To think you should save money as soon as you get paid rather than saving the leftover?

[ZanyWriter]

I’m trying to get my finances in order and have been debating whether it’s better to set aside a portion of your pay immediately - treating it like a non-negotiable expense - or to wait until you’ve covered your monthly spending and then save whatever is left over. I’ve noticed that people who pay themselves first often seem to have better control over their money, but I wonder if this approach works for everyone.

AIBU to think that automating savings is the smarter strategy or does waiting until the end of the month have its merits? What do you do?

I have a budget and put pretty much everything into pots, apart from total amount for direct debits, this includes transfer to another account for spends and another for food shop etc. if I end up with an excess in these accounts I transfer it over to higher rate interest accounts every now and again.
I've been on a position where I've had a lot less money and it made me feel more secure putting money into pots and to not risk overspending.

Same. And I have a couple of savings accounts, one short term easily accessible for things like holidays and Christmas, and one longer term, rainy day fund, so I can always dip into the short term one if an unexpected expense comes up.
I also try to save any extras, like when I get a pay rise, or when you get the month off from paying council tax. It's not always possible, especially with bills shooting up the way they are but if I can do it, I will.

I put it all in savings, then transfer money as and when I need it. So I have about £1500 after bills, and I leave about £300 a time in my current account, just so I don't get caught out. It means I check my account every week and am on top of things.

I never thought about doing it this way, do you have a separate account for your direct debits that you move your bill money to first?

To answer the OP I transfer money to savings on payday (standing orders to various different types of accounts, one is an ISA, one is a regular saver, one is just a high interest savings account that you can only withdraw from a couple of times a year and the other is just a regular savings account for rainy day bits) and also use Plum which saves for me based on round ups and other “rules” you can adjust yourself. I’ve found I’ve inadvertently saved the best part of 2k in the last 10 months just using that, so if you struggle to save it might be an idea. I know not everyone wants to use open banking though.

This is what I do.

It's not a matter of waiting till the end of the month to see what you've got left. Someone who is really good with money will have set a budget for the month in advance. Maybe they use a spreadsheet to help this. They will know exactly what their non-negotiable expenses will be like bills and mortgage/rent, will have set aside an amount each month for unforeseen things like boiler or car repairs, if they drive then the estimate cost of annual MOT and service will have been broken down into 12 monthly amounts and those also factored into their monthly budget to come out of their salary. They will set a monthly amount for their food budget, socialising, clothing, petrol, childcare, birthday presents for people, kids hobbies etc and stick to it.

Any money left over after all that is accounted for is THEN what can be put into savings (maybe 2 pots, for a long term goal, eg new car, and one for something non-essential but very nice to have, in a year or so, like a holiday).

Unless you set a budget or earn so much money that it doesn't matter, you'll either never end up putting into savings, or if you put it in at the start of the month without thinking about expenses for that month you'll probably run out of money by the end of it, and have to go into your overdraft. Or take it back out of your savings, which defeats the whole object.

I think it entirely depends on your income and expenditure. In the past the very idea of being able to save at all was a pipe dream for me.

Now, a certain amount goes into our savings account at the beginning of every month. Occasionally we need to draw a bit out of our savings for unexpected bills, but otherwise it sits there accruing interest.

However, I'm retiring shortly due to ill health, before I can get my state pension. At that time I certainly won't be able to plan to save anything at all, I think we are going to have to draw on our savings. If we do have anything left at the end of the month it can go into savings, but I won't be able to set aside anything for savings.

I think it’s different for everyone and depends on your spending habits. If you’re not a big spender and don’t spend that much on unnecessary things then I don’t see the harm in just saving the leftovers at the end of the month.

We do two payments to our savings account per month. One is a fixed amount when my husband is paid on the 1st. Then my salary comes in mid-month and we usually save a fixed amount from that, but save less if we’ve had (or anticipate) a lot of expenses that month. It saves us transferring money back from the savings account at a later date.

I put in a set amount every month as soon as I get paid and then if by the end of the month I can put in anything that's leftover then I will, even if it's £20

I do both. I save a set amount by direct debit as soon as I get paid.

Then at the end of the month, anything left I also stick in savings, if any.

Mortgage first. Then pension and household bills. Then savings. Last of all, adjust spending according to what's left. Sometimes this means take action to reduce household bills.

The only time I have not actively saved was when the interest I would have earned in savings was less than the interest I was paying on my mortgage. At that time I focused on paying my mortgage. Although it felt really precarious not to be saving anything, in the long run it paid off handsomely, ultimately allowing me to be a SAHM because we had massively reduced our monthly outgoings.

Yes, I transfer a certain amount into the joint account for bills as a direct debit on the 1st of each month. Then have an instant access savings account I transfer all the rest into (except about £300 to keep me going). Roughly once a week I check in to see if I need more in my current account.

Mine gets automatically transferred to my savings account the day after pay day. Then I save anything that's left over too.

I automate: payments to budget account, savings for both DC confirmation and boarding school (like a very supervised gap year), private pension, normal savings all go out the day after payday.

I have a standing order to move a portion of my wages across to a savings account as soon as I'm paid. However if I do have a large unexpected expense which I can't cover from what's left, I would move some back - that's why I try to save, to cover these events. Most months I don't, I just want to avoid going into overdraft in my current account. I'm careful but not precious about my savings.

When I had a salary I would put a set basic amount into savings on the day my salary came in. It was a standing order on my current account.

Then if I had any more left at the end of the month I would transfer that to savings too.

you can’t ‘save’ before non-negotiables. No good telling your electricity company you can’t pay the bill because you’ve put all your money in savings. You could save before discretionary spending if it helps you but other people may do things differently.

We "pay ourselves first", but also make sure we really accurately track what we're spending each month. We did this for a few months to decide how much we could afford to move to savings at the beginning of the month, but kept it up as its by far made the biggest impact on out spending habits! You really get to see where you're wasting money - and how it adds up over a month!

My bank does it automatically. I make a "space" and assign all my bills to be paid from that space. The space adds them all up and tells you how much it needs per month and I set it to automatically refill to that amount on payday. Then I have a savings space with a higher interest rate. I set that to pay in the remainder minus my petty cash. Then on payday my bank account fills up and then disappears. I also have a sweeps saving space, so every time I spend on my card it rounds up to the nearest pound, doubles that, and saves that amount into a third space. If I spend down all my petty cash, I raid that space, otherwise I put it into savings.

I move the money from my savings space to my ISA when I review my finances, about once a quarter. I don't think about it otherwise.

Definitely automatic payment as soon as it goes in your account so you don't even see it

My work has a credit union so some money gets taken out of my wages before I get it, when I get a pay rise I up the amount to the credit union so I don’t miss it.

I set aside a small amount into savings (I don’t have a lot of disposable) I sometimes tuck back into it. I also use a saving app which has been amazing for me. Currently using Plum and since I started using it have saved about £2k I dip in and out of it and use it more for things like hairdressers/nails etc so basically nice to haves. I’d really recommend it or something similar