To think we aren't saving enough...

[prettyinpinkormaybegreen]

We are a family of 4, 2 adults and 2 DCs one at uni one at home. We bring home £100k per year so approx £6k a month so I know we are much better off than many.
By the time we pay mortgage, cars, bills and food I don't know where it all goes every month. We save about £500 every month but I always feel we should be saving more but just don't know how we could. I'm scared about the cost of living and I know I am far from destitute.
What do you all manage to put away every month??

If you think you are spending too much on food or other variable expenses you could transfer say, £750 into savings and see if you can manage. If you can, great, you have saved an extra £250. If you can’t then you can move the £250 back.

We always do this and pay ourselves first. The direct debit into savings goes out straight after pay day. If we have to use some of it we transfer it back. However I hate doing this as I like to see my savings mount up. This motivates me to use up food in the freezer etc and try to last until pay day without taking the extra amount out. If the money was left in my current account I would be more likely to do another food shop or order a takeaway. If I have to move the money back out of savings it makes me less likely to fritter it away. Every few months we transfer money from this easy access savings account into ISA’s or longer term savings accounts.

Wow! £6k a month. Is a very good income and saving £500 a month seems sufficient enough if this is after you have put the money in your pension pots.

My husband retired at 50 and I no longer work so we live off investments and our BTL property so it’s roughly £2500 a month. But we have no mortgage but we manage. My husband plays golf and we have motorhome but it’s sufficient to live off if we aren’t wasting money on unnecessary items. We are savvy and don’t waste. We have solar panels and only use the tumble dryer when the panels are generating. We turned the boiler stat down and reduced shower time.

i would definitely look at what you are spending and why.

Assuming your pensions are covered separately I think that's fine. We have a similar income and don't currently save that much, our kids are still younger and I've always sought to prioritise their childhoods due to having children young. There is little point in us saving up tens of thousands in the bank whilst we have a family now. We have a mortgage, we have excellent pensions and insurance, stable jobs and we have a plan for university, we also have flexible enough outgoings should those unforeseen issues arise. Long term saving just isn't high up in our priorities right now.

I’m not going into exact figures but I save all of dh’s wage and half of mine. However as people have said everyone’s life experience are different. I’m good at managing money, we have very low bills and after years of having no money and seriously worried about our future and what would happen to the children I am very cautious about money. Within the next two months I will hit my target of £100,000. I know for wealthy people that isn’t a big deal. For me it is incredible and unbelievable.

I'm going to do this. If it's not in the current account then you're not as tempted to spend it!

make a spreadsheet of all finances - incoming/outgoing. Keep a record of all food spends etc… you’ll then get an accurate picture of where your money goes.

I do this and it helps us keep a track of upcoming expenses (car tax, insurance, hair cuts, dentist etc). So I know that some months we can save more money than others.

Log all your food receipts too.

it doesn’t have to be anything fancy but it
really helps us.

If it helps, I save 1k per month. Only on 54k. Sounds like you are over spending.

How much are you spend in tesco?

I would keep emergency savings very separate to holiday and Christmas savings.

I would look up zero based budgeting and possibly do a no spend challenge for a month after examining your current spending.

We have huge amounts going to pensions at the moment and have plenty in emergency savings and so just save enough for holidays currently.

It is advised as a general rule of thumb to have between 3 and 6 months living expenses saved for emergencies. But we prefer a bigger safety net.

For us we prefer to have different savings. So one which is our emergency, not to be touched unless really needed, holiday savings, school fees and home improvements. We have direct debits which come out of our joint and straight into each saving after pay day.

Works well for us, we've budgeted to make sure we are saving a decent % but we know if we have a month of high expenditure we will take out of the HI account as that's got the least priority for us at the moment compared to the others.

For me it was a priority to get our emergency savings to 6 months of basic living expenses before we started saving much into the other accounts (after our reno wiped us out!)

@prettyinpinkormaybegreen I’m a lone parent on around two thirds of your income. I save around 900 a month. It goes out automatically before anything else. I am like you and will spend 30 quid on a ‘nip in for milk’ shop and I have found that spending 100-150 a week on food on an online shop actually does shop the repeated mini shops happening which ends up costing more.

*does STOP not does shop!

I think if the £10k is all your savings currently, and you're planning to spend half on your holiday (so £5k), then saving £6k per year doesn't sound enough as most if not all of that will be spent over the course of the year anyway. In your place, I'd probably want to be aiming to build up an emergency fund of about £20-30k - imagine how much you'd need if one of you lost your job and took 6 months to find another one, for example.

Are your cars on finance? I’m always shocked by the amount that people spend on car finance each month.

We earn similar to you and put away £2k a month, mortgage is £1600 and we need around £4k a month to live.

It doesn't sound a lot to me, relative to your earnings.
Do you have a big mortgage and cars on lease finance? What do you spend your money on?
We have a higher combined gross income than yours, but bring home less after tax - I assume because I pay more tax on my salary than either of you do?
We don't have kids and save about £2k a month. And that's easy to do. How much do your kids cost?!

We want similar and save/invest more than that plus save separately for holidays. We also already have 6/12 months emergency fund.

Keep track of your outgoings over the next 2-3 months, then see where the extras money is going. Maybe you spend more than you need to in one area and can cut back comfortably. Our food bill is massive, we would cut back on that to start with

We are on about £120K and put everything we earn over £50K into our pensions. Then we save approximately £800 a month for short term savings: house improvements, holidays and Christmas. Until our heating bills and mortgage went up we were saving another £800K a month in S&S for long term savings but we've had to reduce that this year.

£6,000 a year savings doesn't really sound like much at all. At that income rate I'd try to put away at least £1000 – £1500 a month. Which vehicles are you using in terms of savings? I know you said you have £10,000 currently but half of that will be wiped out for your trip soon. Are you also saving in pensions, college funds, etc? What are your numbers we can help you run through them.

I agree with the pp saying its not very much given you obviously frequently dip into it. You don't have a buffer yet so you need to save a bit harder to build that up and then you could drop back down to £500.

We have a combined income of about £7k per month (though I see we are getting shafted by tax due to one much higher earner...!) and £1k goes into long term savings. The other surplus cash (usually around £1k again) is either spent on specific things like home improvements or set aside for holidays etc. But we have our 6 months' of income saved for emergencies alongside tens of thousands in our long term savings so there isn't the need to keep stashing away every spare penny.

Thank you!

We don't have kids and save about £2k a month. And that's easy to do. How much do your kids cost?!

She's got one at University who they will have to provide approximately £500pcm in living expenses to because that child will get the minimum loan due to their household income. And another teenager. So four adult size people to feed, house, clothe, go on holiday with, buy phones for etc. etc. It shouldn't really be surprising to you that children cost lots of money.

Yes on that income, I think you should be saving more too.

We're also a family of 4, one at Uni and one in sixth form, we earn 5k a month (net) and save £1500 a month.

Wow everyone is saving a lot / has a lot of savings. We have none.

Agree with pp that it all depends on what you’re actually saving for. If you’re depleting your £6k annual savings by spending £5k on a holiday most years then yes, you probably could save a bit more.

Me and DH are on £120k between us. We save heavily into our pensions, save around £500 a month towards holidays (they are our big pleasure in life, we have no DC), and we also invest around £800 a month between us. We also have an emergency fund of around £10k between us which would cover us for a 5-6 months if we needed it.

I think it’s worthwhile doing an audit of your spending and splitting your savings E.g.

Emergency fund (3-6 months outgoings)
House fund (emergency repairs)
Fun fund (holidays, days out)
Investments (once you’ve got a decent chunk saved in your emergency fund, start funnelling your savings into investments to make your money work harder for you.