To ask honestly...do you have 3-6 months savings or more?

[sweepeep]

Based on a few threads going around...

Do you have enough savings for 3-6 months or more? Honestly...

[quote sweepeep]@LardyDee not trying to gain anything really. But just interested in whether ppl do...I assume most ppl do but maybe I'm wrong? [/quote]
I ... really doubt most people do!

It's a position of huge privilege to be able to save money in substantial quantities, and we are right at the end of a pandemic that has depleted a lot of people's earnings, and in the middle of a cost of living crisis. Don't you think those things would eat up 3-6 months' worth of savings quite fast?

Why does it interest you?

I have friends who are extremely well off - second homes, massive investments, luxury holidays etc .. I also have friends who are on benefits, live hand to mouth and use food banks (obviously I help them out where appropriate).

My own lifestyle is comfortable - not extravagant but I recognise I am very fortunate.

But what relevance does anyone else's savings have?

Yes, but only relatively recently. We will have to buy a new car soon so I imagine they will be a bit depleted after that but probably still just about 3 months worth

Yes, but OH just lost his job and they aren’t that easy to come across in his line of work. So ask me in 3 - 6 months time and the answer is likely to be no!
We only managed to save this through a couple of lump sums coming our way eg inheritance, etc. Not by saving what’s left over from wages.

@Intemperatefatty

Yes more than that actually but surely this depends on your individual circumstances. We are high earners with teenage kids so saving is relatively easy. We have also had a bit of inheritance in the last couple of years. When the kids were younger and we were paying hefty nursery fees and a large mortgage with my part time wages, we barley had a couple of hundred for emergencies.

Unless you’re comparing like for like, these sort of discussions are a bit meaningless. Comparison is the thief of joy and all that.

This is almost word for word what I was going to say!

We have it now, in our late forties, but we've worked our way up to being high earners, we no longer have to pay for childcare, and we've long since paid off the mortgage.

Back in our 20s/early 30s, we were trying to overpay the mortgage on fairly average salaries, paying childcare that ate up nearly the whole of one salary and squeaking through each month.

It's now we're reaping the rewards of both staying in work during those really hard times when my salary barely covered childcare and travel to work!

Yes.
A couple of years ago I had debts and no savings but managed to turn it around.

Heart couldn't agree more .. the number of Mumsnetters who like to say 'we are not well off ... earning well over the average salary ... but of course they all have to live in London.....

@Ragwort

Why does it interest you?

I have friends who are extremely well off - second homes, massive investments, luxury holidays etc .. I also have friends who are on benefits, live hand to mouth and use food banks (obviously I help them out where appropriate).

My own lifestyle is comfortable - not extravagant but I recognise I am very fortunate.

But what relevance does anyone else's savings have?

To be totally fair, I do think it's the sort of thing it's worth being interested in. It's worth talking about money. My DP, when I met her, had loads of debt because when she'd been earning well she'd always just spent it, and she'd never anticipated what might happen if she got made redundant (which she did). She'd never heard of people planning savings and it's not as obvious as you might think, if you're in a situation where you grew up thinking there was a generous social welfare network that would swoop in to help if you got into difficulty.

I do, but I think you are getting a massively skewed picture from this thread.

30% of households have less than £1500 in liquid savings, 50% have 7000 or less.

The average household gross income is £44k, so if that's 2x 22k you'd expect people to be taking home around 3k between two people.

That means at best the average household has about 2.5 months saved.

Sources:

www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/personalandhouseholdfinances/incomeandwealth/datasets/householdincomespendingandwealthgreatbritain

And www.statista.com/statistics/813364/average-gross-income-per-household-uk/ with the outcome halved and put through a salary calculator.

No but I have good credit if I needed to borrow. Given that money saved earned no interest until recently it feels like the same thing.

No

We've got 5 months worth of core household costs saved as an emergency cushion. We don't really have any savings or investments on top of that though.

No nothing we live week to week. We both work and still struggling

Yes but dont forget
A) people are more likely to respond if they can feel better about themselves
B) mumsnet is more affluent than the general population

No, nor am I ever likely to

For the first time ever in my life, I have about 2 months salary saved up

We had 5 months set aside (assuming only one income was lost - both incomes are equal) and the only reason we had that was due to some compensation. We now have one month as we ended up needing to dip in . We aren’t currently able to save but hoping we may be in a position soon to start saving a little.

About 4 months of dh and my income combined but we’re getting a new kitchen so that’ll wipe out £21k and we’ll have about a month. Hoping to build that up fairly quickly but it’ll be at least a year.

Yes, on the lower end of that amount but we are working on increasing it. It's our main savings goal until we reach 6 months' worth.

Yes,
I have a lot more than 3 to 6 months BUT it took a long time to get to this point for me.

A years income saved

Nope.
Fair amount of debt and no savings.

Yes

Yes.

No. I still owe ds3 last week’s pocket money!