To ask your monthly household income, and how much you save, on average per month?

[NeverGuessWho]

I am BU to ask, I know.

I am a lone parent, earn a low wage, and am on UC, with three teenagers living at home.

My total household income is £2,740 per month (net).

Currently, saving is sporadic, but I need to change my mindset so that saving is prioritised and can be maximised.

I'm just looking for some inspiration and to gage an idea of what's do-able on my income.

Thanks.

It really isn’t. A single teacher earning £1800 will have far less cost of living threshold than someone with a couple of children. Uc top ups are to bring a family income in line with what is considered a liveable income for that area and circumstances. If the teacher is working and has a family, they would be entitled to uc top up with that wage. If the original op didn’t work at all they’d get less than the given amount, UC as a system typically works for those who work.

Husband gets 3940 after tax, NI and company car buy up

I get 560 in benefits due to being disabled and unable to work currently

Total income £4,500

Mortgage £1650
Bills - essentials plus ‘luxuries’ of tv, bb, phones, gardener, window cleaner, National trust subs £1150
Food + Petrol £500
Savings £300 (balance £5,800)
Spend £900 (£450 each to spend on what we like)

No debts

The concerning thing is is at age 38 and 40 we don’t have a pension. So if I’m unable to return to work in the near future we’ll need to downsize our house and pay the difference in mortgages into a pension

Mine and DH's combined net is less than OP's, both working FT. We put the odd £20/30 away every so often, but it's very rare!

Yes, that isn't a low income by any stretch!

And I agree with this. What one person can save will be different to what another person can save. So much depends on your specific circumstances.

100% agree with this - NMW should be set at a level that is enough to live on.

The existence of UC is a taxpayer subsidy to low paying employers. It's a disgrace.

I save £1000 a month. I put £1000 into the joint account for bills. The rest is for me.

She will mean her monthly salary from work is low. The figure she gave will include benefit top ups.

Our income is the same, we're a family of four living in the South east and not entitled to any UC (I've tried!) We save probably about £100 a month and that's all we can manage. It usually ends up getting spent on house repairs etc so we don't really "save" anything as such. Our mortgage is probably lower than rent though.

That’s not a low income! It’s more than my husband brings home working full time!

Calm down everyone she didn’t say her total income was low. She said she was on a low wage, so sounds like much of that is benefits.

I'm not sure what people aren't understanding about it!

Judgy comments aside about the income. Back to the question about saving.

I am trying to save a lot more each month and it's bloody hard with the cost of living. I have opened a regular saver with my bank. I started on the min £25 a month, then increased it a little until I reached the max, £250. It matures at 12 months, is a good rate and the lump sum then goes into my ISA.
In order to do this I have had to think differently about my spending: coffee £4? New jumper do I really need it? Pizza night £40? It's all edged away at some frivolous things I really didn't need to buy. And I now have a decent savings pot building

I bet 90% of that goes towards rent, bills etc

We bring in about £4300 a month. DD is still in nursery (well, until next week!) so we have that expense.

Savings currently a little under £1k which is a mix of long term college fund type saving and medium term car replacement type savings. I'd hoped when DD finished nursery the savings would go a up a bit but wraparound car + cost of living bill increases are likely to be about the same. Pensions are separate and we both have those too.

Family of 3.

Income of about £3000 per month.

No mortgage and very low bills, roughly 360 per month.

Food etc comes to maybe £500 a month.

No car which saves an absolute fortune

Personal spends are pretty low, we just aren't spenders, maybe 500 per month between us all.

The rest goes into savings, any day trips, holidays etc.come from there. On average we have £800 per month which I'd class as untouched savings. Mainly because we go away as often as we can.

I don't think there's much point in saving while on UC. If I was in your shoes I'd be prioritising getting into higher paid work so you can cope when your UC ends. Is there any training or study you could do?

But to answer the OP, I save about 15% of my very average salary. The only way I've managed to do it is to set up a direct debit to a savings account that doesn't have instant access. I usually run out of money at the end of the month but on the odd occasion that I don't, anything leftover the day before I get paid goes into savings too.

My bring home is approx £2,300, ds18 about to go to uni and ds23 who graduated last year and is now working. I mange to save approx £100 a month at the moment. But big car repairs just wiped me out 😫

Without including your outgoings it’s impossible to advise really. Depending where you live though, I don’t think that’s loads unless you have low rent/ct. Bearing in mind that the housing element of uc is a lot lower than the actual cost of private renting in a lot of places. Plus with 3 kids you may well be paying out a fortune in school dinners/bus fares/clubs etc. You might have debts you’re paying off? Fees for using your overdraft? Foreign holidays in school hols?
I have two kids and about £300pcm less than you. I struggle to save. On paper I should have about £1k to cover food, fun stuff and savings. But there’s always something - someone needs new trainers, friends or family’s birthdays, a trip, a piece of furniture needs replacing, etc etc etc.
You need to create a spreadsheet with your incoming and outgoings, use your bank statement to try and get this as accurate as possible. I’ve managed to get my food budget down by sticking to a comprehensive aldi shop once a week instead of topping up from corner shop etc. Buying clothes/shoes from Vinted instead of new. Sticking to buses and walking instead of taxis if you don’t drive, minimise your car journeys if you do. Facebook marketplace for furniture etc. Check if you can get cheaper deals on your internet/phone/energy etc.

Net monthly household income is about £9,000. A high amount for sure but our expenses are crazy and some months we don't get to save as much as we'd like. Mortgage approx £2500, 2 children in nursery approx £2500 then all other costs (car loan, council tax, insurances, general living costs). Save about £1500.

Ours is about 2950, just my husband works and we get child benefit every 4 weeks (Inc in that total).

Our mortgage and bills come to 1500. We should be able to save some money but we never manage to! We have about £370 p/w for food, petrol and anything

Once I go back to work we'll start saving properly. This thread has made me think that we should put some money each month aside however.

Pay yourself first. Get lots it places to save set up, all the usual eg stock and shares isa, sipp, cash isa, premium bonds, High interest savings.
Get them all open with what whatever opening amounting they require. Then first build you some emergency savings, pay this first every month but obviously an amount you can afford.
Once that's decent get something into stocks and shares, then elsewhere.

Have different savings pots all around you and save into different places for Christmas, holidays and so on.
Each pay day here every penny is assigned.

And this is why people’s attitude to welfare has become so hardened. Someone on benefits is making more than the average wage. Despite being subsidized by the taxpayer, thinks they don’t get enough.

I work full time as a teacher and my monthly income is £1800!

How long have you been a teacher? isn't the starting salary now 30k?

Household income about £5500 a month - all bills about £1100 - save about 1-1.5 k a month if poss. Very fortunate to have so much disposable income.