what do you save for ? - Savings

[flutterby1]

Just that really, what are your savings for ?

My and DP’s funerals, holidays, experiences, treats, emergency funds, to help DC with future study, house, wedding, car. Big purchases, new car, house renovations, probably other things I’ve forgotten about.

Holidays and early retirement.

Great question. Kind of drummed into us to have savings isn't it!

Ultimately I'll need mine to do some home improvements and a new car.

We have long term savings - for pension, DD's university (she's 4 atm), major house upgrades (new roof one day etc), risk of one of us losing our job. Then shorter term savings - replacing the car, holidays, replacing white goods/furniture etc.

Savings that don't get touched - for the future retirement or deposit on the next house we want.

Separate savings for emergencies only, thinking car blows up, boiler packs in, lost income etc

General savings - we buy holidays from these, big purchases like if we fancy something a bit more expensive than our usual monthly fun money, get bits and bobs done around the house from this pot too. Sort of anything outside of normal monthly expenses really!

Long term large amounts of savings are for retirement and for DCs house deposits. Short term savings accounts for house repairs, cars, big holidays, unexpected large expenses. Cheaper holiday, Christmas, birthdays, days out etc just come out of our usual monthly disposal money so we don’t have to save for those.

Mentally I have 3 sets of savings (plus pension);

Very long term savings to supplement pension, but I wanted to be more accessible to either pay off the IO part of our mortgage if necessary, or for direst emergencies.

Emergency fund/ medium term savings of 3-6 months income. This can be dipped into for major purchases (house repairs, new car, redundancies etc) but must be topped back up as a priority when possible.

Short terms savings - for holidays, car repairs, annual insurances - all that sort of thing.

Oh - and we have a separate savings account for tax as well.

Different pots for different things.

Long-term savings, for the kids or for old-ace.

Lost income savings, so a few months of outgoings in case either of us loses our income for any reason.

Then emergency funds for car maintenance, home maintenance, replacing tech, replacing white goods, etc.

A holiday fund.

Then on a very short life cycle, yearly pots for birthdays, Christmas, Christmas food and events, etc.

I am not saving any more because I am now spending my savings to top my pension income up to my expenditure.

The savings were not saved specifically for this purpose, I saved because I wanted to have a financial cushion for whatever was to come. I would recommend!

solar panels
the next car
new boiler, new windows, new doors, new kitchen
car and house maintenance
decorating
holiday

...though in actual fact, what it turned out we were saving for was 4.5 years of neither of us working; so the imminent inheritance will be spent on the above instead

Like others, I have different pots of savings, plus pension.

I have accounts I save into for holidays, Christmas, house repairs etc - that I know I will use in the near future but means we can manage all these things with no issue or debt.

I then have accounts for saving to overpay the mortgage when the time comes (fixes come up).

And then longer term savings for house development, our dc’s future etc

Future financial security in retirement. If I don’t need the money to pay for heating and eating I will spend it on travel and malt whisky.

Different pots for Christmas and birthdays / holidays / rainy day fund for big purchases, house maintenance, etc. Some things are 10 -20% cheaper if bought annually (travelcards etc) so I try and save up small lump sums to cover things like that as well.

I have savings but after that is gone I am not saving anymore there always seems to be something happening where I have to chip in my savings, also being a single mum with no family or physical support is difficult

My kids all have Junior savings so they are okay for the future

We have lots of pots…

pensions

ISAs to pay mortgage down when fix ends, we’ll then use those to save for bridging the gap from planned return until pensions

house renovations

holidays

emergency incase of redundancy etc

kids ISAs

im sure there’s something else I should have a pot for

We have what we call the Reserve - I put some of my wages in there for (car insurance, home improvements, holidays)

We also save the kids child benefit every week. Both kids (a year apart) go in one pot and we'll use it for their cars or driving lessons.

I save £30 each month into an ISA - no idea what for yet

My partner also has a savings account attached to his current. That's the emergency savings account. He puts in what he can after paying all the bills and mortgage.

I have multiple pots:

Short term - divided into boring (MOTs and annual bills), and fun (holidays, Christmas etc).

Medium term - replacing cars/white goods/furniture etc.

Long term - saving for retirement/the mortgage.

The whole of long and a chunk of medium have just been raided to pay off the mortgage though as I was about to get a massive rate increase, so at the moment they're semi theoretical categories xD

To be clear, I also have a separate organisational pension, I've not just raided my actual pension!

School fees, a new car when the time comes, a second lot of maternity leave (currently have one toddler), house deposits and university fees for kids. Also an emergency fund for redundancy/ ill health etc

I have multiple savings pots in my Starling Account alongside a Marcus account where any suits money goes

Savings pots include
Christmas and birthdays
Holidays
Pets (don't pay pet insurance but put £200 in each month)
Appliances
Cars
Oil and wood (hardly spend any on this in the summer so I like to build up a fund so winter isn't so painful)
Phones and laptops
House maintenance
January fund - I put in £25 a month for ten months of the year - always find january a long month with early pay at Christmas so this £250 is great to offset the five weeks between pay)
Few smaller pots that I put in £10 a month for each- winter coat/shoes and boots/new mattress

Spare money
Not suits money

A cushion in case one of us loses our job & sick pay runs out. Holidays. Early retirement. Possibly a camper van at some point.

We have workplace pensions, then have pots for holidays, car (maintenance and unexpected bills!), Christmas, house, days out (which birthdays also come out of) and long term savings for "just in case" stuff. We save more in the short term pots at the moment (not including pensions, we have very good workplace pensions) but try to counteract that with good insurance, income protection etc. But we do intend to improve long term savings.

Child benefit isn't meant to put in savings, that makes no sense doing this