To think you can’t save if you simply don’t earn enough?

[MyAmberBird]

A lot of advice around saving focuses on habits and discipline but it feels like that only goes so far. If someone doesn’t earn enough to cover their basic living costs with anything left over, then realistically there’s nothing to save.

AIBU to think income is the limiting factor here? I don’t think habits play as big a role as people like to think.

The 1p challenge is all well and good in January, but many families could only dream of having a spare £108 to put aside in December.

I’m fortunate in that I have very healthy savings but I appreciate that I’ve been very lucky to be able to save. I’ve also had times in my life where I’ve lived hand to mouth and saving didn’t even occurred to me when I couldn’t cover my bills - saving was a tomorrow problem.

No-one's saying poor people can't have leisure time or non essentials. It's just very tiresome when any suggestion that could improve a person's finances is batted back with 'not everyone can do X, Y or Z' whataboutery.

Also small changes can have huge benefits. If someone is struggling for money, an extra few hours a week worked can add a really noticeable extra couple of hundred pounds a month that can be spent or saved - it could mean the difference between having zero spare money and having £100 a month to save and also £100 a month to spend on leisure.

Plus a lot of people spend unquestionably, don't really budget and don't consider the long term benefit of saving small amounts that will add up. They don't have to cut out all nice things, just a few changes could add up to a significant amount - there's been a few of the 'I have no money' threads recently where people have been spending £100+ on Sky each month and almost the same on their mobile phones, which is madness when you can do both for about a quarter/third of the price with barely any noticeable loss in function.

Fair enough but the average family bins £1.2 of perfectly usable food a year
Thats £100 a month

There is such a " crabs in a bucket " mentality at play here
Whenever any suggestion is made there are howls of instant negativity " no can do"
Literally instantly

I learned to save but it means saying no and thats what people have lost the ability to do
Delay gratification

• not talking about those genuinely on the breadline, just those who have the choice but choose not to

But then, if you're going for a decently well-paid job, they will look at your CV and - instead of admiring how resourceful you are at maximising your earning opportunities - many will dismiss you as a drifter with no commitment or staying power!

Also, who is saying that people expect to be able to live on one income nowadays? Obviously, if you're a single parent household, you have no choice - but then, if you're on NMW, you will likely be one of the struggling people this thread is about.

Don't you think it's a massive scandal that so many NMW jobs have it baked in that they will not be enough for people to live on without UC? It's one thing if you don't have much left over for the finer things on life; but you actually can't pay your basic family bills without a top-up from the government?

And I think it's missing the point to say that everybody should better themselves and leave NMW jobs behind, as those jobs are the backbone of society. Many of those on better wages and in higher-paid roles will be doing so managing/depending on the labour of NMW workers. We can't all be coxes with nobody doing the rowing.

To me crabs in a bucket mentality is the hair shirt attitude that any spending of money on anything that brings you pleasure is morally wrong and should be avoided at all costs and therefore any financial hardship is your own fault because you once bought a Costa or went on a package holiday.

I earn well at the moment so savings and pensions are no hardship for me but if I was on NMW I would hate to be saying no to every last extra in life to my dc and myself just so I could have a couple of hundred in the bank. If the shit hits the fan you need 1000s not 100s anyway.

I do agree that financial education in this country is appalling and it frustrates me that I found out about overpaying mortgages and compound interest long after I was in the thick of it.

Obviously you're in a better position than if you didn't have that money in the first place; but the way the cost of living is now, you could very easily make sacrifices and spend your energies committed to putting money by, so that you have an extra £50 each month with which to elevate yourself and better your standard of living.

And then the utility companies see it, the council sees it, other essential providers see it and think "Ooh, an extra £50 a month, you say? Yeah, well, we'll take that twice over for the exact same as you were getting before, thanks... keep doing your best to economise more and then we'll be back for that soon as well".

It's very difficult and joyless to be trying to climb a ladder when somebody at the top is constantly pouring grease down it.

When my dc were small, my annual income was £10 a year more than my budgeted outgoings.
I remember having a leak in the roof and the quote to fix it was the same as 2 months council tax, I phoned the council and asked for a 2 month break so I could fix the leak and catch up in the 2 spare months at the end of the year. I could reallocate some of our limited budget through this time to make up the difference (£5 a week less on food shop). The council said no, they were the priority so my 3 small dc had to live in a leaking house for 8 months.

Every penny was accounted for in survival and there was no savings possible. We were in a better position than a lot of people though as we were paying on a mortgage rather than rent meaning that we haven't had to move on short notice, lose money from being pulled from pillar to post and our dc had stability. We are now mortgage free and so at the other end of the spectrum but people who think everyone can save are not as aware of the world as they should be.

I also think it's often much easier for people to say "Do an extra few hours' work" than it is for many people to actually find that work available - let alone fit it in with childcare and other unavoidable family commitments.

If you're employed to work 40 hours a week, most people can't just tell their bosses that they will now be working 45 hours and thus earning an extra 12.5% each month - even if they can fit in the extra time at work.

In fact, if anything, going on the recent thread a lot of low-paying employers will try to insist that getting in early and then leaving late is 'showing commitment to the role' and will seek to take those extra hours off you anyway without paying you a single penny more.

We can't all take in each other's ironing.

The council said no, they were the priority so my 3 small dc had to live in a leaking house for 8 months.

They're so matter-of-fact, aren't they? They're never the cause of difficulty - it's always you yourself or somebody else to blame for the problem.

It's like when fuel prices rise and the government instantly come out to condemn the greedy petrol stations (I'm not necessarily saying that some of them aren't) and threaten sanctions - whilst urging people to shop around, as though it's actually properly cheap anywhere - and all the while blissfully ignoring the fact that the vast majority of the price you have to pay already goes to... guess whom?!

No
Thats extreme frugality and joylessness
"Crabs in a bucket" means someone tries to make changes but others shoot them down, the crabs pull the one who tries to escape back into the bucket .

If there is not sufficient regular cash flow then of course savings will be impossible. Early in my career I tried to break the cycle of paying monthly for car and house insurance and thereby paying more than if I had one annual payment. I worked out what I needed to put aside but enviably some point during the month needed it back again. It became additional stress to balance the books.
The financial gurus often overlook that money will only stretch so far. See also bulk cooking.

I think it's a balance. Im sure someone on minimum wage could go without basics and save a little bit im not sure its worth it as prices increase too.

I personally have always strive to have an emergency health buffer, where I can afford prescriptions and an emergency physio or dentist or optician which is like a 500 buffer. So that would be worth hardship to save for me but some peoole just cant. They'd have to not eat and heat properly making needing healthcare more likely.

But I got given a voucher for food christmas and what I can buy with it is already less that what I could buy with it in December. So if id saved it that money, I honestly think id have been better buying more stuff in decembern

No, NMW is usually not enough to support a home and family.

Have you tried functioning as a young professional without a Mo Ile phone?

No i dont imagine it is. Which is why I said they could go without basics like food and heating but I didnt think it was worth it as they'd get ill?

But not everyone on minimum wage is supporting a home and family. Some are young and living at home still or older and thier family has left home. They might over a few years save a small buffer but again they risk it not having the buying power it would have had if they'd just put the heating on.

I think part of the issue is starting salaries have stagnated for slightly more than minimum wage jobs and NMW has gone up...so even if youre doing a graduate job or got to the level above nmw...youre not actually earning a lot more. So people question whether its worth the extra responsibility for an extra 50p/hour or whatever.

Earning more is easier said than done.

I think once you get past the lower tiers of jobs and have a greater degree of seniority or flexibility you probably have more scope to increase earnings.

But even still its a pyramid, there are far more jobs at the lower end than there are paying higher wages ...even in London the huge salaries of finance and law will skew the average earnings but there will be way more people on minimum wage or just above, than those on 100k

To vast swathes of the population, going to the dentist or optician already IS the unaffordable luxury that they automatically cut out.

It partly depends on how you define 'basics'. Should you leave your kids to go hungry or sit shivering at home? Also, as has been said upthread, there are big, ever-rising bills like council tax and water that you simply cannot decide to cut back on. Even if you never used your oven and turned off all your electricity appliances except what you absolutely could not live without, you still get whacked for a disproportionately high standing charge for not using the fuel.

There's definitely something systemically wrong when you look at how wealthy the UK is as a whole in comparison to the majority of the world... but then we still routinely have millions of people who struggle to afford the absolute basics of existence.

@Decisionsdecisions1 I'm not a landlord but I know some are greedy some increase rents because they have too their costs have gone up.

Re saving of course !
Money makes money.

But the other pint was true that people often don't really control their money and drill down into where each and every penny goes

After the credit crisis DH and I had our backs to the wall and I complety changed our finances structure and did what is now known as the envelope method.
Each month in cash we drew out exactly what we needed and it literally went into physical envelopes for each thing like petrol and food.

We were already massively cutting no hairdressers or anything like that.
All food yellow sticker and so on clothes charity shops. Everyrhjng else freecyle.
However once we pinned down every penny I started to save 2 a week into one of those tins you can't open.
We didn't touch them for a year and the following year we had a small pot to pull on for Xmas.
I started up tins for bdsys and holidays ( yha one or two nights by the sea self catered ).

That again massively stabilised us in very dire times.

Now I feel like Midas because we still follow this discipline with much more money to play with ( pitiful my MN standards) but I feel like Midas .
Still no hairdressers and so on but things have massively eased.
And yes we still have our pots but in Monzo and put a few hundred a month away.
It's much easier to save now we are in better work but that discipline is what's carries us through from those very dicey times.

Yes but you can buy a reconditioned android smart phone that does the job , lasts 10 years ( it gave up on Thursday) and is SIM only ( utility warehouse for me £5.00 per month). Or you can have the latest phone will everything on it and spend £ 60.00 a month. One of those allows you to save. One doesn't

Those who have spare income and savings (often, and currently, including me) don’t realise how much time they spend saying yes, or not even thinking about, incidental pleasures.

If you’re stony, every single minute of every day you are thinking about money, bills, how to manage. Periods of relative pleasure or relaxation are when those things are only third on your mental list. The strain is absolutely constant, like chronic pain. So of course, if you actually get access to a bit of money, you go a bit mad, because just being able to buy something without planning it for months on end is such an incredible release; being able to go out with a friend and buy a round, or take your mum out for coffee and cake, is something you normally just can’t do. You are constantly having to be grateful, or to hustle, to raise your hand at school and humiliate yourself by asking for school trip funding, to say thank you for a voucher gift while thinking, I could regift this to my sister at Christmas or spend it on school shoes, which?

This morning, I have had a nice coffee from our machine, a hot bath with scented soap, a train journey, entrance to a museum. A normal enough Saturday for me. When we were boracic I would have saved and looked forward to this for months on end. And we weren’t that broke, just low income. It’s always best to assume that people are doing their best, and to try to understand what long term financial stress feels like.

Absolutely. Anyone can do what they want with their own money.
But spending on extras then complaing you have no money to save is ridiculous.
Your money, your choice.

The vast majority of people can save, but I understand why they don’t, it’s miserable never having enough.

But ultimately life is about choices and balance. A PP commented something along lines of why should I save for a care home when my neighbour who has been drinking Starbucks will get it for free.

That to be is such a weird attitude to take. Firstly chances are you’ll never have to pay for a care home and even if you did it’s unlikely to take all your money.

But more than that the chances of other costs coming up that would be easily covered by modest savings are high, and how much nicer to not feel sick at not being able to fix the boiler, replace a car, buy a new phone than have had a Starbucks every week.

@LifeIsShambolicwas about to post the same but you said it more eloquently.

I don't believe we have millions who can't afford the absolute basics of existance sorry.
The issue is 'the absolute basics of existance' have morphed into what would have been considered a pretty good lifestyle in the 70s or 80s.
No, we don't want to look backwards with rise-tinted memories, but the tattoo bars, takeaways and nail bars lining the streets in some if the areas which purport to have the highest rate of child poverty has to make you wonder what 'the absolute basics of existance' are in 2026.