To think it’s very bleak to be saving this and getting absolutely nowhere? What’s the point?

[Wehah]

I don’t know if I’m being overly sensitive as I am a single parent (with maintenance as people seem to ask that on here!). But I can’t ever seem to get ahead financially. I have been fortunate to save 1,500 a month for the last year or so. I thought this was going to be great as it would get a good savings buffer going and me and dd could even go abroad perhaps and I could start to add to her savings too. I was looking forward to having 10k in the bank as a safety net and then a little extra to save elsewhere.

But no… what’s actually happened is 3k on a boiler… I know that’s more like a one off cost but it doesn’t stop there. I needed two trees removed which cost 1k, I had a huge energy bill from December which has wiped out 400 of this months savings already. I had to pay for extensive dental treatment with a root canal as I couldn’t get it on the nhs. Then finally I had to pay over 90 more for car insurance (no explanation as to why and despite calling round many many many places to get it cheaper).

The reality is that I am getting nowhere with savings. It will take me forever to save won’t it? What’s actually the point? I will never be able to save more than 1,500 which to be honest I thought was a huge amount! But perhaps I am very wrong about this. How do people get financially secure? I’m nearly 40 now and can’t actually believe I have this much money to set aside and it’s going nowhere. I just want to give up and the future feels so uncertain.

Oh come on now?
You must know that the ordinary person isn't able to save fifteen hundred quid a month?

I try to put aside £30 a month, but often only manage £20.

What planet are you on, that you don't see this?

why wont you be going on holiday when you are saving so much????

I earn less then you save, dh slightly more, yet we manage a holiday

Windows and doors are expensive but it's good to have that much done.

Now, seriously it's not too late but you must start saving for a pension. If you are employed, your employer should have a scheme that you are enrolled in, unless you've opted out or maybe it's a small employer that might be exempt from the normal scheme.

If you are self-employed take the first step to start sorting out a pension. Maybe the bathroom can wait for a year, or the roof? You will get there in the end. But the pension is very important.

With my health conditions I don't expect to reach retirement age so focus more on my family's current needs and wants. My bathroom is also more than 70 years old, my roof even older.

People get financially secure by having a two income household. You're managing to run a household all by yourself AND somehow saving that much. That's the achievement right there. I'm not sure anyone ever really feels financially secure but you're doing amazingly.

@Wehah you yourself have said that the 3k on the boiler is a one off and it is. Also having the trees felled at 1k also would be too. So it unfortunately has taken 40% of that fund.

By having savings has meant you haven't had to go into debt to maintain your house which is great news. Not sure of your timescales of saving but if it's been a year then you should have some buffer left.

It's unlikely that you will incur those massive expenses in the next 5 years. Sometimes life happens and it is up and down, but it won't be so bad next year. You are doing really well with your savings. Think about pp ideas on ISA etc,

You are being ridiculous.

I can't save anything. It's just too expensive. COL has skyrocketed but my income hasn't budged. I'm grateful though; there are so many homeless people where I live! 😢

When you say it won’t get better than £1500, would you not expect to get pay rises and be able to gradually increase that amount over time? You will be able to have a holiday but maybe you need a slightly more realistic plan for how long it will take to save for one. . Instead of expecting to save all of your £1500 towards a holiday, split the money into two pots/accounts - one for misc expenses and another for savings. Maybe for 1-2 months put all of the savings in misc expenses to get it to a good state and then a smaller amount each month from then on to keep it topped up and then the rest can go into your savings pot. When you reach a milestone -e,g a holiday, if you feel like your misc expenses buffer is too large, because you’ve been lucky enough not to need it, you could take a little out for holiday spending money or maybe a one off payment into an account for your daughter.

That way you have money aside for the inevitable unexpected expenses but you can also see a savings pot growing that you can use to plan a target date for when you can reach a goal e,g a holiday.

It depends who you compare yourself with. Everything is astronomically expensive now, I don’t know anyone who isn’t feeling the pinch.

Most of us are living in a no frills economy these days, not all of us but a great many of us.

No frills means no holiday, no big treats for ourselves, always saving whatever we can to pay for the unexpected.

It's all most of us can do to pay the bills each month, and there's always the specter of the washing machine breaking down, the car that needs to be fixed, the insurance that went up and, no surprise, everything IS going up.

I know what it's like to put aside a decent amount of money and feel really good and secure about it, but I also know what it feels like to see that money disappear right in front of my eyes on a trip to the dentist, having to buy new glasses, or a repair that wasn't anticipated.

Unfortunately that's life and I think too many people are taking too much notice of people around them that aren't in the same situation as them financially, or they're spending beyond their means so give the appearance that they have more money to do things with.

You sound like you're a sensible person.
It is costly to maintain a home, a vehicle, a child, and especially in today's economy with prices for goods and services going up and everywhere you look, poor value for your hard-earned money.

Keep your eye on the ball, don't expect many treats to come your way, appreciate the little things in life, and take pride in being able to rise to the challenge of keeping your head above water, and yourself out of debt.

You can do it, you've already proven that you're able to, you're doing very well.

Having the savings to pay for all your unexpected outgoings should be a source of huge relief - many couples (or singles) would be having sleepless nights over the boiler alone. That's what a savings buffer is for.
Keep saving £1500 a month and some years you won't need all of it.
Many, many people do not have any savings at all - the MN 18 months cash savings is the ideal but so is World Peace and universal prosperity. Pie in the Sky.

I'm another one who segregates my savings.

I get it OP, in the sense that it's very annoying when you have to spend savings on things to return you to your original position rather than to improve your position. But this is one things where you really need time to keep passing so that things average out.

I have my savings divvied up: £200ish short term (car repairs, insurance, any annual bills). Then £200 goes to my holiday fund - uncommitted (when I book s holiday I then move it to committed), then £400 goes to medium term (on the assumption this will need extracting at some point to pay for a new car or boiler etc) and then the rest goes into unspecified long term savings which I'll draw down if I move house or something but otherwise don't touch.

In terms of feeling similar, I had a tense set of months last year where I had just absolutely rinsed all my savings because I was (very luckily) just about able to pay the mortgage off. Did that, then had a flood in the kitchen so needed new lino the. Not worth putting through insurance but figured I'd get the rest of the house done while I was at it (2.5k - obviously mainly an optional spend). Then after I'd committed to that I had a roof leak. Scaffolding required, various layers of fixing. That was another 4.5k. Then my washing machine gave up so that was another £400 and then my boiler decided it didn't like me, another £400. All in all it was about £8k of expenses within a 3 month period. I was juggling things to manage my cash flow without liquidating my longer term stuff. It's no fun at all.

BUT - I was juggling things to sniff liquidating my longer term stuff. I HAD longer term stuff to liquidate. I did do the juggling. My house is warm and dry and it's not all on a credit card. One in six workers are skipping meals to make ends meet according to an article I read yesterday. I am supremely privileged. I can hold those two feelings simultaneously but I feel massively better when I focus on the latter rather than the former.

Now, a year later, (touch wood) not much else has gone wrong. Those savings are starting to look like genuine buffers again. In a couple of years I'll get to the point where I can stop adding to things like my medium term until they get depleted again. Things don't go wrong on an evenly spread basis. I'll get a bit of peace and then some costs. But I factor in some fun up front, I save for the things that go wrong as well as the future and I do regularly remind myself how lucky I am.

It's okay to feel annoyed and frustrated but there comes a point where those feelings don't serve you. If they aren't, sometimes focusing on what we do have, rather than what we don't, can lead to an overall greater feeling of wellbeing.

I feel you, I have a similar thread going on here somewhere, but I can only save half of what you do, and that is with an awful amount of scrimping along the way.

I have had the misfortune of a new boiler this week, too, which has wiped all my savings meant for a rewire, so that won't be happening this year.

It's frustrating to see it all go, given how long it takes to save up.

All I can recommend are separate savings pots that you treat as though the money isn't there - I have one for the car, one for the house and one for special occasions, including holidays. Sometimes I do have to dip into those as emergency funds when I am absolutely broke, but that happens maybe every 4-5 months. Also look into insurance, especially dental.

Most people can't save that much a month. Even £50 is impossible for some. You need to get some perspective.

OP I've felt the same. The thing is, those with considerable savings have been working on it for decades - it's not instant! I would say split up your savings - £500 for emergencies/short term, £500 holidays, £500 long term goals. Life is too short (and unpredictable!) to throw everything into long term savings just to have a bigger 'pot'.

I imagine a lot of replies on here have been tempered. We think one thing, everyone has been very polite,so we bite our tongues. Me personally, I wouldn't "save" with a mortgage. Any excess money would be going to that. This is because I have been made homeless twice through no fault of my own (long story ex H) almost a third time, I worked ft plus extra jobs as well, always 2 sometimes 4 just to keep a roof over our head. People think boomers were lucky, the mortgage rate in the 80s went from 12-16,% in 18 months,there was a limit then to how many years you could add on,so 3 nursing jobs and a cleaning job. After 2 years of pain, I was forced to go private. Goodbye,"savings". I have 2 disabled sons,in their 40s, that's unfortunate, I am carer for the youngest. I help them out financially. They are really going to be struggling at the moment, with temperatures well below freezing. I 100%, agree with other posters,it's your mindset that needs re-addressing.

Maybe so, However someone who manages to save £1500 each and every month doesn’t really have it hard.

Reads that way, eh?

^ this ^
Savings take time to build up - you'll get there in say 5 years.

If you save £500 per month over 5 years, that's £30k saved - actually more because of interest etc.

That’s a very regressive attitude. Why do you want to pull people down who want to better themselves.

This is what’s wrong with the country. Anyone who isn’t living on the breadline is not allowed to want more. Crabs in a bucket.

We replaced our boiler with interest free credit so it didn't wipe out the savings,which are nowhere near as much as yours.
Your tree work is a one off so let it go.

It will take time and there will be setbacks you just have to stick with the plan you have made. Sounds like you hit a plateau just now.

People with quite modest incomes do end up leaving large sums when they pass because of habitual saving. Compound interest is your friend. You should get at least £400 over a year, if you can manage to save £10,000, to be compounded next year and so on

Wowser. 2 income family. Both on good wages. 2 kids. We would never be able to save 1.5k a month! You are doing better than a lot of people

This is a good article on how hard it is to reach the first savings milestone but then it gets easier because compound interest starts to work for you. The follow-on article also looks at how much quicker it is to reach subsequent milestones.

fourpillarfreedom.com/charlie-munger-the-first-100000-is-a-btch/

Have you looked at stocks and shares ISA as a savings vehicle, which can attract much higher returns than a savings account. Eg my stocks and shares ISA currently grows at 10% per year, compared to approx 4% on savings accounts. Gains are tax exempt because it's an ISA.