to think most people don't have savings?

[horseyhorsey17]

I realise this is going to get a whole range of different views and experiences and I am interested to hear them all, but I recently read some research saying that most families in the UK have less than £600 in savings. This got me wondering - I am a single mum with two teens and a mortgage, and I don't have savings as such but I do have a private pension (had it for nearly 20 years now) that I pay roughly 5% of my salary into (as well as a work pension) and I overpay on my mortgage. I consider this a more effective use of my money than saving, which I can't afford to do as well. Do most people have pensions AND savings? Or neither?

Just really curious as I spend my salary every single month and all my friends do the same. That might be just my peer group! I suppose I could save if we never went on holiday - but I'd rather have the holidays tbh. You only live once and you can't take it with you, etc etc.

@DontMakeMeShushYou
I'd agree with that too. The older you get the easier it gets. Particularly if you have a mortgage on the same house.

Say you took out a mortgage on a house at 30, your paying the house and potentially dealing with periods of mat leave.
15 years later, childcare is no longer needed, and your income will have gone up, even if its just by inflation but the mortgage stays the same

So you at now 45 with more disposable income

I’m 45 and have only recently got serious about saving monthly. Both DH and I received generous pay rises in the past year and our kids are now in their teens so no childcare costs. Now there’s a lot more left once the bills are paid each month and we seem to have stopped the “lifestyle creep” which we were guilty of for years i.e. get a payrise, get a better car/move house/go on a better holiday than last year but I think that’s quite normal through your 30s/40s.

I have a pension which me and my employer pay 10% into and I have a couple of defined benefit pensions from previous jobs. I’ve also got a decent amount in savings, split between a stocks and shares ISA and a cash ISA.

However I’ve never been a saver, the bulk of my savings have come from a redundancy payout a few years ago, an inheritance, work share schemes and putting away a bit of annual bonuses each year (whatever didn’t go on holidays). I’m quite good with a lump sum but have always treated my salary as something to be spent! I wasn’t taught to save when I was growing up so it’s something I’ve encouraged my DC’s to do ever since they started to get pocket money/cash gifts. Our eldest is on her gap year just now and is budgeting and building up savings. I hope she’s got the habit for life. I think it’s better for your mental health if you know you’ve got something saved in the bank to fall back on.

I can see how there are people with no or very little savings though, it’s not baked into our culture and life is expensive (depending on which set of statistics you look at up to around 50% of people in the UK have less than £1k saved). In Australia they’ve got compulsory savings, introduced in the 80s I think and it’s made a massive difference to the culture of saving there.

@Brainfogmcfogface For you 💐 Things will get better , keep fighting on .

I’m in early 40s. Fairly low income household with a disabled child and I’m disabled. We have a fair amount of savings. Paid off mortgage as been overpaying heavily since early 2010s.

Most of our savings are locked away though atm

It is interesting how many people are saying "our" and "we". If I had, say, 2k a month as a lone parent, and 850 was going on housing, there was precious little to save. But if I had a partner, living in the same house, also on 2 k, well, we could have very comfortably saved 800 a month. So that's 10 k a year, 100k in 10 years ( plus interest) So I can see how it could be done. Not as a lone parent though.

When my DC were small I had very little savings. Everything DH and I earned we spend just surviving. As youngest DC went to school full time I went from working part time to full time. At that point we started to have savings. We both always paid pension.

I’ve had a pension under local government for 19 years so I’m very fortunate (and will continue to pay into one through work for the foreseeable)

I retrained within the last five years and have gone from no savings and pay check to pay check to being able to save £500 a month into an account and it’s made a huge difference. No loans or credit cards either. So my personal savings would currently cover three months of bills but at one point was up to about 6 months worth

this literally changed for me within the last 24 months though and I’m in my 40s

I have a starling account and whatever I pay for on my card it rounds it up to nearest pound then doubles that and puts it into a savings pot it’s a really easy way to save and build ups quite quickly ! Not going to change your life anytime soon but a nice way to start to build up a cushion. Think quite a few accounts offer it.

We’re very fortunate to have been able to build our life so we have savings and pension, and still go on holidays etc.
However, this is a 2 income household with one child. I can’t imagine doing this on my own, with a mortgage and car loan and all that

No savings and I don't go on holiday 🤷‍♀️ unfortunately the increase in cost of living, insurances, duel etc has eaten any buffer we had. Childcare also drains pretty much all of one wage income per month

Is what it is. People in alot worse positions than us.

We do not have much in the way of savings, so would fit into your amount.

we save like you in a different way, pensions, mortgage etc. we mentioned we are going to try and put £90 a month away, we tried this before and used it every month…
we know we should but we struggle and we don’t have fancy holidays or cars, just living expenses.

Savings are a luxury if your minimum wage especially

Judging by your username, I assume you have horses? That’s the reason you have no savings if so 🤣

I don’t have any either, I’m so bad with my money. Luckily, my husband is not!

But the media would have us believe the majority of people are in debt?? I’m genuinely surprised at how many people on here saying they have savings…I have a decent job but as a single parent saving are a pipe dream unfortunately

I try to have 6 months take home pay in savings in case I lose my work but I'm in a very volatile industry.
But I don't have a v good pension yet. As soon as childcare costs come down (when in school) we'll be focusing on overpaying mortgage and pensions.
Loads of cash savings are pointless when you have debt (mortgage) but I am hesitant to have no savings as I might need a work buffer

With interest rates the way they are you may be better looking at savings rather than paying off your mortgage depending on what interest rate your mortgage is. If interest rates are lower on your mortgage you would be better looking at savings even if you only save it to pay off your mortgage.

That's very judgemental on whether people save or depend it all on cigarettes holidays etc. And nothing to do with you really. How does it hurt you?

So we have a few savings accounts
One for our daughter (she is 3) with £1000 in it
One for just me- about £2000
One jointly with hubby £2000
A pension for me (9.5% a month goes into it)
However we also have a no interest credit card with £600 on it. And I won't agree to a holiday without £4000-£5000 of savings (incase I had to give up work or went on maternity leave- I want another baby and that's not quite 2 months income for us)

Putting emergency expenses on a credit card and paying off is how many families with a decent income end up in poverty.
savings (usually 3 month salary) are important so you don’t have to borrow at crazy interest rates and won’t be able to pay back. I would suggest you put a 3 month salary away she only then think about an holiday in Nepal.

I used to have saving then I bought a money pit house.I am always and have always been careful with money, don't have a car or go on expensive holiday but all I have at the moment is going on repairs and mortgage.

err, most 'clever' people on here can't tell an in-administration company...... even if it stuck out to them.

Having been incredibly shit with money in the past, I've gone the other way and now have multiple pots:

Pension
Long term savings in very high interest fixed bond accounts
Both cash and S&S ISAs
'Long short' savings - holidays etc
'Short' savings - rainy day stuff (cars, boilers etc)

I also have a couple of very high value credit cards that I keep in the freezer for ABSOLUTE EMERGENCIES.

To paraphrase Kate Moss, 'no nice thing bought on credit tastes as good as savings feel'.

Lota of people have debt and savings. I have something on 0% card because it's (few pounds but still) better financially. My aavings are making interest while the debt costs me nothing

@horseyhorsey17