How much do you save a month?

[twinkledag]

Would love to know how much others save a month?

I am 38. Pay 1% into a pension and company match it.

Save £100 a month for DS who is 3.

That’s it!

What should I be aiming for?

If you can afford it, pay more into your pension, especially if your company matches your contribution. That’s a huge benefit which you aren’t taking full advantage of.

Personally, I save 10% of my gross income into my pension and I’m 46 and have been paying that more or less for 20+ yrs and my forecasted pension pot (no final salary here) will just about provide for a basic, no frills retirement (hopefully!)

There's no 'correct' figure or even %.

It will depend on you income, all your other outgoings, your age, what you are saving for, your hopes and dreams, your likelihood of redundancy or your job security, your likelihood or inheritance, your attitude to risk, your attitude to 'living your life today as if there were no tomorrow', etc.,etc.,etc.

Agree with dunraven though that it makes sense to save as much as is realistic for you into your pension, as double what you are saving will be being saved.

Currently on mat leave. But when in Work 7% matched pension, £15 for Christmas, £20 hair and clothes for me, £30 for holidays (once every 2-3 years), £15 unexpected house bills, £10 decorating fund and £40 for DS.

Save £10 a month for your ds and put the rest into your pension. No sense in saving for someone else before youve sorted yourself.

Save 7.5% into company pension scheme plus 5% into building society account.

Usually save a further 35% into whats optimistically labelled the 'holiday account', but really it's used for the renovations of our home (brought three years ago, and almost at the end), so gets drained regularly as we complete things in stages. When those are finished, we'll throw more money at the mortgage and hopefully have it paid off within 10 years.

We're 25 years from retirement, no children, no debt other than the mortgage.

If you can manage it your pension contribution should go up quite a bit. And if you increase I assume your company will at least match your contribution? 2% isn’t enough given we are unlikely to get anything from the state by the time we reach pensionable age (I’m a similar age to you OP). Whilst it is lovely to be saving for your DS even if you halve it to put more into your pension pot that would be a decent start.

DH and I save £500 a month, but only because we recently paid our mortgage off as we got some inheritance.
Prior to that I had about £11k in savings (I’m 35).

I agree that you should concentrate on paying more into your savings than saving £100 a month for your DS. It’s nice that you want to do that for him but you also need to make sure you have enough for your old age.

I pay 15% per month into my pension, Co pays 5%. Then I save £550pm.
But I have no mortgage and am a reasonably high earner. Keeping under the 40% tax band with being part time and making the pension payments though, as well as some of my income being self-employed so can be taken as dividends on a slightly different tax basis.

There is no correct answer. But you should look to have six months living costs saved. At your age I was saving around 1k a month. DH was saving around the same. Pensions were/are final salary defined benefits. Must be some of the last people to ever manage to get these schemes they have been closed to new members for about 10 years now.

I started saving when I got my first job at 13 and then investing when still a teenager.

7% to pension, employer pays 20%, average salary scheme.

What I can afford into saving, mortgage overpayments or savings for my 2 kids.

It varies, some months I’m good others like at Christmas time and my good plans go out the window!

12% salary goes to pension and company put 8% in, got a small pay rise this year and am going to put it straight into increasing my pension contribution, being poor and old completely freaks me out.

£50 a month goes straight into a stocks and shares ISA by direct debit.

In theory there should be a good couple of hundred left over to go into savings.

Nada.

We run our own business so every penny goes into building the assets of that. We do expect to be able to live out of it in our retirement though.

On a monthly basis I use YNAB and save for the xmas, birthdays etc

Nothing as in a lot of debt so think it makes more sense to put money into that instead...do have a pension but not sure what % I put in but company put some in too. Am I terrible for thinking of inheritance as a pension??

I agree I think of my inheritance as a bit of my pension but it won’t be a lot, especially if you divide it by the number of years/months you’re going to need it to cover.

I also don’t understand the rules but have seen friends parents wealth completely wiped out by care Home fees so that’s a scary prospect.

I pay 8% into my pension and DH pays 11% to his. We then save £1000 a month between us.

I pay into a company pension scheme.
On top of that I save a minimum of £1,200 a month into a savings account and another £100 into a different account for frivolous spends.
We are still paying a mortgage for another 5 years.

I'm mid 20s, and 10% goes into my pension, company puts in 3.5%, then overpay my mortgage by 10% of the monthly payment, then 12% of my net income goes into short term savings (xmas, car repairs, car insurance etc) and another 15-20% goes into long term - house upgrades, holidays and general buffer against job loss. I think I ought to put more into the latter category but tbh my "fixed" costs (mortgage, bills, phones, subscriptions - so not fixed in that they can't change but fixed as in I know what they are month on month) are 50% of my net income so I already only live off 15% for food, petrol, clothes and fun.

I would really be looking at upping your pension contributions if you can. One suggestion I've seen is to put it payrises into your pension, so it hurts less. Have a think about your fixed costs, when you want to work until and if you have a mortgage. If you're happy working til 70+, will have paid off your mortgage by then and can live off the state pension then you only need a bit extra to make it comfortable. If not then the requirements get more urgent or you'll be reliant on housing benefit in your retirement which I imagine might be stressful (but obviously better than not being able to rely on it).

Whilst there's no right answer, I would query the fact that you are saving a relatively large sum for your DS. Is it in account in his name or is it one in your name which you have mentally allocated to him? I think it would be better if it were in your name as then you can use it if & when you need to whether it's for something like private speech & language sessions if there is a six month wait or something else where money can make a real difference. It also means that, if you have an unexpected expense, you could meet it whether it is an optional school trip he wants to go on or the washing machine breaks. Whilst it would be nice for him to have a rainy day fund when it is older, there is no point in struggling in the meantime.

Agree with others that you really need to increase the pension savings. What are your income and outgoings like, generally?

at your age
Zero
not even a pension (self employed)
I was too busy paying down my mortgage

Now, quite a lot.

9% into work pension (NHS)

£100 joint me and DH

£50 a month of my own, can’t really afford much more as I’m part time

£45 a month for 2.5 year old DS

We overpay our mortgage by £500 a month

9% of salary into pension. £3,000 into savings.

24% into pension scheme between me and my employer (they pay more than I do, and match my additional contributions).

I save around £500 on top of that each month at the moment. It would be more but am also overpaying on the mortgage by around £500 per month as well. The mortgage will be gone by next year, so we'll save more after that. DH is better at saving than me, so probably saves more even though he earns less. I pay the mortgage though.

We save a lot: pensions, ISAs, mortgage overpayments etc. Admittedly, we earn s lot too but are very disciplined with money nonetheless.
The way we work out the numbers is to add up essentials (bills, food, commute). Then allocate a fixed amount of our disposable income to other expenses (clothes, leisure, holidays etc) so that’s there’s a good chunk to save.

I agree with others, your pension seems to be a pressing issue. If your contributions get matched, you should save a lot more. It also comes out of your gross salary so if you pay income tax, it can be incredibly efficient.