Are you putting money away to help with the further expected rise in cost of living?

[HighSea]

Name changed for this. As above really are you putting extra money away now out of your monthly budgets to cover the forecasted extra costs in fuel, food, petrol and everything we are due to see in the autumn? I am curious after a conversation with dh last night where we discussed doing this.

I would suspect there are a lot of people who are struggling to keep their heads above water now, let alone having the wherewithal to put extra money away.

Would love to but can barely afford to pay for everything now. Absolutely dreading more price rises.

That's assuming there is money to put away.

Yes. Whenever the current account goes over a particular threshold I'm working to I put it into savings/ off the mortgage. We drop off our current fixed mortgage rate next May and I expect that's going to be the heavy hitter for us.

It's a good idea to save money regardless of whether the cost of living
will rise in the future as there is always the potential for unexpected costs, redundancy, or illness. I will save some money but probably less than usual, if anything. Unfortunately some people will find it difficult to save anything at all at the moment.

Are you joking?

Living month to month.

Not especially for the price rises, but we save money monthly anyway so will just reduce the amount we save each month or as a last resort will use savings, but don't anticipate that we'll have to.

I’ve always held a buffer for changes in costs and naturally tend to increase the amount in when times are projected to get tougher.
sadly though, those who are likely to be most affected are unlikely to be doing more than keeping their heads above water as it is, never mind saving

Not putting away as such, but rather anticipating the rise in October and knowing that we will need to review the budget then and acknowledging there will likely be less disposable funds going around.

I appreciate I am in a fortunate position though to be able to afford that perspective. I know there are a lot of people now that are barely able to keep afloat, let alone facing more certain rises in the Autumn (for energy).

We do save each month @dianthus101 long term general savings, holiday savings, Christmas & birthday savings, clothing and foot wear, car maintenance. We were discussing if we should start a pot to cover the extra cost of heating/food this winter so we done have to take money out our general savings. I understand we are lucky to be in a position where we can save as a lot of people aren’t. My dh doesn’t have one of the magic mumsnet 6 figure salaries either just a normal one.

Kind of, we've paid a few things off recently, like DFS sofas, ordinarily, once the agreement comes to an end we get a new one and also a car loan. The things that we have are absolutely fine though so this time we're not getting new just because we fancy it and reducing the overall outgoings instead.

@anywhichwaytoo sorry you are struggling but I am asking a serious question.

@TokyoSushi that makes sense

I’ve upped my hours with a target for fun money and then my hours over that are savings money. Luckily it’s the kind of work I decide if I want to take all that’s on offer or not where as dh is salary no matter how many hours he does.

Chance would be a fine thing. I'm really slashing the budget for entertaining the kids over the summer so at least I go into Autumn with credit card clear and bank account in the black which feels like the most I can achieve tbh.

For gas and electric specifically, I am paying a flat rate per month with means I’m building credit for winter. That’s the same approach as every year, just my monthly payment is higher now.

Otherwise, I’ve always kept my outgoings lower than income - with acknowledgment that I have had the privilege to do so. But that’s a combination of privilege and choices - I have an old car, smaller house, etc.

So I have headroom between my outgoings and income, and I expect that headroom will decrease - but still exist. So I’m not specifically setting aside money, but I’m making sure I still have that headroom. For example I just came out of contract on a phone and have chosen not to upgrade.

Yes, allways have and allways will have 6 months of liveable savings available should the worst happen, if things start to get tight then the disposable income goes down and lifestyle changes are needed, unfortunately I know of people who have put down all their savings down into a house with absolutely noting left except credit cards and some even have had children without a financial plan in place, feel sorry for them at the moment and what is likely to come

Unfortunately, for a huge number of families who have in the past been able to save for a rainy day, the rainy day is already here. It's a terrifying feeling when your rainy day money saved for "emergency" situations is just swallowed up by the day to day cost of living.

I would suggest if people can afford it, they could increase their charitable donations including local food banks, but it really fucking grinds my gears that it's seen as acceptable and reasonable that families feel a responsibility to feed other families from their salaries/incomes, which have already been decimated by paying money to companies making billions in profits.

The world is fucked up. The sight of Tory MPs opening fucking food banks is sickening.

Had hoped to reduce my hours once moved house. But I think I will be looking to not only increase hours, but also increase my hourly rate.
Planned budgets for the move have also been adjusted and somethings will be shelved as not life threatening works.

We don't have a rainy day fund. We live month to month but out of this we have enough for treats., cheap holiday, clothes etc.
We have debt to pay off as well.
The only savings we have is really good pensions!

I am lucky in that my income still affords me savings each month. I always pay our gas and electric so it’s in credit going into autumn and winter. But I have also cut back on personal spending, budgeted food shopping etc to increase my savings for future increases.

i don’t really get the pots thing- I have savings I pay into and that is what I use to pay for holidays/ Xmas / anything I need to pay for that I can’t afford to pay from my current acc. I don’t need to sub divide them out.

I'm trying to overpay on my gas and electric to ensure I have some credit on there for winter. We also have a reasonable amount of savings, although are planning some work on the house so that might quickly be depleted.

Blimey, dismissive much, OP?

14.5 million people are living in poverty in the UK.
They do not have savings, they are already struggling to make ends meet, & come the autumn price hikes, will be going cold &/or hungry.

You know those are not just words - those are actual cold & hungry people, who can see no way out of their current dismal circumstances? In Britain, one of thew world's richest countries. Where the government talks about "levelling up" while doing fuck-all for anyone but the rich, & MP's pose by foodbanks to get kudos by association for a problem they caused.

Is your question more serious than that?
Tone deaf thread of the day.

Nope. I am putting money aside to cover gas bill. I guess I would have to start putting even more to cover electricity bill. I used to put mothly £150, now I am putting £220 and thinking of increasing it to £250. When will this vicious cycle end...