.

We put 6% of our salaries into our pensions each month, the savings figure doesn't include that.

I have a standing order of £200 a month into my isa account but I could afford to save more and regularly transfer additional funds into it. Saving a lot during lockdown has made me think I need to have a serious look at what I spend money on and see what I could save on. I finish paying my car off this month so I’ll probably add that to the ISA amount each month given that I’ve afforded to pay it for the last 3 years!

@yoyo1234

Why do people save thousands a month but not into a pension scheme where they can get tax relief? What are the concerns people have about pensions ( I am new to this and worried I am missing something major)?

Should have also added that the lifetime maximum pension you can can accrue is only £1,073,000 at the moment.

If you go beyond that you are taxed at 55% on withdrawals.

Before everyone jumps in saying that £1m+ is a massive pension, I don't disagree but it's not as ridiculous a sum as it may sound.

If you're a higher rate tax payer and pay in £750 per month into your pension, increasing contributions by 2% each year and adding the tax relief back in, if the pension grows at reasonable 7% per year you would easily exceed the lifetime allowance in less than 25yrs

In essence every penny we earn sort of gets saved because its all immediately divided up into different pots.

So every month we put, aside for holidays, separate again for bday, separate again for Xmas, childrens clothes and sundries, another children's account for school meals etc...
Then another for family general savings eg new washing machine kind of stuff, a car fund, then I put 50 per month into an isa.

Some of the amounts are small but add up over the year. At times when we have been on one wage the amounts going in have been maybe 5 a month... But it was still something.

Now we have two wages, more goes in.
Any Xmas money or bday money gets put across all these pots also.

We also have petrol and social spending pots so we know exactly where we are.
At the moment we have excess petrol money each month so that goes to top up the food budget and any left over goes towards the pot that needs it most eg I just brought some things for dd bday...

Social money also not spent so again at the end of the month that will go to another pot.

We know exactly where we are, we know we can afford treats when out eg the infamous mumsnet... Splurge on the hot chocolate when out 😂😂🔥🍫.

It's taken all the stress and worry out of spending because we know what we have.
I started to do this in the credit crunch because we couldn't afford anything and had a small dc.

Depends what you mean by savings. We 'save' about £1900 a month but of that approximately £500 is actual savings the rest is putting money away for car/house maintenance, birthday/christmas, vets, holidays etc. We also overpay our mortgage by about £150. We have reasonable local authority pensions too.

@yoyo1234 I can't speak for everyone but we don't invest all our savings in pensions as we need them for other things. We need to save for maternity, then to be able to remortgage or move to a bigger house. Our next house we hope will be a project so we'll need savings plus we need access to savings for everyday things (appliances, holidays, DIY, private dental treatment etc).

Not including pensions, £800-£1000 plus £250 for DS. If one of us gets a bonus or overtime we save most of it