To feel like having £2000 in your bank account

[JollyLilacGoose]

Is having no money as it can go so quickly

It's all relative.

I've currently got less than £400 in mine! £2000 I would consider a luxury.

I had zilch for ages so that sounds loads

Yes - it’s all relative and it depends on what it needs to cover.

I’d love to have that much left over after expenses and food. I would consider that a lot of money.

Eh? What exactly can it 'go' on 'so quickly'? How would £2,000 ever feel like nothing?

Depends which account and when. If it is my joint account at the beginning of the month, I’m in trouble because I won’t be able to pay my bills and buy food. If it is my personal account at the end of the month, I’ll be feeling really rich.

It depends if it’s the beginning or end of the month, how many bills, how much food, how large your mortgage is?

currently £2000 doesn’t even cover our mortgage, council tax and utility bills and food so if that’s all I had I’d know I’d have to buy less and cheaper food all month. A long time ago my rent was only £200 a month so it would have felt like I was a millionaire.

if in a savings account not needed for bills that’s a decent amount.

Mortgage and council tax?

It's a bloody good start though as it can buy you a new/second hand fridge, cooker or washing machine or phone if they break.

Life is expensive. It's easy to spend more than half of that before you've even stepped out the door or bought a freddo or anything.

New boiler, leaking roof, broken car.

House repairs, if you're fortunate enough to own your own home. As others have said, it's all relative.

I acknowledge that I'm privileged owning my own home, but I have a couple of major repairs coming up and 2k won't look at it. (One is wear and tear; one is bad workmanship, so insurance won't cover it.)

Mine's had £2,000 in it for about five minutes on ONE day in the past 20 years, when the govt was giving out pandemic hardship payments. One coincided with my pension payment and something else, can't remember what.

I gazed at it in awe and wonder. Then I refreshed the app and, hey presto, some direct debits had gone out.

Next time you feel anxious that you've only got two grand, cheer up and remember millions of us never have that much!

For someone who lived in their overdraft for years, it is a lot of money. But a bit more information is needed, beginning or
end of the month? Before or after bills?

im sorry things are tight for you. you are a kind person the way you. have tried to help me.

as you know we had a lot of money but I wasn't really allowed to spend it

I imagine it’s better than having 0 in your account. To some people it might be a decent buffer, especially if they have a regular salary coming in and the saved amount doesn’t go down and is occasionally added to. Like pp said it’s all relative to someone’s circumstances. These posts often end up with people humble bragging about the amount of savings they have and they couldn’t possibly feel comfortable with anything less than 100 grand in their account.

my husabnd had this and it was like a mental illness that drove me to psychosis. we had nearly that amount in savings but I want really allowed to spend much and I needed to spend on something to finish my phd and I went into psychosis.

we lived amiserabel life not spending and enjoying what we had both worked very very hard for .I lost everythign and can no longer owrk. its tragic I didnt challenge this. I barely sent anythign and had never had any debt except fro mortgage.

I used to swerve in and out of my arranged overdraft as a way of budgeting without constantly checking my balance. It cost me a couple of tens of pounds a year at the 18% interest my building society charged. Then the FCA intervened and decreed, in its arrant stupidity, that to charge more for unarranged than arranged overdrafts was unfair. It wasn't - the actual problem was the latter was punitively high. Now it costs 39% for either type. Like the student fees that were supposed to encourage competition but everyone charged the maximum £9k, the banks just went sod it, we'll just charge everyone the maximum. Yet another case of the system screwing the little people.

Mortgage, council tax, monthly energy direct debit and gone.

Mine only costs me a few quid a month with Starling. It hardly seems worth bothering about.

It all depends on how much you overdraw. I go up to a couple of thousand overdrawn occasionally then swing to several thousand in credit in the same month. That can cost more than a few quid.

If it is £2k extra, it's very nice - any extra money is a lovely bonus, even a couple of hundred. If it is just your money for the month, definitely not so good. Of course, as others have said, it's all relative to what your outgoings are.

On overdrafts, it's the rate that's high, although to be fair Starling for charge half the amount all the other banks do.

But overdrafts are still to be avoided if at all possible, especially as banks see them as a sign of poor financial management and many people could avoid going into overdraft by instead using a credit card for all their normal day to day spending, meaning this money stays in their current account 3 to 7 weeks longer, so you don't go into overdraft. So you don't pay overdraft interest and (as long as you pay your credit card off in full every month) totally free and you might even make a bit of cashback.

But to address the OPs point, well obviously it depends like everyone else says. But also even if this is spare money it depends what you do with it. If you're the type who spends money like water, you're always going to feel like you have no money but if you see having £2k as money you can save for a rainy day, it's a decent amount to get started with and will really help if you need to replace the washing machine or even go a long way towards something like boiler replacement or rental deposit.

This is why they recommend a buffer of 3-6 months living costs. £2k is unlikely to cover most people’s living costs for that period. That said, many people can barely make ends meet, so having something is better than nothing.