How much should we be saving a month?

[Cheesypizzaa]

We bring home about 6k in total between us. 1k mortgage, 1.5k childcare fees, 1.5k other essential bills, petrol, food. So 2k left for discretionary spending/saving. My partner and I can't agree on how much of this we should be saving!

We have a 35 year mortgage that runs until we're 70, so I'd like to overpay to bring the term down. And just general saving for potential baby number 2/another maternity leave.

Want to be able to enjoy ourselves and go on the occasional holiday, but not just fritter the money away (I work full time at the moment and want to go part time in future, so income likely to go down rather than up).

I'd be putting as near as I could to that £2k into an account with best interest rate I could find with instant access. Once there's a buffer in there see what you can do to improve rate with limited restrictions.

As you're looking to have something for (relatively) short term like holidays and a DC#2 stocks/shares etc are probably too longer term...

500 into long term savings
500 into emergancy savings/holidays/Xmas
500 onto the mortgage
500 for frittering.

Following as had similar convo with DH today!

Interesting question, we have a similar combined salary and need to save more!

would suggest you pay mortgage down as i assume you on a teaser rate x

if I were in your position I’d be saving as much as I can for your next maternity leave and then when you have 2 children in childcare it’s very expensive!
instead of thinking “what do I need to save”, consider what you actually need to spend?

We have the same left over, we save £1300 and use £700 for monthly spends.

How much do you already have in savings?

You don't mention pensions. Is this because it's already taken care of in your numbers or because you've not factored it in at all?

At that income you should both be putting money into pensions. There is tax relief on it so hands down it's a good investment plus it means you have a more comfortable retirement = win win