Savings

[purplepigs]

I am interested to know how much money people get to save at the end of the month?

I'm in the process of overhauling our finances with Dp. As of next month, I worked out £700 will go into 'savings' each month, with this money being used for holidays/Christmas/MoT's etc....Then we'll each have a personal budget of £400 each to pay for clothes/stuff for the house/school things for Dc's.

That's the plan anyway!

Do you club your finances together into one bank account?

Yep. All bill, mortgage, food comes out of one bank account. To be fair, we've had a shite financial few years, I have just got a new job urgo the reason I sat down and made a spreadsheet to ensure we put money away....rather than fritter it away!

None! I simply haven't managed money well enough to save. But I have decided that this is going to change. DH and I now have separate finances and we both pay into a bills and food account. Before I was managing all money - badly. We both seem to have benefited from splitting our finances, neither of us spend as much as we used to - DH would just ask for money for whatever I and would transfer it to his account, no questions asked, and I would just spend as I pleased.

First on the list is paying off my £960 overdraft. I will have done that end of this month.Then I am going to put £100 each month in a savings account and start paying £50 into my ISA.

I have 3 years left of my student loan, £200 per month. So when that's are paid off, I am going to put the £200 into my pension that I have not been paying into for 8 years.

It may not sound like a lot to put away, but for me it's a vast improvement.

I think what your saying is putting away enough especially from the situation you have explained that you were in.

I managed to save around 20% of my wages a month if I am really really carefully and am not paying for a holiday.

Food shopping is a big chunk of outcome - we buy lots of yummy food to make meals with and we do like our beer and wine but then every now and then we get a takeaway.

We have a wedding to pay for so I am going to suggest we restrict our takeaways to once a month which I think is sensible.

How much is your monthly food shop can I ask?

I save a set amount by standing order as soon as I'm paid. If the amount in my current account mounts up if I have a light couple of months, I chuck the excess too. We have a joint account for household expenses but have never merged savings.

We each have a savings account and we then have a joint savings account which we put in £50 each a month as an additional bit of cash.

We save £50 each a month for our house pot (for replacing things, buying things, decorating etc) £75 each a month into holiday pot (holidays and days out) then I save £100 into my LISA and £80 a month into my ISA.

We have our own bank accounts and a joint account. The joint account is our house one and the holiday one is DH savings account.

I'm increasing my savings end of September as I will then be debt free, which has taken 12 years so I'm looking forward to that!

Yay - that's good

A house pot - that's a good idea we don't have one of those !

We save just over a grand a month. Plus I will add to the savings if we have anything left in the main account a couple of days before pay day. We use th savings for a mix of sensible and fun stuff

That's a lot savings !

Astonished that people actually have money left to save. I'm not extravagant but I simply spend the last week of each month praying for payday.

Glad there are people out there who can save because living like I do isn't nice when you work all summer holidays and can't even afford a day out with your kids.

Ideally I'd love to pay more into my pension and have an isa as a future pot for my kids.

Yeh I can completely understand what your saying.
We try and save as much as we can every month but things happened - things break need replacing etc etc

Life is life I guess and I can always just keep aiming higher.

I do have money left over at the end of the month it's no where near a £1000 but at least I save something and I am not hugely in debt.

I hope things improve for you, I really do.
Are you getting all the help you need?

I work and earn over minimum wage so no other help available. I'd be ok if exh actually paid child maintenance but he doesn't and I can't afford to do anything about it. Cms are worse than useless but that's a whole other rather boring story!

But as you say things break/unwanted and unexpected bills arrive leaving little left to live on. But I'm lucky in so many other ways that I own my own home, not outright of course and have a job at least so things could be a whole lot worse!

Would just be nice to have a few £'s left each month.

We try and save as much as we can every month but things happened - things break need replacing etc etc

Sounds like you need to go back to basics with budgeting. If you have a house, car or pets, they will need money spending on them every so often, so you need to budget and save for this eventuality.

This is separate for saving for a wedding so you should be thinking about allocating the money separately. It can also be helpful to save at the beginning of the month, which can help if you are prone to getting to the end of the month and thinking 'I have money left, what can I buy' rather than 'I have money left, it can go into savings'.

Have a look at the MSE money makeover to maximise your income, minimise your expenses and hence have more money left for saving and spending on nice things rather than boring bills. Also look at the budgeting section to help with allocating money to different categories.

Thank you for your advice.
Much appreciated.
I already put money away from my car service every month.
Everything is covered for the month.

We have recently had new flooring fitted throughout the house so that made a dent in our savings - but that's what you save for.
I very much doubt that people have enough disposable income in one month to pay for a 4 bedroom home to have all new flooring.

I have checked the link you sent and it is very interesting to read but I feel we have all those bases covered.

Do you have separate accounts for everything.

Wedding money saving is going well - it's something I can't wait for so that encourages me to save save save!

I think it's a good idea to save at the beginning of the month, not what's left at the end. Treat savings as another bill. I have some savings in an instant access account so I do have money for any unexpected event.
I also have medium savings in bonds etc and have several trackers to invest in the stock market - also medium term.

I put the excess amount into my savings at the start of the month. I have had to dip into my savings this morning to pay for an unexpected emergency dentist appointment (never cheap) - but hey ho that isn't every month.

They say you should save around 20% of your wages a month.

20% which is what I am managing.

Can I ask how you pay for holidays are they out of your savings out of your monthly disposable income?

I pay for holidays from income and don't touch savings, but am probably at a different stage in life than you.

We save on average £1000 a month however there have been a lot of holidays recently so it's gone straight on those.

We also bought a car recently too so trying to build back up. Buying a house and then a car the next year will do that to you!!

I also withdraw my personal spending money each week on a Friday. What I have then in my purse is to last me a week. When it comes to the next Friday, whatever is in my purse goes into my money tin. I then empty this every November. Last year I had just over £300 in there.

I find it helps with keeping my spending in line as I think a bit more carefully about buying something when I have to hand over money to pay, whereas I don't think twice when I hand my card over!

Holidays have their own pot in the budget. Savings are a cushion for those things that cannot be foreseen e.g. Job loss, illness (cash savings), major projects that we might want to do if the shares perform well (extension, holiday home etc) and retirement

@purplepigs We have recently had new flooring fitted throughout the house so that made a dent in our savings - but that's what you save for.

Well, yes, assuming those savings were earmarked for your home upkeep, and not just a general catch all rainy day fund.

I have several pots that I have set up STOs to fire money off to each payday - car, house renovations, cycling kit - even one for for "pissing up the wall" on frivolous stuff. Plus longer term savings that I never touch.

Some of them get emptied (holiday one is a good example!), some of then just keep rolling over with no withdrawals for months on end.