To think this level of saving is extreme and I’m right to question it?

[ITru]

My DP earns 3,800 after tax. Although we live together he also owns a home and so our finances have always been separate and we just split food bills and heating for my place. Anyway…

it recently came to light that DP is saving 1,500 from an income of 3,800. He never asks me to sub him or anything so that’s not the issue… the issue is he has often said let’s go somewhere cheaper for dinner or let’s go abroad one less night etc. he’s always trying to cut costs. Now I know he’s saving this it’s really annoyed me. Like I say he does pay his way so that’s fine but I can’t understand why for example we went somewhere average for my birthday dinner recently or why we couldn’t have split the cost of a swanky hotel when we went away in summer rather than camping like we did!!

I know everyone has a different perspective on how to spend money and what to spend it on but AIBU to think this is extreme?

but certainly if OP was my friend and she was living with a man who was able to save double what she was because he wasn’t contributing equally to their shared accomodation I’d be miffed for her.

This makes no sense. He isn’t saving because he lives at the OPs house, he is still paying for the costs of his home so if he lived in his own house he would be saving the same. He’s not renting out his house & banking that cash.

but the fact he’s able to save significantly more than she can, purely because he doesn’t pay rent puts her at a huge financial disadvantage and it wouldn’t be for me

Jeesh, how many times. What savings is he making vs if he lived in his house?! 😆

@DancingNotDrowning

only if you believe there is no intrinsic value in you being the primary carer to your DC.

I don’t think I am though! My dc are in school and we share pick ups and drop offs.

but if you were unmarried, with no shared DC and were squirrelling away double what your partner could save, whilst contributing nothing to the accommodation costs, yes, I’d absolutely think you were the female equivalent. Would you argue that you weren’t in this circumstances? Be sure that seems more akin to the OPs situation.

I think we are reading different threads. I cannot see where the OP says she wants to save more but can’t? And I would include bills in accommodation costs. ..

how many times. What savings is he making vs if he lived in his house?!

some suggestions I provided up thread:

maybe he is providing the house in lieu of child support? Maybe he provided the house to someone who is employed by him as part of their compensation. Maybe his elderly mother lives there and if she didn’t he would be paying her rent elsewhere.

we simply don’t know what the situation with the house is because the OP is being conspicuously tight lipped 🤷‍♀️

either way if my so called “darling” partner was able to save double what I could because he wasn’t equally contributing to our shared living costs and reducing our holidays to camping trips to boot I’d be reconsidering my life choices.

My darling husbands saves more than I do because he earns more & I like to spend. The OPs mortgage payment is still the same whether he’s there or not 🤦‍♀️

we simply don’t know what the situation with the house is because the OP is being conspicuously tight lipped

Well we know it’s not rented out & we know that the OPs mortgage will still be the same whether he’s there or not.

Maybe he’s saving to pay off his mortgage?
my exH and I saved a massive amount each month, Every couple of months we paid off a chunk of the mortgage as we thankfully had a mortgage that didn’t ‘fine you’ for paying off extra…. We cleared our £100k mortgage and goodness how much interest we saved in doing so… if we hadn’t done this we would still be paying to clear it now, (7 years later!).. Maybe he’s thinking that once it’s paid off he will have the money to retire early and live a comfortable life with you.

What on earth are you talking about? Low risk investing almost always has low returns, high returns comes with risky investments that may or may not offer you the high return.

Again, none of this is relevant or makes it “easy” to save £150k on a low salary.

I do know the importance of savings but 1,500 from a 3,800 pay packet seems extreme to me.

That's not even half though. It's 39%. Most money advice organisations say 20-25%, so although he's a bit over, it's not significant. He's more than entitled to spend or save his money as he wishes.

TBH it's only slightly more than what I save a month and my salary is around the same. Not everyone wants to go out for expensive meals or have top of the range cars etc. Live and let live.

Speak up, next time he mentions where to eat out, say no let's go here, meaness is never attractive

It’s definitely not easy to save £150k, but it’s also not impossible on an average salary without taking excessive risk. If you earn £35k a year and save around 25% of your take home pay every month in an average risk tracker fund you’d be there in about 13 years. In the case of the OPs partner, who takes home £3,800 (which still indicates a salary of less than (£60k) and is saving a little over a third of it, it’d be relatively easy.

Or you could spend £600 more a month on holidays and going out ;)

Good for him. More people should be that sensible.

My H is very similar, except his goes into his pension. Why does he do this? Because he came from poverty, lost his family home to parental bankruptcy and divorce, ended up sofa surfing in his late teens. His father is still working in his late 70s, his disabled mum has barely £5k to her name in her 70s.

I come from a very different background and have a far more casual relationship with money because I have never truly known hardship. I similarly struggle with wanting to live more in the present and save less. We are both high earners and could afford it. But because I know why H is like he is, I try to be more considerate of his fears of the future and find a compromise position that doesn't hurt either of our values and beliefs around money.

Because he wants to and he can. Why would he sell his property? He may want it to rent out when he is retired. He may want it for the security it brings him. He may want it as this relationship may end at some point. Why should he not keep his property?

I didn’t ever say it was impossible, I replied to the poster who said she had twice the OP’s boyfriend’s savings, so £154,000 and mostly earned under £38,000 and she said “it’s not hard”.

Actually having at least 25% of your take home salary free for savings every month for almost a decade and a half, through life changes, kids, income fluctuating, expenses fluctuating, financial crashes, inflation etc is actually hard on a low salary.

You're entirely missing the point.

He's able to save what he does because he doesn't spend it on holidays and fancy meals out. That's what OP has told us and what she's upset about.

She has said she is not upset about their accommodation or utility costs. She has said she is upset that he'd rather go camping than have a night in a hotel.

Try answering her actual thread, rather than one you've made up in your mind. Whatever you think their accommodation set up is, it's irrelevant to this, because it's not what OP has a problem with.

ISA returns are tax-free, but expecting 15pct annual returns over a long period of time seems very optimistic.

Historically, an investor in a pure equity fund over long periods (7-10+ years) buying at a time that is neither particularly good nor particularly bad might have received 7-10% annual returns before fees over a 7-10 year period, while an investor in a balanced fund might have received on the order of 5-7%. The outcome would depend highly on the timing of investment: buying in March 2009 would have yielded meaningfully more, while buying in June 2007 would have yielded meaningfully less.

Well, if he's not renting his own house out presumably he is still paying the mortgage, CT, utility standing orders, insurance on that
how is she subbing him if he is going halves on bills and food?

I didn't say to expect 15pc I said that some and mine averaged this over the past decade. it really wasn't that unusual or particularly high risk. And this is a very long time of good performance with some above average years and some years during which the fund dropped. But guess what. So did my pension. Nobody bats an eyelid putting money into a pension fund with the expectation to yield a return over a number of years. But god forbid you talk about investing and you are deemed crazy with a high risk attitude.

The facts are that you would have earned much better interest investing than leaving money in the bank at 1pc interest. It's simply stupid to let banks work your money for them and not for you. It's a massive pisstake but the general population is led to believe that it is 'safe' there. It isn't.

She has said she is not upset about their accommodation or utility costs. She has said she is upset that he'd rather go camping than have a night in a hotel.

Exactly.

Honestly I just won't do camping - will do self catering rather than post hotel or air b&b - but camping just no. Either there is more meeting in the middle and more compromise from both sides on what they spend for fun on or there's a fundamental mismatch in spending/saving.

I also think OP is miffed because she though he couldn't afford to do these nice things - but he can so feels a bit mislead - which I understand and does suggest more discussion is needed between them. He may value them less than OP and savings more but could change his mind when OP make it clear it's important to her or suggest better compromises.

"Afford" is a relative term. Just because he could come up with the cash doesn't mean something is affordable in the overall long-term plan.

I could "afford" a Porsche if income were the only consideration, but I choose to continue driving a 12-year-old Ford because other things are more important to me. It's not for anyone to decide.

He doesn't have to justify his savings programme to anyone. If she wants a more flash boyfriend she should find one.

Agreed!

imagine if a woman was saving like this. She’d be getting rounds of applause for being financially savvy and having a very generous “fuck off fund”

if the way he manages his money isn’t right for you then ask him to leave.

I agree with you that putting money in a bank, especially at 1pct, is a very bad deal, guaranteed to lose real value over time because it is less than inflation. Even a person who is going to take out their ISA in 1-2 years and hence should probably avoid stocks should be able to achieve closer to 5pct per year with an ISA, certainly at least 4pct.

I, however, do bristle when anyone talks about the high returns of the past decade without also mentioning that for the market as a whole, these have been achieved, in part, due to expansion of the P/E multiple. which cannot continue indefinitely. People making decisions today should not compare bank interest rates against 15% when making their investment decisions, and they should consider also the possibility that stocks may go down in value, and should be avoided if the money might need to get withdrawn within less than about 5 years.

Regarding your own historical returns and the risk taken, I note that the MSCI World index, a broad basket of global stocks, returned only about 10% per year in GBP (8% in USD) even over this most excellent (for investors) recent decade. The most common way to achieve 15%+ will have been to own something racier like the NASDAQ index, which has returned nearly 15% in USD and closer to 17% in GBP over the past 10-year period. Although the companies in it are strong, major global companies, which might make it seem low risk, the fact is that today, that index is 2/3 technology and more than 40% of it is the seven US tech giants (Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, Amazon, Meta (aka Facebook), Broadcom, Google). Those stocks tend to move with a degree of correlation and they are all highly valued. Those companies are still 20% of MSCI World so well represented there, but less predominant.

Maybe you were clever or lucky enough to beat the MSCI World Index by 5 points and earn 15% without investing heavily into US technology stocks, but most people are not.

Poster on MN unable to comprehend that other people have different lives to them shocker...

If you really, honestly thought that only a tiny proportion of the country had significant savings (anything more than a grand or two), why did you think every bank has a variety of different types of savings accounts? Why do they bother creating and advertising them if you think hardly anyone has any money to put in them? Why do you think money based websites like MSE spend so much time and effort outlining different savings options? Why does the government offer incentive based accounts for saving like LISAs or the old H2B ISAs? Who do you think buys stocks and shares and premium bonds? How do you think anyone ever manages to buy a house if you think it's so unusual to have saved up anything more than £700 to use for a deposit?

It's wild how so many posters on here cannot seem to comprehend the simple fact that some people live differently from them, have different taste and different values. I can't believe how long this thread is and why the OP hasn't simply had a conversation with her boyfriend and come to a compromise - like normal adults in stable relationships generally do

I didn't say he had to justifying his saving and spending - I said as a couple the should talk about it.

They may talk about it and decided they are fundamentally incompatible and split or they may decide they can find compromises.

From OP:
he’s always trying to cut costs. Now I know he’s saving this it’s really annoyed me.

The affordability here is clearly the OP take on the situation not mine.

I clearly don't know anymore about either of their situations than Op has written and thus can make no judgement about actual practical affordability but the OP clearly perceives it as this and that is what I was responding to.