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?

Savings are savings no matter how small and what they are for. Of course saving for christmas is saving. Just because the amounts are smaller doesn't mean it isn't saving

But if I put £200 into my savings account on pay day, and I knew that I would be spending £100 of that on council tax two weeks later, and that I was going shopping at the weekend to spend £100 on some new clothes then I would not really count that £200 as savings.

But yes I agree saving for Christmas is saving, but it is different to long term savings (as in saving to pay off mortgage or to have a back up in case of emergency such as losing job).

Jen I see what you mean, but all those things come up infrequently, so for me it's about knowing I've got what's needed to cover them tucked away somewhere rather than having to suddenly find a grand to pay for the council tax, and that affecting the rest of our month, iyswim.

Yes, have always saved over the years and looking at maninawomansworld's post we did exactly what she is doing; ie; we stayed in a nice, but not huge, house for many years whilst all our friends went from bigger to bigger house (presumably with bigger mortgages) - we were able to pay off our mortgage by our early 40s and get a buy-to-let property with a very small mortgage - of course it would be nice to have a more luxurious home but we are perfectly happy with what we have and prefer to know we have an investment. Likewise have saved DS's child beneft into a pension for him. We have always had at least a year's worth of income in savings in case of redundancy etc. Although we are now at the stage where DH can work part time (self employed) and I am a SAHM so it was worth those years of saving hard to have a comfortable life style now.

Jen - I would never dream of spending £100 on some new clothes, perhaps that is how I have managed to save up so much over the years . All my clothes (and DS's) come from charity shops) !

We've moved this thread to Money Matters now.

We aim to use up our ISA allowance each year - so that is about £5.5k each pa. Probably have about £30k plus. I also put 10% of my salary into work's pension scheme. Tbh I don't know how much we have saved at the moment, but the priority is to pay off our (huge) mortgage as soon as we can. We have over paid the last 2 years by the 10% allowed, and hope to do so next year. That alone has reduced monthly payments from £2.7k to about £2.1k.

So back to the OP - no target as such. Savings are for a rainy day. We have a lot of money at the moment as DH was made redundant...other than reducing mortgage, we haven't done anything exciting. Waiting for him to get a new job, and then we'll see. I want to be financially secure. We are thinking about the option of private education, but it is just that at the moment....an option. IF we go down that route we will be broke!!

I try to put away at least 10% of my gross salary each month. Gets split between my pension, long-term investments for myself and DS plus some goes into a cash ISA. At the end of the year I keep back a few months expenditure in the cash ISA as 'rainy day money' and use the rest to pay a chunk off the mortgage. Rather than a savings target at the moment I have a target to pay off the mortgage by 2015.

I have a big glass jar, into which I put all loose change smaller than a 50p coin. When it's full it goes in my ISA. First time I filled it was just before Christmas. A whole forty-odd quid in there! So I now have about £50 saved, and £20 in the jar.

I'm looking forward to the day I get two grand of jar-money in the ISA, because it's my going-back-to-New-Zealand fund. I reckon with a bit of luck I might make it before I hit 100.