to ask you these questions about money / savings...?

[JenLou82]

Do you save money?

How much do you save?

How much do you think is a sensible amount to have in savings? (Appreciate it varies a bit from person to person, depending on whether you have a mortgage to repay, are in a couple or single, have kids, are able to work etc.)

Does anyone have a savings target and think they will stop saving when they have hit that target? Or just keep on saving what you can?

Anyone want to say how much they have in savings at the moment? And what their target (if any) is?

I have saved everything left after spending as little as possible, though my idea of minimal spending does include having a nice enough home and a skiing holiday each year. (That's usually my only holiday.)

My goal is to be able to live off investment income so I don't have to work.

My wife saves similarly. She intends to work as long as she can. It's unclear what her goal is. When I asked her if it's her mission to maximise her net worth on the day she dies, she seriously replied that she likes the sound of that.

We both save more than half of what we earn.

yabu. There is a money section. And a chat section.

6% gross salary into my pension.

7.2% gross salary saved every month. However this does get used every now and again for a big holiday, new carpets etc so I don't cumulative save that much.

I'll be watching this with interest as I'm rubbish at saving but need to start ASAP. I hate not having anything in the bank if anything breaks/goes wrong etc.

trouble is you need free money to save so for me £0 and 90p in my saving

Why do you want to know?

I put £70 a month into my savings account by standing order on the first of the month so I have the best intentions to save.

I withdraw it by about the third week of the month because I need it to buy food or pay a bill

I save every month, unless it is a month when I am going on holiday or buying something expensive such as a new car or a piece of furniture. Otherwise I always save something.

I aim to save about 30% of my NET salary (so after tax etc) each month. It goes straight into savings account on pay day.

I don't really have a target as such, I just try to save what I can, but still enjoy myself. I try not to waste money on stuff I don't really need, but I am not stingy when it comes to stuff that matters to me like holidays.

I pay into a pension every month, although don't really count that as 'savings' as such as it's not money I have access to IYKWIM.

Quenelle just curious.

I put a chunk by standing order into a savings account as soon as I am paid. I also use my full ISA allowance every year. If I notice my current account balance is a bit high, I sweep the extra into the savings account.

I like to have a year's net salary saved, so I know that if I lost my job, I could live and pay the mortgage for a year.

Try to have a long term and short term saving account. Short term for things like breakdowns, replacing furniture, holidays, car repairs etc.. Long Term for additional pension, saving towards house or investment.

I am RUBBISH at saving, apart from when it comes to the kids saving accounts. I pay into their accounts as if they are a bill. They get paid first before anything else. This year I'm trying v.v. hard to be more frugal, as on paper we should be able to save 50% of DHs salary and about 20% of mine (his long term, mine for short term). DH is very good at not spending, but I am attracted to pretty, shiny things.

I did restart saving into our ISAs a few months back, and again the thing that worked was treating the amount like it was a bill. We keep saving, not to stop at a target as such. We are saving a house deposit now, which will form part of our pension eventually. I don't think you can have too much savings as you don't know what the future brings.

I save 10% of my salary each pay day into a regular savings account. I also add any "windfalls" - eg tax rebates to it. I then regularly raid the savings for things like holidays, it recently paid for some building work. i am aim to have 6 months expenses saved up in case I lost my job, but it is nowehere like that at the moment.

Not very much, and I could do much better...many of my friends have a year's salary saved up (although they are in their 40s and rememebr the last recession). At 35 this recession has been a surprise to me.

I find the paying into your savings as though it were a bill esential though, if I tried to just save what was left over it would be zero

I saved a third of my salary each month during pregnancy and it is allowing me to have a year maternity leave by supplementing the maternity pay. I always did it by standing order after pay day. Anything left at,the end of the month would also get saved.

I have 2 saving accounts, one for Christmas and one for general savings. I put £100 into each account on payday and then I put whatever I have left at the end of the month into general savings. This can be anywhere between £100-£600 depending on the kind of month we've had. I've only gone back to work full time about 6months ago and I'm loving having having savings in my account it's never happened before

We try to save £800 a month into our long term savings (aiming for 6 months outgoings at the mo and once we're there it'll be even longer term-uni fees etc), which is just under 1/3 of our combined salaries, though it's bloody hard at the moment. In addition to that we save just over £300 into an easy access account each month; this pays for bills, council tax, clothes, presents etc.

I started saving when I was 13 in the hope of one day owning a house or flat- 17 years later, still hoping! £100 goes each month into a pension. For the past 6 months I've worked 4 days a week so no chance to save, almost all of it goes on bills and the little I saved went on a few Christmas gifts (I was very careful, this wasn't extravagant) and tickets home.

From Feb I'll be earning more, I'll be doing 5-6 days with much longer hours. Phew! Pension may increase, and I'll try and fill my ISA!

I currently have £27,000 in savings between the ISA and regular account. I've never been in debt, I'm so careful with money that it actually affects me in negative ways. I'll walk miles to save bus fare, I'll walk miles if a single item is cheaper at Tesco rather than ASDA!

One day I'll buy, when I can afford it, a mortgage would be half the rent I pay now!

We dont have a savings account as such. I'm a SAHM so DH transfers a set amount each month into our joint account for expenses and into my account for me. The joint account is a new one that we got when we were re-doing our mortgage and it has a really good interest rate and cashback on bills so we leave all our surplus money in there to germinate any interest it can.

We are not saving for anything specific and generally try to overpay on our mortgage as much as possible each year.

I have two savings accounts.

Main one is a 'house' account, we have oil central heating so each delivery is about £700 and needs to be saved up for. I also use the 'house' account to top me up if I am short (eg Christmas) and to pay for holidays, though these are very rare as I don't like going away.

My most important account I put far less into but never touch unless I am really desperate, that's my 'cats' account (now also dog and chickens). It's there so that I never have to worry should any of my pets need expensive vet treatment. I'd rather keep my money than pay it to an insurance company.

The bank has tried to convince me to put the two together as it would be better in terms of interest but I cannot break the psycological barrier that my pets need something put aside for them.

I've had to have two cats diagnosed, treated and put down in the last six years, never touched their money, just in case I needed more!

I do pay something like 8% of salary into a pension every month, but I am chasing debts, so no savings whatsoever!

Approx 1/3 of our income. Target? Dream house (work in progress - still need to short out the garden!) Pay off mortgage (atm 10 yrs due to offset mtg). DCS' education - uni fees commence at roughly the same time we pay off the mtg - well, that's the plan. Early retirement after DCs leave uni, downsize and live off investment income (hopefully). Could all derail if we ever find a plot of land in a fantastic location and commit ourselves to a selfbuild - probably a crazy idea since we have recently completed a major renovation project as the next best thing.

I'm trying to clear debts so no savings here, although I'll start when my debts are clear (single parent with 2 dependents).

Having said that, 12.5% of my salary is paid into a pension and I live in a country where you pay a sort of insurance type thing to a union so that should I find myself without a job, then they will pay me 90% of my current salary until I find one. So at least I feel I am a bit covered in if the worst should happen.

I think as a bare mimimum it's sensible to work out what your 'survial' amount is - how much you could scrape by on for mortgage, ESSENTIAL bills (not sky tv etc..) etc and have a few months worth in the bank in case one of you looses your job. (Most polls suggest that many people have approx 2 months worth saved). Anything above and beyond is nice but not essential.

What we save depends on what else is going on in our lives really (you know, cars breaking down and the like).
We aim to save about 25% of our net income each month so we save around £1500 a month, if we're really saving for something specific then we can put away double that if we don't eat out and curtail some of the more lavish hobbies for a while. We have a decent amount saved up between us - I think it's about £100k at the moment. Next time the fixed term on the mortgage comes up for renewal about half that is going to be used to pay it off.

That might sound a bit like a boast but we have cut our cloth - we have a nice house in the countryside but it's half the size of what we could have stretched to because we didn't want to be slaves to a large mortgage and loads of big bills to run the place. Plus, we are shortly to be starting a family (hence my joining mumsnet) and we want one of us to be able to not work for a few years without impacting our quality of life too much so we have planned and saved for that over the last few years (hence decent savings pot and manageable sized house).

You need to do some maths and work out a sensible course of action for you, taking into account the things that you want to achive in the coming years.
I remember (not that long ago really) when we started saving for our first place, putting away about £300 a month between us and that was a struggle! It seemed a long road at the time but it soon goes by and it's great when you've done it.

I wouldn't really count an account that goes to pay for clothes and pressies and council tax as savings. Savings to me are something you don't intend to spend unless on a big item (house / car) or in an emergency.