To think that if you’ve got savings, you’re not poor?

[CleverTealGoose]

I’m not saying that having savings automatically makes someone wealthy or financially comfortable, but I do think there’s a difference between being poor and having money set aside.

If you’ve got savings that you can fall back on, even if you’d rather not touch them, surely you’re in a different position from someone who has absolutely nothing to fall back on?

I sometimes see people describe themselves as poor or broke while also mentioning that they’ve got thousands sitting in savings accounts.

I appreciate that savings can be earmarked for particular things but ultimately that money is still there.

Like there is a difference between being genuinely poor and simply not having much disposable income.

Older people often don’t want to move because they can’t get anything smaller or suitable in the community they know. Also my DM wanted to keep space to be able to accommodate my family and my DB’s family on visits as we lived hundreds of miles away. She lived rural and I deliberately clung on to living in a city when I had DCs in the hope my DCs will be able to find jobs and stay here and I can downsize and not think about them wanting to stay. Probably won’t work though.

It depends on the context of the conversation. Someone complaining they're broke and wanting someone to pay for them when they have money in the bank is unreasonable.
Someone saying they're broke because someone is trying to pressure them into doing something expensive or wants to borrow money off them is completely reasonable.
My savings are my savings, they're not huge but are in the 1000s. Money I'd need if I came into some bad luck. It's not there as a buffer for people who want to borrow money from me or want me to go in holiday with them.

You are talking about degrees of wealth. Or poverty.
Some with savings, if you said how much that was to someone who had to not even think about savings, they would say that person was quite poor.
It is all relative.
You have billionaires. People who are worth say 245 Billion. They do exist.
They will not think someone with a few thousand in the bank rich. And comparatively, no, they are not.

Exactly
£10k might sound like a nice wedge of savings but it really isn't these days when you look at the cost of rent etc 😕

I'd love to see the statistics for 'plenty' of old people being able to just downsize. I suspect you're massively oversimplifying. There is a huge shortage of affordable, good quality small homes in this country. The concept of older people/retirement living etc should be the answer but they have also been turned into horror stories with huge rental fees and unsellable properties after the tenant has passed.

And yes equity release is better but still awful. We need a proper regulated system which allows older people to either move into retirement flats therefore freeing larger houses and/or equity release. A system that is not governed by corporates who are screwing older people over to line their own pockets.

It’s difficult. Some have no savings because they are have less income, more outgoings, or both. Or one can’t work for good reasons. Some have no savings because in one way or another they prefer to save a good chunk of their surplus, When others don’t. We all know people like this. I don’t judge them-it’s just a different way to live. It’s a choice you make, if you can afford to.

Obviously.

but some people can be asset rich and cash poor - often elderly people are examples of this as they own a house worth a lot of money but have very little income. Moving house takes time and some won’t.

equally many (most I would think now) have done kind of pension which is technically savings but cannot be accessed.

i have been temporarily poor when left my now ExHusband as Ihad to feed house and clothe us before the divorce was agreed. In theory I had a lot of assets….

If you have savings but also debt then you may still have net debt. Small savings that are part of an annual budget e.g. for car service or similar also shouldn't count as they are earmarked for a known future expense.

Very much depends on how much their savings and income are doesn't it? Silly thread. Savings don't make someone wealthy, just as spending every penny doesn't necessarily equate to poverty.

If you don't think it's genuine I assume you've reported it.

I agree with this. There was one particular area with a lot of house building going on that DM had said she’d be interested in moving to. She’d worked out that she’d still be able to access shops there when she could no longer drive and it was near to the local hospital. It was a bungalow. She was in an area where the proportion of older people is well above the national average. There were only a handful of bungalows on the estate being build and when we spoke to the developer they said the bungalows got snapped up and they wouldn’t accept a deposit on the new build from my DM unless she could show them she had the rest of the money available for the house within a matter of weeks - which she couldn’t as she had to sell her house first. The bungalow was no longer available a few days later. She didn’t want to put her house on the market without knowing a place she really wanted to move to was going to be available and that wasn’t possible to predict in the area where she lived. She never did move.

I feel the same about people who have parents they can go to for help. Even if they don't want to and rarely or never do.

Also feel the same about those who will inherit, especially if something significant like a house or half a house. Knowing there will be this huge cash boon coming is hugely different from knowing there is never going to be anything other than what you earn or save yourself.

I once spoke to someone really proud of how she had made it by herself, without asking her wealthy parents for help ( despite psychologically knowing she had that backup, which is a hugely different place to be from knowing there is not back up) . But then turned out she had never had to put money into a pension as her parents wealth was going to fund her retirement. So that's not really making it by yourself. Her parents had effectively always subsidised her by saving her the money she would have otherwise had to put aside for her retirement.

Can't be arsed. Nothing ever happens and there'll only be another 20 like it tomorrow.

Indeed, hence the use of the words 'not always'.

Similarly, is someone poor if they have a smartphone costing more than 1k? Or if they have no money left at the end of the month but fly long haul several times a year?

Poverty for me is worrying about paying for essentials and having no fallback if something goes wrong.

Sometimes I will turn down an event or night out because I am broke. When I say that I’m broke, I do not mean that I have no money. I have plenty of money in savings. I have just exhausted my money that I intend to spend.

Yes, I agree, if you have savings you are not technically poor.

To me being poor is me a few years ago fsingle working full time and by the time I had paid all the normal household bills, rent utilities etc no car I used to have 15 pounds a week to feed myself no saving not a penny to spare, now with a partner not a lavish lifestyle but some money in the bank and all bills covered

.

It took longer to type out your troll hunting post than it would have taken to report.

Yes, it's easier to make ends meet when you aren't alone. I'm glad things are better for you now.

I guess it depends on the context, e.g. I’ve said to my partner I can’t afford to go for a coffee this morning because I’m about to hit my overdraft before payday on Thursday, however, I have significant savings in my bank account and investments.

Sometimes people use words to describe the way they're feeling rather than being precisely accurate. Saying "I'm broke / skint at the moment" doesn't necessarily mean that they really think of themselves as living in poverty. Sometimes it's just a phrase meaning that they can't afford something they'd like to buy.

Some would say that is tight.