Do lots of people have these sorts of savings? Or am I bloody right?!

[moneuapme]

I feel like utter shit after a meal with friends at the weekend. We all have decent jobs but I am still a long way down the ladder after re training. We don’t usually talk about money but will go to nice places for a dinner etc which I can afford easily too. But it turns out that 4 out of the other five of them are saving between 1k to 1,500 a month and already have over 50k savings?! The other woman there said she has no savings and I just said I had some but not that much. The truth is I have 2k to my name and save around 150 a month usually. I earn 53k. I feel really stressed and worried about the future now as I have nowhere near the security they are talking about. I have tried to keep telling myself this week that that’s surely unusual but is it? Have I just massively fucked up somewhere? Last week I felt really content and lucky and now I just feel like a failure.

Alvin Hall

We save £4-5k a month but mortgage is paid off, kids working and mostly left home and have zero debts. We are on the most money we'll ever earn and planning on quitting in the next 2-3 years for good

we saved £1500 per month when we were on £42k combined (just graduated from university) and squatting at DH's mum's house cos there was no rent. That went to the deposit for our first flat.

Our mortgage was 1k for first five years due to the 2.05% interest rate and the long term ( we bought at 26 and 29). when we first bought our flat, our combined salary was around 75k so around £4300 after taxes and benefits so not actually that much, but we didn't have a car and the pandemic happened so there was nothing to spend on. We did end up saving £1k per month and we overpaid most of that on the mortgage as well as DH's student loan.

After pandemic ended in 2022, DH got a job which paid 65k (later increased to 75k) and I was on around 25k and then my salary jumped to 45k in new job. We managed to overpay mortgage by 1k every month and had some left. so "savings' were probably around £1500. Still childless (difficult for us to ttc) and no car.

so in a sense it has less to do with our salary and more to do with luck. Luck being able to live with family, luck getting a low interest rate for 5 years which enabled us to save, luck we were able to wfh during the pandemic and weren't furloughed, luck we don't need a car etc. of course now with inflation and higher mortgage interest rates, you do need the salary!

The way I look at it is this, life is for living now.
Most of peoples enormous savings will go on care home fees when they are older or be inherited by someone else. So, I really wouldn’t compare yourself to them.
There are always going to be people who are better off or worse off than you.

Sometimes peoples savings are really influenced by bonuses. If you work in a sector where decent bonuses are commonplace but not guaranteed, your lifestyle is often based on your comtractual salary, because the bonus can't be relied on. If its then a good year and you get a big bonus this could be money not allocated to anything that goes straight into a savings pot.
Depending on the sector plenty of people get bonuses in the 10's of thousands. If they save most of it 3 years of bonuses could be a pretty decent pot if saving monthly on top.

Do they save £1.5k from a single salary or together with a spouse?
I have an OK job and do save ebay month but no, I can't save £1500 monthly.

Not sure I agree with that... most people with high savings are very much planning on quitting full time working earlier / better travel plans / supporting younger family members get a head start.

It depends on your age and circumstances. When I met my husband in our mid twenties I had a 4k overdraft and he had tens of thousands in savings. I went to university and lived in another country for a year, he stayed at home and worked. I paid off my overdraft and started to save the max of £3k a year into an isa. It wasn’t much but it all adds up.

If you’re earning £50k that’s an incredibly good wage.

keep in mind they maybe including their workplace pension in that number of £1k-1.5k so if they save say 10% of their salary and add their employers on plus they save into a personal savings £1k isnt too crazy.

Try not to compare yourself so much. I always have to remind myself that I am saving in a pension pot, a more immediate 'holiday' pot and a medium term pot. everyone has a different way of viewing things too - is it combined saving with a partner? is it pension, is it money from family that automatically goes into a pot for them etc?

I’m single and childless and work as a teacher. After paying my mortgage I’m left with under £1.5k even before any bills (council tax, gas, electricity, phone, insurance etc) and before essentials like food, toiletries, petrol etc. No way am I saving anywhere near that a month, I’m lucky to save £200 and some months don’t manage to save anything or have to dip into the savings I do have (about £5k) for things.

We put about £1500 to £2000 into our "savings" account each month. But that doesn't mean that we are building up a pot of cash savings at that rate year to year. From that money we buy holidays, home improvements and cars (we like to buy second hand vehicles outright rather than enter into PCP/leasing arrangements).

Thanks for the replies. Two of us have children and the rest of us don’t. I struggle to save 150 and it’s usually closer to 100. I just can’t understand how people are saving so much and also have they have accumulated so much. We are all late 30s.

I just feel like there’s no way I will catch up now and will likely never have that sort of security.

@CasperGutman 1,500 to 2,000 EACH?!?!

I barely earn what these people are saving.

We put £1000 in savings but then it is/can be used on home improvements or holidays etc. I also save an additional £200 that isn’t touched.

Lots of people on MN will.

in the real world they won’t.

But surely you understand that it's often a matter of people's disposable income varying and what they choose to do with it?

Even NMW is £1700 pm so a couple of low earners working full time will have nearly £3.5k pm coming in. If they're experienced professionals, their household income could be double this or more.

Not everyone has huge outgoings. You've said most of the group are child free. So no childcare, holidays in term time at a fraction of the cost and only food, clothes etc for 2 people. Their mortgage might not be that much if they've bought some time ago, inherited, bought as singles and combined their equity etc.

Our basic bills for direct debits, food and petrol are under £1k pm so it's not impossible to see how a childfree couple can save £1-2k pm.

Plus a lot of people spend a lot of money on discretionary items, so if people just don't spend this money, they can save more.

Have a look at where your money is going and be honest about whether the amount could be reduced. Do you have a car on finance? Is your broadband more than £25 pm, your mobile above £10 pm, do you get your hair coloured? Nails? Other grooming? Pay TV? Do you have takeaways, buy lunches, coffees, gym membership? How much do you spend on eating out? Are you always 'doing work' on your home or buying new furnishings or decorative items? Do you have a cleaner? Do you spend more than £5/600 pm on groceries? Is your holiday expensive? Do you have pets?

Every one of these you've said yes to is a use of money that could be saved instead so to save more you need to spend less (or earn more) so it's a matter of different people having different priorities.

A depressing thread for those of not on big salaries. I save what I can but not even close to most of the amounts being mentioned on here

Honestly, I grew up in quite an unstable financial situation, as did my husband.
I haven't stopped working since I was 16, even during university, to be able to maintain some savings.
As I mentioned before, we went without a lot to save up and get that financial security. In my mid-late 20s when I was first married, my husband and I didn't go out to eat, we didn't buy new clothes, we basically did nothing, to save up for our house deposit and honestly my relationships with some of my friends suffered because I was concerned about the cost of things and would opt out of plans that I felt we couldn't afford as we had such a small 'fun' budget to achieve our goal.
We spent our entire savings on our house deposit and then had to start our savings from scratch again, which again meant no fun budget. We had an old futon of my parents as our sofa for years, no TV, we went to great lengths to keep our bills down, it was tough but we feel glad we did it now even if we had several years that were kind of stressful because financial security was a priority for us.
That's not to say our entire lives were shit, but we had to look at fun things to do that were free/cheap! We ate out for our anniversary only, we went on nice hikes with a picnic. We charity shopped/bought second hand when we did need things. Played games together, movie nights at home on my husbands work laptop! We spent a lot of time visiting family and friends at their homes to socialise as cheaply as possible.
It's a lot harder now we have a child & have to pay for childcare but we don't feel such a pressure to add to the pot consistently right now because it's already at a comfortable place, so we have a bit more flexibility in our budget.
But if I wanted to keep adding to our savings, I would just go back to the non fun budget and that would easily release some money to go into savings, tbh the only reason we can't add easily on our current lifestyle is because of the increase in our mortgage & the cost of living. Prior to that we were able to still consistently put money into savings.

why depressing? to realise others earn more than you and have more disposable income?

We have no savings and have no idea ever if we will ever be able to save. How the hell are the people on here able to save £800+ a month 😮

im able to because paid off mortgage with divorce settlement

and what i earn

Depressing because everyone would like to have savings, and not having savings can make people feel vulnerable and worry for their future and their children’s future. That’s what is depressing, I think.

So you have kids? Presumably you therefore have childcare fees that they don't. There's your £1500-£2k per month right there?

OP, I think you have to ask yourself whether nurses, carers, teachers etc can afford to save that much each month. The answer is that it's highly unlikely. Are they failures? No, not remotely.

If you judge success purely in financial terms you're always going to be miserable because there will always be people better off than you. Start thinking in terms of the contribution you make in other ways. When you die, no one will judge you by what you had in the bank.