How much do you have in easy access savings compared to your monthly outgoings?

[luxxlisbon]

I thought I wasn’t doing too bad for savings but if I thought about covering 3 months expenses I actually don’t have anywhere near.

AIBU to think not a lot of people really have months of expenses in an easy access account, particularly in a time of 10% inflation?

How much savings do you have available?

For context, I'm 30 with 2 young children. I have a decent professional job and earn twice my husband's wage. No idea on his personal savings, but we also have joint savings which I haven't included in the above. When I refer to outgoings, I mean household outgoings, not just my personal outgoings.

I have about £15k in my own savings, so could cover my half of essentials for about a year (literally just pay mortgage, bills and eat). DH has about the same. In the middle of moving so will likely dip into this!

2.5 times my annual income.

I have about a 1.5 years worth in East access but my fixed rate mortgage comes to an end next year and I intend to pay it off at that point so I don't want to put anything into the stock market for the short term.

Far too much, but DH would have all our savings and pensions stashed under the bed in £coins if he could. At least it’s earning a smidge of interest (although you’ve reminded me to look for somewhere better to put it).

I've got about 6 months worth of monthly outgoing for the family - eg mortgage, utilities, essential bills & food.

The famous MN 6 figure sum, yes, seriously. Over 250k BUT I have no pension, so it needs to keep growing.

About 25k.

We have about 75k in premium bonds. We do okay in the price draws but I’d probably have been better locking them away. I like the idea of the big win though. Makes the beginning of every month a little bit exciting!

I honestly don't see the point in keeping large amounts of money in easy-access. My credit cards are for immediate emergencies. That buys me at least one month of interest-free credit to move money around so I can pay it off, and even stocks and shares ISAs usually liquidate in 14 working days. Aside from that, I can get my hands on enough for 1-2 months if I really needed to.

Given that a lot of people have absolutely nothing and are relying on food banks this is an unnecessary and goady thread

Prior to covid we had enough to cover 6mths however DP is self employed in a profession that shut down and he is ecv so couldnt just get a job in a supermarket and i am a sahm/carer to our children. We currently have £400 in easy access savings and £850 in other accounts

I have around two to three months of household expenses in my account, dh has enough for probably one week…

This is generally my perspective too. I’m generally only counting actual immediate access as ‘easy access’ and therefore it’s always got an incredibly poor rate. Seems like a bad play to have tens of thousands sitting like this.

And Sunak has billions. It's a brutally unfair world.

We have nearly enough to pay off our mortgage so that's the plan in January.

Then we will be down to nothing but will save up again.

So no one should ever learn to make better use of their savings because some people don’t have anything?

There is nothing goady about it, if you don’t like it don’t look, it’s as simple as that.

Definitely this. Not the best timing sorry

Daisybuttercup12345 · Today 13:46
Given that a lot of people have absolutely nothing and are relying on food banks this is an unnecessary and goady thread

I haven’t left the country in 20 years. Can you all stop talking about holidays abroad please?
Nothing goady about the thread, some have savings and want to discuss the topic.

Give over. It’s a fact of life that everyone’s circumstances are different.

About £22k in cash easy access, with a bit more in fixed term accounts and S&S. This time next year the position may look different as I'm considering paying my mortgage off when my fixed rate expires (and then rebuilding my savings back to around this level with the monthly payments I'd no longer be paying).

I still can't get over Lloyd's rate they offered until recently.

So are we counting only the instant access ones? In that case like 250

Actually at a time of massive inflation and a turbulent economic situation it is actually completely sensible to be mindful of savings and an emergency fund.

£25 in a 90 day notice to access account...
£550 in a LISA that I'm unlikely to ever be able to use unless the market crashes so I've given up on it.

Kids have £800 ish each in child trust funds.

I have much more in my current account, but that's because it's nearly the end of the month so some bills are due. We don't keep regular savings as we're relatively young (30s), renters and have 4 children so have never had excess money to do so.

We're not poor or remotely struggling though. As others have said, interest rates are dire, and we have a small amount of credit card debt, so focussing on clearing that is priority.

About a year's worth. Partly because just gone through major house refurbishment and that was the contingency fund. Hence its accessible.

We are older, high earning and fairly frugal.

Ask me in my early 30s and it was bugger all.