How much do you have in your emergency pot?

[brownbearbrownbear123]

Modest incomes only please! Kindly, I don’t need to hear that you’ve got £20,000 stashed away for a rainy day. Id love to hear from low/mid range earners please.
how much do you have saved for emergencies?
we bought our home 5 years ago and we seem to be spending any little savings we make on things that need doing to the house, I feel like we’re never going to get anything saved for emergencies and it makes me so so anxious.
im constantly worried that we’re going to be hit with a big repair bill for the house, like new roof, new boiler etc and it fills me with dread that we don’t have the cash in case this happens.
can anyone make me feel a bit better and let me know I’m not alone on this?

Did have 18k but that's going to be 7k very soon due to expensive house repairs. Only had that in the first place because of an inheritance. I have credit card for an emergency and I have income protection insurance. Got an expensive fee months coming up so will put that on 0per cent card and pay back over the next year.

I earn quite well (in my mind...to some on Mumsnet I'm in pauper territory🤣) but husband is on a low income. Middle aged and would be more secure by now if I hadn't left an abusive relationship.

I’ve got a healthy amount now but it’s been a struggle to get to this point, 18 years ago I had nothing.
It is possible to turn things around but in my experience it’s something that takes time and when you’re in the thick of it you think it’s never going to change.
I made a lot of small changes hoping that they would add up, which they did, but the biggest difference was taking on a part-time second job and stashing that income away and never touching it. I realise this isn’t always possible or convenient but it was worth it for my peace of mind, I grew up with parents who never quite had enough money and that feeling of financial insecurity never leaves you.
I would rather go without things that perhaps other people see as normal expenditure, I read on here once that when you’ve spent a pound you can never get that pound back, so I’m the type of person who will park half a mile away on a side street to avoid paying a car park fee.

I have £650 in savings.

I’m my immediate emergency fund I have 1510. Car fund has 1680 but I will pay my car insurance next month of 570 so that will go down. We put 150 per month into it for tax and insurance for two cars. We have another car maintenance fund that we put 100 per month in, that is at 2020 but my dh needs to get new tyres soon so that will be about 4/500.
we have other long term savings and save the child benefit for the dc. Everything is accounted for. I’ve just received nearly 60k, I will put that into long term saving.

I have just over £8k in savings at the moment. £6k of that is in a ‘don’t touch unless disaster happens’ account and the rest is in a couple of accounts being saved for a big trip next year. I’m not 100% sure on the trip going ahead yet but that’s the aim. I can access another nearly £2k on credit cards so I guess in theory in an emergency I could get just over £10k.

I’ve had a couple of things recently costing £1k ish each so the amount would’ve been higher but I’m lucky enough to be able to add to it each month which is not a position I have always been in at all.

About a grand. We have no credit cards so I could prob get one if we needed something in an emergency

After years of being in debt, then slowly paying it off, we have 3000 in an emergency savings account. Another savings account for two lots of car maintenance, with between 1000 and 2000 in, it goes up and down and we add to it monthly.
Other expenses such as holidays and birthdays have their own savings pots, and I don't dip into other money to fund those.
I would try to spend less on the house if you can and prioritise a savings account.

We ran the numbers but overpaying on a large mortgage saves more than building up monthly savings from scratch to overpay. Comparing rates isn't always straightforward.

I was emotionally and financially battered after a recent redundancy, and feeling very anxious about money. At the moment, my emergency pot is around one and a half months expenses. I want to get that up to three months expenses by the spring. Ideally, I want six month expenses in my emergency fund but that will be longer term.

I'm paying off my mortgage alone - I think I'd feel more relaxed if I had a partner to share costs with.

£200. No credit cards.

£15000. Until 2 years ago I was on a modest income - 32k. I save about the same as I did then.

It’s actually gone down recently as I’ve had a lot of medical bills as the NHS refused to help me.

It really is. How can it not be?

We have enough for emergency repairs and unexpected problems, plus an emergency credit card. We didn't always have it though and our DC are now 18 and 14 so life is easier in some ways.

We've prioritised overpaying the mortgage and have a cushion so that we could freeze payments for 18 months and still be comfortably up to date with terms so that helps with the anxiety.

Me personally, in my personal savings, I have £1500, but I’m out of work due to long term sickness (cancer).

Collectively, we have a business and most of our family money sits in the business rather than in personal savings. We pull about £50k out a year to overpay our mortgage, so £50k, I guess?

We have a household income of over £100k a year though so I’m not sure we’re average.

I have £12k away for emergency funds or for saving towards buying a larger house.
i did have 20k, but I have been off work for 7 years while raising my children and mostly surviving off my husbands very modest income.
I have recently returned to teaching (two days a week) and we plan to save that salary towards buying a larger house. We live very frugally though - most of our money has gone on doing the house we bought 5 years ago up. We cook from scratch, never eat out, drink wine at home, buy second hand clothes and do cheap family days out..

@brownbearbrownbear123 The consensus I hear is that people should aim to have 3 - 6 months of living expenses saved up in an emergency pot that can be immediately accessed, so maybe that's what you can aim for.

Every time we get a lump sum, something comes along to wipe it out. We swing from several thousand to minus at least once a year.

@mindutopia We have a household income of over £100k a year though so I’m not sure we’re average.

That places you in the top 5% of earners, which is very far away from the 50% mark.

When my DCs were small and DH and I both worked full time we only ever had a couple of thousand but DH had a large overdraft facility for emergency use and a credit card with a big limit again for emergencies only. We also used to overpay on the mortgage each month so we had 'banked up' some overpay - this was in case we ever needed to stop paying the mortgage for a few months in case of job loss or whatever. Thankfully we never really had to use it as we were very lucky with job security Now retired so our money habits are now totally different.

I have £150 in a savings account in my name and my husband has £1700 in one in his name. I earn 15k a year he earns 55k. We share money though, or rather he shares money with me. He also has a credit card he lets me use for emergencies which I think has around 1k on it.

Nothing at all. I’m not working (MH issues), DH earns 27k a year. Still paying a mortgage.

Had no idea what privileged position I was in. Single parent, worked part time until about 12 month ago. Now earn about 37k. Have about 13k in savings. Own car outright. No credit cards, although I'm aware I should really. No debt apart from student loan and mortgage.

Since being on my own I have been incredibly strict with myself. I have a number of different savings pots for different things. I have £3,500 in an 'oh shit' account, £6000 that I can't get hold of easily, £3000 in a random not sure account, £200 in my holiday account, a few hundred in Christmas/birthdays, a hundred or so in a clubs and school trip account. I also add to my daughters isa and overpay a small amount on to my mortgage.

I have dd going into the various bank accounts each week, a hark back to when I was really hard up and needed to save smaller amounts. I got so used to being hard up I think I'm still fearful of spending money.

We typically have about 2k we can get our hands on.

We have equity and good enough credit that if we were really and totally fucked we could explore mortgage holidays, remortgaging, loans or using our full credit card levels.

Be aware of the 3-6 months earnings saved rule of thumb because having more that 6k can affect universal credit and 16k for jsa payments so I wouldn't aim to have more than that - it's better off overpaying on your mortgage imo.

Can I ask what your strategies were to save that much on your salary?

Whatever I find down the back of my sofa cushions! Between needing to fix cars, ultimately needing a new car, needing a new dishwasher, etc etc any pot we manage to save up ultimately ends up being used to replace something at the moment. Maybe we are just at the pace where everything is of the age is is breaking and needs replacing 🙈