How skint are you ?

[Jbrown76]

Inspired by this thread on Reddit:

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskUK/s/iR5TPqfSR7

I expected that there would be lots of incredulous commenters on here with thousands in savings so it’s a nice surprise to see some ‘real’ answers
I'm one of those with £1000s in savings and quite comfortable atm.

Ask me the same question 15 years ago and I was skint beyond belief. We literally had the ballifs at our house.The stress was unbelievable it made me and dh ill.

I have probably just about £200 left. Still some bills to come out- so probably left with about £100.
I'm off all this week as AL so it's probably going to be more expensive than usual, but trying not to use the credit card.
Also the usual 'ooh let's book a holiday' messages have started from friends.

10 days until payday.

£100 left in my bank until payday on the first but nothing left to pay for.

Around £600 in savings - had more but obviously Christmas!! Part of the not skint not rich crew it would seem!

Extremely skint because we just paid our tax bill. Should be fine from March but having no savings and not much in the current account makes me nervy. We earn well but mortgage and childcare alone are £4k at the moment so it’s not great. Temporary pain though, we knew this would be the worst place for liquid cash long in advance, and I appreciate that lots of people are much worse off.

I currently have £15 that's not spoken for. I have £93 coming in on Monday and £40 on Wednesday (self employed, these are sales transferring from Shopify).

We are away next week and staying with family, so minimal expenses but that income will need to be set aside for shopping on our return as the cupboards and freezer are practically bare, and topping up the electric key as that will be beeping if not dead by the time we get back too.

We will get UC in 2 weeks time, so we will just about manage, and hopefully have some orders come in between now and then to tide us over, though we should just be able to manage if we don't spend anything while we're away.

There are no savings to access, but if things got really shit we can fall back on family to help out (grandparents have just bought us a new washing machine after ours died, with no need to pay them back) which is a huge relief when things do go wrong

I do have plans to get on the right track though, I know if I can get myself together (I'm ADHD and currently dealing with bereavement on top so I'm not working very well ATM) and use my COL payment next month to invest in some materials I can start turning £5k+ a month in the business. That's the goal, so hopefully if you were to ask me next year, it would be 'not skint at all'

@Dabralor we are the same. It just sucks having no money ALL the time.

I teach full time and my partner works in underwriting but bills and debt are crippling us.

22k in credit card debt to get us through maternity leave, full time nursery place and a few one off events we made a decision were worth going into debt for.

We took a gamble that our circumstances wouldn’t change and that we would be able to clear the debt in 18 months which this was month one.

We’ve also just been disorganised with money and just accepting things are more expensive. We were still setting the grocery budget to what we had in 2019, and then doing loads of top up shops over different cards so we didn’t have a true picture of what we were spending.

we also worked out there’s only one month in the year where there isn’t a “thing” that costs money - January!

Not skint. We have credit card debt that will take 6-9 months to pay off but it is on interest free cards so I'm very relaxed about it (DH nowhere near as relaxed!)

If one of us lost our job we would be very skint very quickly because bills are just eye watering, some days I wonder if we should burn £5 notes to keep warm and see if it works out cheaper 😅

I have SOME savings, and I could live for perhaps 3 months on them. I have no debt and no mortgage (own outright). I'm self employed and current income is tight but manageable. I appreciate I'm in a much better position than a lot of people, but it's difficult to see that when we're counting the pennies at times!

Me and DP are working on a venture at the moment which will be great, but it's slow growing. I'm just looking to the future.

Almost skint.
Had an unexpected funeral to pay for but this will be paid back to me once solicitors get their fingers out

no savings and ccurrent account is -£721.47

Yeah

Not good :(

@tatadpolelove

Be careful leaving your Vinted balance in.. people are loosing it.
I draw mine straight away now.. because l joined a Vinted complains Facebook group and it's happening to loads.

I agree with this but as I scroll down they’ll no doubt be the “ we’ve five million in savings and a disposable income of 100 k per month “ boastful stealth boasts.

It’s not fun for many people and such posts do not help.

Skint and not skint.
Got abot £50 in the current account.
Got a bit in savings, but had to dip into them to pay off the December credit card bill.
I've just withstand my money from my Vinted account, so waiting for that to land in my account.

Not an instant fix but have you tried doing polls and surveys on an app like Attapoll. It's small amounts of cash for each one, but I transfer to a Revolut account and store it as backup, but you can also transfer to PayPal. Depending on how dedicated I am to fill them in I can cash about £2.50 every few days. Having this to one side after a few weeks could give you a small petrol fund in emergencies?

-£318 in my bank account, 80p in my savings account (lol) & 2k on a credit card that is incurring interest. I just keep doing the postcode lottery and hoping for a small win 🥴

Skint in terms of available cash as it's all invested.

11k on creditcard
160k in various accounts.
150 overdraft
Payday weds.
About £15 available cash. So can't really buy anything but appreciate I'm in a great position.

Why have you got a credit card if you have 160k in savings?!

You were too early, they’ve come along now🙄

Not skint at the moment but that has come from many years of sacrificing fun things and living very frugally.

I know what's it's like to be skint though.

We are very fortunate and far from skint. A far cry from how I grew up (proper poverty), and DH came from a similar background.

I am great full everyday that we are comfortable, and do give lots to help those less fortunate.

We have worked hard to be secure, but cannot take all the credit. I had a good amount of luck and in applying for the right job at the right time and having people who believed in me (career wise) and helped me move up.

I'm self employed , had a op in early December and income has been zero since then, should be back to limited work in a week but not expecting to earn much for around 6 more weeks .

had 11k savings in December down to 7K now with careful planning, Tax bill of 5K at the end of the month so will be struggling soon.

fortunately no card debts and only a loan for work vehicle

• in my account. Got over 3k in savings.

I'm older and not skint, but was for the vast majority of my life.
I regularly had Bailiffs at the door, to my shame. When my card wouldn't give me more, it went on the credit card - I'm talking feeding us money, not holiday in Mauritius money.
My fortunes changed when I was in my late 40s and I'm(early) retired now. No inheritence BTW, just frugal living once the kids were grown and gone.
I have savings now, a (to me), good amount, but I'm frightened to spend it, because once it's gone, theres no replacing it!

I know I'm lucky now, I don't have to fret about having food in to eat and I am quite comfortable, but that knot of fear never quite goes.

I wish you all well, it is so hard, but it DOES get better - honestly 🙂

I’m skint but not poor if that makes sense? I think of skint as being short on disposable income, which I am this month as I’ve booked a long haul holiday for this year in may which is costing us £15k+ so I have that to pay for in the next few months and I am contemplating booking a short haul holiday for Feb because I need a change of scenery.

My ‘play money’ is seriously short after paying for all that, and I spent a bit more in December on gifts for my family because it was Christmas. That December pay feels a loooooooong time ago! I am lucky though as I have lots of savings, and both my partner and I have very well paid jobs. But roll on January pay day.