Savings

[purplepigs]

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

Yeh the savings were marked up for carpets.
Which was handy.
We have other projects which we may do over time.

Maybe I should make a separate pot for holidays?????

Different stage in life???

@ShotsFired, can I ask what your long term savings are for?

I am beginning to think that I should split savings into emergency savings, like if an appliance breaks down, and Christmas etc savings.

I save each month and money is transferred every payday by standing order into my savings account on the,day my salary hits my bank account.

Once all the bills have been accounted for and money allocated to pay them and our monthly food budget.

What is left is disposable income for the month. This is then divided into four and I withdraw my personal spending money each week on a Monday. That money has to last me a week and if I over spend one week or day I then adjust my money accordingly and cut back.

I currently save about £250 a month. £100 into an isa and £125 to an extra pension and £25 towards Christmas. I am trying to save more but it's dependent on earnings as I am trying to accumulate money to retire early in 9 years time.
I like the idea of drawing out money for the week as it is so easy to spend on cards particularly with contactless and Apple Pay.

Different stage in life -
I mean no debts, no mortgage, no childcare costs etc therefore can pay for holidays from income.

@misscph1973 @ShotsFired, can I ask what your long term savings are for?

It's more mid term than long term really. I'm throwing a huge chunk of my gross salary straight into my pension, which is the ultimate long term. But I don't even see that so I conveniently forget about it.

Then from my net salary I would class mid term as my mortgage overpayments (savings by any other name), plus things like house fund (boiler explosion etc) and new car.

Then I also have short term - holidays, birthday presents, bike stuff that I 'use up' within a year or so (but keep on replenishing so it stays very roughly level when you average the balance over the year).

Important to note that I try and prevent the mid term stuff from happening by spending a small amount of the pot on preventative servicing and maintenance.

Written out lie that it looks complicated but it's basically a bunch of money leaving my account on payday and spent when needed (or not). The hardest part was setting it up and having to sort of 'sub' myself when I was building the float for (say) car insurance so it'd be ready for next year, while still needing to pay for this year.

Wow, that sounds to organised! Thank you for detailing how you do it, t's very educational.

I have never been very good at managing my finances, mainly because I rarely had much money. I have always been quite good at finding the best price, shopping sales and second hand etc. it's allocating money after bills etc. are paid that seems to be troublesome for me.

But now that I earn a bit more (well, now that we have two decent incomes, DH was working on several failed start-ups for a decade and I was a student and then on my first job) and I can see the end of the tunnel debt-wise, it seems that there is actually something to manage.

I have chosen to pay monthly for things like car insurance, I know that there is a bit of interest, but it's worth it for me, it's just simpler.

I rent, I don't own anymore, and tbh I find it a relief. When I owned (first a flat for 4 years and then a house for only 2 years), I would literally lay awake at night worrying about when the next big expense, ie. boiler, leaky roof other repair/replacement would happen, as I hadn't built that float. Now I enjoy that I can just phone the landlord when something goes wrong and that I know my monthly outgoings for housing.

I am so exited to be paying off my overdraft next month and then starting saving properly!

It does sound complicated, but in reality it is just a number of instant savings accounts that are all with my main bank, so I log on to that and I can see my current account with all the "pots" on the same screen.

@misscph1973 I have chosen to pay monthly for things like car insurance, I know that there is a bit of interest, but it's worth it for me, it's just simpler.

Whatever works for you and enables you to start saving rather than wasting money is good! Start small and it will snowball!

In the car insurance example, lets say for argument's sake your premium was £120/year but you are currently paying £13/month (a bit extra for the monthly interest as you know).

If you could see your way clear to SAVE an extra £12/month somewhere separate now, in a year you'd have the full premium ready to pay upfront. You then pay as a lump sum next year and you have instantly got yourself a "free" £12! Then you continue paying the £12 monthly and in 2018 you have another lump sum ready to pay the annual premium and so on.

For what its worth, I started doing this type of allocated saving when I was living alone and earning £15k and had to account for everything down to the last penny.

I also did that while living alone, and on about 12/13k

That was years ago, before marriage and DC. Now I try to save £100 a month. Summer holiday and then school uniform/shoes etc have put payed to that recently.

£250 pcm, by direct debit, so it feels like any other bill.

A slightly paltry £10 pcm goes into my pension but as a part timer, single parent and mortgage holder, I'm very wary about tying up finds that can't be accessed until I'm at least 55 - I'd rather have readily available rainy day money.

Well my mortgage isn't that much, I'm only in my first little house - but we are in the south.

£600 for our pensions, £1200 towards annual costs such as the car, childcare, kids clubs, Christmas, holidays.

@hugodarling05 that's an impressive amount of savings a month you put away.

to the pps putting away £1k+!!

I'm part time due to having young children, and we're saving hard for a mortgage deposit in a super expensive area while managing £1k rent plus nursery fees, so I'm pleased that I'm managing £130 into my pension and £200/250 into savings. Dh manages about the same, but he's terrible, I need to get his spending in hand (although I've had his bank card for 3 days and he's not noticed yet!).

Hopefully we'll be able to get a mortgage by early next year, and although it won't decrease our outgoings, it will allow us to ease up a wee bit.

All our savings are joint - four accounts - one for holidays, one for house repairs/new cars, one for DT's (this account is going down drastically as they are both part way through Uni) and the last as a long term pot of money which we don't touch. We live on one salary and save the other.

The key is not to wait until the end of the month to save.

We write down what our bills are, and know what goes out each month, and we will put anywhere between £100-£800 away each month, depending on the month. We do this as soon as we're paid.

We've had accounts for different things like holiday (access accounts), car (no or very little access).

£650 p/month

£500 into holidays/house/general savings pot
£200 into DS account
£50 into Christmas pot

It's about 20% of my salary after pension.

we have some savings gaining very little interest so now. I am buying company shares every month, £150/month (B2G1F), and £150 at 20% discount. If I keep them for 5 years I can sell tax free so return is much more than savings interest.

We have a variety of different savings 'pots'. I'm currently a SAHM so we pay some into a private pension for me. £50 into DH's work share scheme. £50 a month Christmas savings. £100 a month 'household' savings. £200 a month into an account that we're building up in case of redundancy etc (aiming for 3 months salary). So that's about £500 in total I think. We tend to pay for holidays out of income rather than savings but we don't have extravagant holidays at the moment... two very young children and they seem more hassle than they're worth!

We save around 2k a month. It all goes into one pot and we try to pay for things like car, broken boiler etc from any bonuses or birthday money.

We have a standing order which transfers the savings to the savings account at the beginning of the month. It wasn't always this way and we struggled for many years but things started looking up two years ago after a few promotions.

It's made me realise that money is not everything. Yes it makes life so much easier but your happiness comes first.

I save £300 which is around 20% my take home wage. I know I'm very very lucky to do so. That used to be 50-60% of my wage when I was much more skint.

Having been in the position of not having £10 to get a prescription before and being bankrupt in my mid twenties I know how fortunate I am now, and I massively appreciate the piece of mind that comes from not running down to zero every month.