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?

I don’t save, exactly. Currently we are setting aside the following for annual/ irregular regular expenses:

£11.50 Road tax
£30 Christmas
£20 car
£20 home emergency (to get to insurance deductible)
£29.50 home and contents (pay annually)
£20 computer replacement
£30 pet insurance deductible
£36 various self employment expenses
£225 maternity savings (baby due jan 2018)

So £422 a month, although because our income is lumpy it’s sometimes £100 a month then £500 a month. Our average take home is £2300, so we set aside 18% of take home.

Next step once maternity is topped up will be to divert some of that into self employment pension for boyfriend and save for fascia and soffit replacement. And a new sofa. And some baby savings...

Next step once maternity is topped up will be to divert some of that into self employment pension for boyfriend and save for fascia and soffit replacement. And a new sofa. And some baby savings

Feels like it's neverending sometimes doesn't it?!

emily
If they do not autoenroll you, the Pensions Regulator will jump on them and fine them !
But as I say, 3% of a normal salary for a couple of years at a time will never result in financial security.

Saving £100 a month for your child seems really un necessary. If stop that and put the £100 into my pension. 1% is a tiny amount to pay I'd definitely prioritise increasing that

I saved nothing at all for my kids until my mortgage was paid off - I could not afford to.
DH and I did not start pensions until we were 50 - could not afford to.
But now we save everything we can - so that we can help our kids buy houses as they will never be able to manage it on their own.

@emilychambers79 yup! And that’s why I can’t really get my head around people telling me I should be arranging my pension. I don’t earn enough to trigger automatic repayment of my student loan so am just letting that tick over. 3 per cent of my monthly income is £47. Whilst I appreciate that we’re currently saving £400 for other purposes, I do question where I’d be wise to take money from in order to support retirement. We really need to start putting aside an extra £70: I currently pay 1% plus match, boyfriend as self employed has nothing. But where do we take it from? We need to raise a couple of grand for fascia and soffits, which will take us a year or so. That defers the sofa a little. And this is a budget without childcare costs in it... I don’t think it’s a good idea to coast on savings for car as we own an older second hand vehicle. Not sensible to be without emergency fund, etc etc

It’s not ideal but saving at the recommended rate for retirement feels completely beyond our means. We live cheaply, but to meet what we should be saving we’d have to compromise security of emergency funds etc which also doesn’t seem prudent

About £500/600 a month but I have a good salary of 30K and no kids! To be fair, I am saving so that I can have kids and not be vulnerable 😀

From my main salary - nothing. I work 3 days a week and once I've paid my contribution of mortgage, bills, stuff for kids and have a bit left over for my day to day needs there's nothing left.
However I have a second freelance job which can earn anything between 150-400 pounds a month. This goes into savings which usually get blown on a family holiday once a year.
DH puts aside 2-300 pounds of his salary per month and we have a 'don't touch' pot of 10k which was inheritance- this is for unplanned expenses such as boiler/car repairs

Pension 7.4% (employer 16.5%) + DH pays 8% (employer 8% - his previous employer was 10%/10% not sure about one previous to that). Our pension pots are now (mid-late forties) by far our biggest asset and DH's is growing faster than we can earn money at the moment (started it at 18).

DC £100/mth since birth - which was the max for the CTF at the time. Didn't increase when max increased. I definitely wouldn't pay this over a pension or my own personal savings - it may well prove to be a mistake - we will put financial incentives in place for them to reinvest when 18. I've considered stopping it a few times.

Beyond that it is difficult to quantify really. As a regular percentage fairly low but bonuses are always saved now (previously used to pay down mortgage or for home improvements) which is approx. 20% of our income.

We have savings but to be honest we’ve cut right back. Mainly because of declining health (Me 48, DH 53). There’s only one income between us now so we don’t “save” as much.

Instead we spend We’ve lost a fair few loved ones lately and decided that we’d rather “live” well now so we travel whenever we can and don’t skimp.

DS will still be well provided for.