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.

We normally have savings and pension but the savings has been decimated by needing two new (to us) cars this year - both our old cars had to be replaced. Now paying back parental car loan then will save again.

We have always saved. For new cars, holidays, home improvements, emergencies and extra in pensions and ISAs for early retirement. We did in fact retire at 58.

There is no magic secret to being a successful saver. We always budgeted and put money into savings when we got paid so made it as much a priority as bills and food.

I'm originally from the UK but have lived abroad for some time. I am now a highly qualified professional but struggle every single month just to pay rent, bills and feed my family. We live in a beautiful country and I wouldn't move back to the UK, but I have literally never ever struggled so much financially as I am now, due to the huge cost of living increase, which I do appreciate is worldwide. I was much better off financially when I lived and worked as a non qualified person in the UK and was eligible for child tax credits People saying oh just put £50 a month away, I genuinely can't put anything away now. We rarely eat meat any more, even fresh fruit is a massive luxury.

Yes, this. I have a direct debit which goes into a savings account when I get paid. It's the only way to do it, I think. If that money was never there for you to spend, you can't spend it. Whenever I've had a pay rise I've incrementally increased the monthly amount, although admittedly for the past couple of years I've left it as it is.

@BarbaraofSeville Agree with this- it's what I'm doing as I have another 2.5 years on 1.5% whereas my ISA is almost 6% - obviously better to save!

I’ve always saved 20-30% of my take home pay, as has DH. It was very, very tough at times, but we paid off our mortgage when we were in our 40s, invested well and now have savings in excess of £300,000. We’re about to use a big chunk of this for house renovations.

Unless your mortgage is new and on a higher rate then don't over pay!
My mortgage is 1.49% but savings accounts are 5% so much better for me to save a bit each month than to over pay (until the end of my mortgage term).

I have a pension through work and I also transfer £300 a month into my savings account which is what I use for anything big like new car or work on the car or my flat, holidays, Botox, christmas etc. also have savings account for DC. I guess if you can get into this habit then you can use savings for holiday rather than having to pay interest on credit card which makes them cost more overall.

I think people can only afford to retire young if they bought their home cheaply in the 80/90s and have paid it off long ago!

So I have a friend with an income of 20k per month who has no savings at all. Just spends it all every month! It's unbelievable to me that I have more savings than her and it's unbelievable to her that I can have money just sitting there when there are so manny nice things to spend it on!

Yes!! I have a friend who is always scrimping and saving , like would only get a bus or walk never get a taxi even if it's snowing or thunderstorm etc- she recently paid off her mortgage to avoid the interest rate increase. I had always assumed she was a low earner - turns out she's a decent earner who was just very very very reluctant to spend more than she did in her student days, and saved everything!

I have different pots of savings
one goes from 4k -7k I dip into that as and when but I do add to it most months this is for holidays bits and pieces stuff that I don’t necessarily need but want 😂

I have around 2k in cash in a safe in the house with my passports and birth certificates

I have about 15k in a a isa
and around 35k in a savings account ( left from an inheritance )

about 2500 in my everyday bank account that rarely goes below that amount

DH has similar amounts
we have always kept our money separate we both prefer it like that

but we have no mortgage / childcare

I have savings. Like a PP I have since my very first job at 15.
I worked alongside A levels and started uni with a few grand saved. There was no bank of mum and dad to turn to as they had no money as separating and my dad had been made redundant. You learn to budget if you have no choice.

I worked through uni and several jobs in holidays. I had a student loan I'm still paying but finished with a positive bank balance.

Bought my first flat in 2007 for 100k having saved a 20k deposit without parental help. Was renting first but moved 300 miles to a cheaper area.

Flat didn't make anything as it is not an area that's had much of a house price boom, in fact it's up now for £110k having been extensively renovated (I put in new windows, kitchen, bathroom all of which came to more than the 10k it rose by).

Moved onto a house after first child this time with husband. Where I was lucky is taking a tracker mortgage which was over 6% at the time but dropped after 2008. I carried on paying same though as I knew if I got used to a tiny mortgage the extra money would just disappear.

Have now paid off 90% of our mortgage but I've not been abroad in a decade, have never had my nails done, don't spend on haircuts, buy very few clothes. Our household income is under 50k so not big earners. My outgoings are a lot less than most.

I saw my parents have to sell the family home because we couldn't afford it. It was awful and I never wanted to be in that position so have always wanted a cushion. I couldn't enjoy things without that.

I made choices, like moving, to put myself in this position. Those same choices are still available in parts of the UK. Young people wanting to live here could buy the same flat for the same price I paid at about the same interest rate and they'd likely be on a higher wage than I was.

It’s not in the interest of the elite for the public at large to be financially literate, re. savings/investing/current and future salary etc. The system only works when only a smallish minority know how to play it.

What about things that may need updated such as kitchen/ bathroom windows, doors or roofing? We know that we probably won't need anything major for hopefully 10 years but we have savings there and add to it each month. I'd say a home owner needs about 10k in the bank to cover upkeep, maintenance and upgrading. We upgraded the bathroom last summer so we are adding extra to our house savings to bump us back up. We only go abroad every 2 years, caravan holiday the other year and only have weekends away if we can afford it. We have a bunch of saving accounts, including one for holidays.

As one of the sandwich generation - paying for parents and kids - I think much of your future financial position is set by the time you're 20.
Of the three parents who have died, none have left any money and the biggest liar left a big financial mess to clear up.
If you are part of a small family with an expectation of inheritance from grandparents and other relatives, you can afford to take a lot more risks when you're young. The increasing numbers without such expectations will need to become savers early and know their worth in the job market.
My personal experience is that it's a lot harder than it should be to build up a nest egg while working PAYE - as most of us do. I get more earache from friends with million pound pension funds and hundreds of thousands in savings than I do from friends who remain potless, despite working hard.
I will probably still be working when I die, but I do have a great relationship with the offspring, some great friends and family and I smell the roses as I pass by.

Could you try being a tad more judgemental please? Don't go SAVING all those awful feelings inside,keeping them to yourself. you might explode or something - then who would be scathing at the peasants?

Why didn't that quote the judgemental prick I wanted to respond to?

My husband and I put 20% into pensions (gross pay), 25% of net pay into savings (which goes straight into savings on the days we are paid), and double pay our mortgage. We have to make quite large sacrifices to do this though, such as holidays, rarely eating out etc. We also do not have children (yet), so that makes things easier.

We bought our first home around 9 months ago, and there were many issues that were not expected (e.g. 18 new electric storage heaters needed, repointing roof; on top of things we knew, such as needing new windows for the whole house and needing a new woodburner.) Unfortunately that meant our savings were decimated (and likely will continue to be for sometime), hence the aggressive saving/paying down the mortgage.

I pay into savings every month by direct debit, once my “general” savings (which is dipped into to cover new household appliances/boiler etc if needed) reaches a certain point the excess goes into my ISA as longer term savings.

I don’t have tens of thousands saved but I am just about to go full time after several years of maternity/part time work round young children/I’ll health so hoping to really focus on saving now.

several years ago I had an operation. There were complications and I went into a coma for 3 months. I was still getting paid (part time wages) but had taken my card into the hospital with me and no-one could access my account. DP had to take 5 months off work (only 1 of which was paid) to look after our young children. We had only just bought our home and had no savings as everything had been ploughed into that. It was a horrific time in general and that was without me being aware that we very nearly lost the house. Since then, I would always ALWAYS prioritise having a certain level of savings even above a holiday etc.

We all agreed though that our efforts were as a result of having middle class parents who always pushed aspiration into us to do well at school and drum home the need for a good job aswell as some financial guidance to make saving a habit , short term , medium term and long term , a bit for each

Can we please stop with the nonsense view that financial prudence and valuing education is unique to the middle classes?

I'm as working class they come (all older male relatives were miners, the women did bits of cleaning, or worked in a pub or fish and chip shop round their DHs shifts) and that was all exactly the same for people like us.

On the matter of 'saving should be taught I schools', are they not using the financial education text book that Martin Lewis wrote and made freely available?

If not,anyone can download it themselves and learn with their DC at home.

I have £21 k in one pot I never touch, I lose my bonus interest if I access that but it pays about £70 a month interest and then I try to keep a instant access savings account of £5k for stuff I might need. I also have 4 defined benefit pensions and a defined contribution pension pot which I pay into.

My Dad has a private pension and regretted it the Tax goes up yearly and he barely gets anything from it now. He wishes he invested in Gold or just Plain old Savings!!!

Despite the tiny amount he receives he gets a lot of issues while trying to seek help as theynsay to him you have 2 pensions..they look at Gross and not after Tax. Which is what matters. It infuriates me.

I do not have Private. I have savings and invest in other things to use later.

I have a final salary pension and put 5% of my gross pay into a share based savings scheme. I’ve done it for the past 20 years and never withdrawn from it. At this point its value is a little over 3 times my contributions and it’s enough to cover both mine and my partners net pay for a full year. It’s the pot we will use if there is a really expensive emergency or (hopefully) towards extra funds in retirement. That aside we tend to put about 10% of our net pay away split between shorter term savings for more expensive months (when we have holidays/Christmas) and mid term ones for bigger house repairs/ improvements and similar. In the past when my partner had bonuses we saved those to use towards a deposit when moving home. We have had money we’ve inherited in the past and that’s tended to be spent on bringing forward home improvement projects. In general I think if you have the money to make choices about saving vs spending there is a happy medium. I wouldn’t have wanted to scrimp all through my 20s/30s to be mortgage free or close to it now. I get why other people want to but for me it’s always in my mind that you never know how long you have and so you want some of those experiences now. Equally I wouldn’t spend every penny I earned unless there was no choice as I’d feel uncomfortable not knowing how we could cover an unexpected bill. Everyone has a different level where they feel comfortable and think you just need to stick to yours and not worry too much what others do by comparison

I don't think it's an age thing. I'm late 20s and have always had savings and prioritised it above most other things. The amount goes up and down as it depends. A year and a half ago for example my cat got cancer, and while my insurance covered most, due to the type of the cancer it took a lot of time and specialists to even diagnose it and not all was covered which took a huge chunk of my savings.
Monthly I save at least 200 into my help to buy a month, currently pregnant so also saving 300 a month for a maternity leave buffer that my husband saves a decent chunk into too. Then I have various other pots for smaller things like a gift savings so Christmas is less daunting, extra payments for my student loan (not UK so won't be written off and overpayment make sense), a general for smaller emergencies and a small S&S that I add to as and when I can with the view I'll spend it in 10 or 20 years on something great or just add it to retirement. Oh and I pay into my NHS pension and have paid into a pension since I was 18.

I grew up poor (my dad once stole a chicken for food. Good thing my mum grew up in the country and knew what to do with it, cause he certainly didnt). And while they never made it our problem I've always been desperate to not feel financially very insecure and not having any savings would keep me up at night and I generally stress and worry a lot about it. I definitely don't have a healthy mindset to money but it has come in handy in the past.

5.5% with Bank of Scotland, which was the best available. I believe Skipton are offering 6.2% to current account holders.