To ask how people built up savings of £5k to £15k?

[ThatOpenPoet]

For those who’ve managed to build up savings of around £5k, £10k, £15k - how did you actually do it in practice? Was it consistent monthly saving, cutting back, a one-off boost or a mix of things?

I would like to hear what realistically worked for people rather than just general advice.

Thank you.

Monthly savings. Direct debit to savings account so it’s like just another expenditure really.

I was saving £200 a month but have been able to push it up to £500 a month recently.

Does anyone else wonder why @ThatOpenPoet would start a thread and not bother to come back? Always baffles me when posters do that.

So over £10 a day then if £95 in a week

When I was in my early 20s, I wasn't earning much and wasn't a big spender anyway. However, I'd always been raised to be responsible with money and to save as much as I could.

I always saved a portion of my salary (I was taught to save half, but that wasn't possible with rent and other bills), and made sure I put away the full ISA allowance each year (it was much smaller back then). I never had a takeaway and rarely ate out. I brought my lunch to work (most people did) and I didn't drink coffee, so didn't spent money on that. I still went on holidays, but I've never been a resort/all inclusive holiday-type person, so again, the cost was never more than I could afford. I never spent what I didn't have.

There are no special tricks. Don't spend what you don't have. Don't use credit unless you can afford to pay it off in full at the end of the month. Don't buy 'rounds' or split the bill equally when you go out; only pay for what you have ordered. Don't marry an arsehole who spends all your savings.

I save £120 a month into two savings accounts, one is just under 1,500 value and the other is a smaller savings account I use for car insurance. I'm two months away from having to renew it, so I'll squirrel away a £100 extra after all other major bills have been paid. I could save more, but I don't feel I need do atm.

I stopped all spending- no meals out, no clothes, no Pret coffee ( I missed that SO much) I walked to work from the train station instead of getting the tube, 50 minutes each way. I limited my food budget, batch cooked. Took sandwiches to work and a flask. Got rid of all subscriptions. Grew my own vegetables ( luckily had room)

I really believe in 'look after the pennies'.

This is why a broad trackers like the Vanguard All-World or S&P 500 are best because they include hundreds of companies and the weighing gets shifted often, so it follows the market more broadly. This doesn't mean you won't lose money (for example, the S&P lost 38% in the 2008 crash, but then gained 23, 12, 0 & 13% in the consecutive years). Over the last 20 years, it has averaged at 11% growth. If you are putting money in regularly, including in years when it decreases, this means you get more shares for your money and ultimately benefits you if you can wait enough time for it to go back up ("dollar cost averaging"). Damien Talks Money explains this all really well.

No kids, small house, one car, regular monthly savings and putting majority of bonuses into savings instead of spending.

Budgeting
Shopping list
Cycling to work instead of public transport
Meal planning
Packed lunches and flask for tea
gave up alcohol
Buying 2nd hand
That lot probs saved at least £600 per month

Oh, and salary sacrifice for pension while you still can!

Every time I don't buy something, I put that amount either into my savings, or towards over-paying my mortgage.
Without over-paying, my mortgage will last until I'm 60. I'm aiming to have it gone by 55.

Fully agree with both sentiments/advice. Sometimes the old ways really are the best!

The fact is that our grandparents etc didn't have the free and easy access to credit so had to live within their means as the alternative was the old fashioned loan sharks who you really didn't want to get involved with. I remember my mother having lots of envelopes in a drawer where she put cash in each every pay day, my grandmother did the same but with jam jars - that was when they were paid in cash weekly. They wrote on each envelope how much they needed to put in for "essentials" i.e. bills, the insurance man, the milk man, the paperboy, utility bills, savings for holiday, savings for birthdays, saving for Xmas, and what was left over was spending money for food and clothes etc. Had the self discipline not to "steal" from any envelope/jar - it was allocated and that was that!

I like the way some of the new bank apps do the same, where you can set up virtual "Pots" and allocate monies into each pot to save, and even better, those that analyse your spending so you know how much you've spent in each category.

Knowledge is power. You need to know what you spend your money on, how much you spend, how much you want to save etc and control it all.

Set amount goes straight from salary into ISA two days after pay day (to allow for fluctuation of direct debits due to day of the week.) This DOES NOT get touched unless dire emergency eg roof falling in. It goes into a totally different bank so I have to make a point of going looking for it, which stops any temptation to raid it to make life easier at Christmas etc. Easy access to both via apps on my phone, but a bit more faff flipping between apps to actually transfer money.

This is a good post.

Building up savings needs a fundamental mindset change rather than examples of specific things.

Yes some days it must been sunny and rainy - you can change the settings to whatever level you want

Regular saving, and cutting back it's as simple as that, and looking at how you're spending your money or getting into debt if it's applicable.

I used to be in a bit of debt a while ago, but got myself out of it.

For mortgage and bills, at paydays; everything that needs to cover those, goes into the account they all come out of, everything else is in my current account, and is either moved into an ISA or into my starling savings account, after some is held back to spend over the month.

I use a Starling account as it works for me, I think other accounts can work similarly, it allows you to start different savings pots for various different things. I have savings pots for everyday regular/yearly occurrences, like running a car, running a motorbike, birthdays, Christmas, then other long term more expensive things I'm saving up for like a couple of holidays I plan to take many years down the line, a new motorbike etc. I'm only saving smallish amounts into each pots each month, but it adds up.

When things like my car insurance and bike insurance would come up for renewal in the past I used to just pay it on a credit card and suffer the interest and pay it back, but now with saving like I currently am, I break down the expected cost over the year and save that monthly over the year, then withdraw from the pots when I need to pay my car insurance or buy VED for the bike etc.

And it's lambasted about whenever someone mentions cutting out lattes and avacado on toast, usually when its a boomer telling you, but I'm only late thirties and yes, it does help, cutting out frivolities and things you actually can live without, helped me and my partner towards saving for a house deposit, and is helping saving now, a recent example for me personally would be I went to the local shopping mall place, and where I'd normally every other time, stop and get a coffee or a bottle of something to drink, I took a coffee from home in my insulated cup, and bottle of water and stuck it in my bag, zero spent.

But it is not a case of cutting out everything totally for me though and living like a monk, but finding the balance between what you actually need, want or what will actually give you joy is the balance, a £6 coffee; drank in 10 minutes and forgotten about later that day starts to look like less and less worth it, as other things you actually need to spend money on spiral endlessly out of control price wise, like car fuel and basic groceries.

I spent the best part of my 20's and early 30's getting into debt, buying shite I didn't need, but made me feel good buying it, I've had a change of view on how I view possessions and over consumption now, selling a lot of those things I bought over the years to recoup money to put into savings.

Hence the old saying of "pennywise and pound foolish". People misinterpret it as irrelevant because pennies are trivial these days, but it's the whole ethos/philosophy of thinking about whether spending is needed or not, getting value for money, shopping around, etc. If you do it for the small things, you get into the habit of doing it for bigger/expensive things too! But even saving a bit on small things, you buy small stuff more frequently, so small savings done often enough turns into bigger amounts over time. It's the entire mindset as you rightly say.

Bonus for me, or share save scheme or having a huge tax bill scaring the bejesus out of me

Supermarket meal deals can also make a massive difference for those who won't/can't make their own packed lunches.

A meal deal in our village co-op is £3.75. If you choose the "wrong" bag of crisps or wrong chocolate bar or wrong sandwich/pasta pot or wrong drink, that can easily be £7 or more, so maybe double the price for either not realising what is/isn't included or for being a bit "fussy" with what you want and buying the "wrong" chocolate bar at £1.50 instead of £1.20 which cancels the meal deal for all 3 items.

It's not as if the other options are particularly better quality, nor local, etc. - it's a supermarket after all. You could get a hand made sandwich with a better quality bag of crisps and a better quality soft drink for that kind of money at our local independent bakery/sandwich shop which does use local ingredients from local farms/butchers etc.

So if you're having "crap" mass produced factory food for lunch, surely it's better to pay just £3.75 and follow the "rules" as to what the meal deal constitutes?

Saving £3 per day, 5 days per week, 45 weeks per year amounts to £675 per year!

I automate it. I have a standing order that transfers out a weekly amount. I started with a once monthly amount like a bill, then I laddered up gradually to doing it weekly. If I end up short on a bad month, I pull some money back from savings. I built up my house deposit of over £80k that way.

I also found once a saved a decent amount I was really motivated to save more.