Struggling to save 3-6 months salary - how did you do it?

[Lovinglife45]

Despite having a decent household income (not high earners though), we have never been able to save 3 to 6 months salary. Whatever goes into the savings account is soon wiped out by emergencies, helping both parents who are struggling financially and other costs.

We have a monthly personal allowance of £120 each which covers clothes, socialising, hair and beauty. Not nearly enough!

I polish my own nails, dye my own hair, buy shaving kits, pluck my own eyebrows. I do not buy magazines, food or drink on the go lunch at work. I rarely spend more than £30 on a pair of shoes or item of clothing. I buy non-leather shoes and only shop in sales.

Our dc attend one extra curriculum activity each.

We are constantly buying dc new clothes, shoes as they have growth spurts.

I use an Excel budget sheet and update monthly.

I stay awake most nights worrying about our lack of savings. I am also on anti-depressants for increased anxiety.

@Lovinglife45 , my savings come from working extra shifts. Seems a bit contra intuitive, but having been in the position where we were living on the overdraft, any biggish expense throwing us back into red etc, I decided to ditch the spending machine called ExH and made saving a priority for a few years. So I worked every single weekend an extra 12 h.
The other thing I did was get a 0% interest credit card for purchases. I needed furniture, a Hoover, dishwasher, washing machine, I had savings, but instead of using them, I paid back the 0% card over 3 years, making my own instalments. Again, by doing extra shifts. So the savings remained untouched.
I appreciate not everyone can pick up extra shifts and people might actually want a life, but I went in with a clear goal and knowing it’s not forever.
I’m still doing an extra shift here and there, but I put the money towards a holiday, or, knowing the car service is coming up, I’ll do a shift the month before to pay for it.

Can you give more details on your parents situation as you're being very vague. Are they homeowners or do they rent? What (if any) benefits are the claiming? Do they have a car? Do they have unnecessary things like Sky? Are they bad with money or are they really living on a shoestring?

If so, I can totally understand why you want to help them, but I'd want a complete breakdown of income/expenditure before I continued giving them financial handouts

They are not homeowners.
One has debt.
They only have a state pension and struggle to pay utility bills and buy food.
They do not drive.
They do not have subscriptions to Sky, Netflix etc.

Have they gone to the debt charities for help to negotiate repayments/loan right off?

Stop spending £240 every month on non essentials.

"This covers clothes, shoes, any form of socialising, hair, beauty."

How many bloody shoes do you buy a month? 1 pair a year is fine.
Clothes, again...how many are actually NEEDED rather than wanted for two grown adults?
Shop at charity shops for clothes for all of you.

I'll bet you can save money elsewhere too... TV/internet packages, phones bundles, walking etc

@Lovinglife45

Perhaps I am going by the posts I read on mn. People with one year's salary in savings, people who have received inheritances, people who can afford detached houses, save and go on 5 star holidays, people whose parents pay for their children's private fees/ give them deposits for houses.

Though I enjoy the conversations on mn, I find it hard not to feel like the poor relation.

Mumsnet is far from representative of the population at large when it comes to money. If you're on an average income, comparing yourself to others on here never ends well as it's the virtual equivalent of walking into Waitrose and finding out how much money the women with the nicest coats have.

If your parents have debt and have no assets, they can get help to get it written off or enter into a payment plan if they do not have sufficient money to cover the basics.

If they only have a state pension it is very likely that they are entitled to benefits, so why are they not claiming and instead struggling, getting into debt, and taking money from you that you can't afford?

If you want to help them, help them get debt advice, help them do a benefit check and make an application, then you can stop giving them money you don't have.

How many bloody shoes do you buy a month? 1 pair a year is fine

Why do people keep saying things like this, it makes no sense. Just because the OP has allocated £120 pm for personal non essential spending, it doesn't mean that she's buying shoes every month, or clothes, or anything else. It's just a line in her budget. Sometimes it goes on shoes, sometimes on hair, sometimes on make up.

It's not even like £120 pm is a fortune. It's less than £30 a week and she'd spend that if she bought lunch at work, had a coffee, modest family day out at the weekend, met a friend for lunch, that sort of thing. Most adults, apart from those with the lowest disposable incomes, are probably able to spend more than £120 pm on personal non essentials.

@BarbaraofSeville but the op has not been very clear how this money is allocated . She wrote "We have a monthly personal allowance of £120 each which covers clothes, socialising, hair and beauty. Not nearly enough!
I polish my own nails, dye my own hair, buy shaving kits, pluck my own eyebrows. I do not buy magazines, food or drink on the go lunch at work. I rarely spend more than £30 on a pair of shoes or item of clothing. I buy non-leather shoes and only shop in sales."
She does her own beauty upkeep,no food on the go and buys clothes on sale spending no more than £30 per item.So we are left to presume that this money is mainly spent on socialising. If she wants to plump up her family saving account the first thing to go should be the £240 that has been allocated for discretionary spending.It is clear that they can't afford it. Also,children don't have constant growth spurs so it looks like they are overspending on clothes too. It would be helpful if she could post a breakdown of the family expenses as the post as it stands is unclear .

So I'll tell you how we did it, we have four months saved now but I also save up for Xmas and holidays this way. So I pretty much did a no

Spend year for two years. I asked for kids clothes on my local Facebook group and mostly people just gave it for free or low price. I got clothes from charity shops if I needed some, just bought shoes new if I couldn't find anything. Batch cooked for dinners for a whole month and then lunches every week in one go. Swapped to lidl. Bought three big boxes of washing powder and softener from B&M every time we go. We don't buy the kids toys or anything cause I'm lucky that my parents get them a gift and my brother and sister get something as well. We get books from the library and I spend maybe £10-15 a month on art and craft stuff for them.
Mainly don't buy anything new, ask for second hand stuff and bulk buy food and cleaning products. I don't pay for after school activities atm, we just take them to the park or we have an rspb membership for £6 a month and they love that. Or we have a swimming pool at a leisure club. So we just prioritise a couple of things to pay for. I wasn't perfect, like we got my eldest a chrome book and got a trampoline this year but we had money to do that.

They genuinely need support due to silly decisions made in their earlier life.

Silly decisions like handing money over to their parents rather than securing their own financial future you mean?

How do I save ?

Work pension is taken out if wages automatically

I then pay X amount of money into a savings account every month eg regular savings, premium bonds etc

I live off the remaining money
Shop at charity shops
Yellow sticker food or food waste apps like Olio or Too Good To Go
Pay off credit card every month
Hunt around for deals

@BarbaraofSeville

How many bloody shoes do you buy a month? 1 pair a year is fine

Why do people keep saying things like this, it makes no sense. Just because the OP has allocated £120 pm for personal non essential spending, it doesn't mean that she's buying shoes every month, or clothes, or anything else. It's just a line in her budget. Sometimes it goes on shoes, sometimes on hair, sometimes on make up.

It's not even like £120 pm is a fortune. It's less than £30 a week and she'd spend that if she bought lunch at work, had a coffee, modest family day out at the weekend, met a friend for lunch, that sort of thing. Most adults, apart from those with the lowest disposable incomes, are probably able to spend more than £120 pm on personal non essentials.

But that's the point... Yes she has £120 ok average a month. But she's sitting there going "wahhh, I can't savee"

In your example of spending... You can easily cut the spending. Don't buy lunch at work, save yourself £3-5+ a day, have a coffee once of a weekend instead of every morning, save yourself £10+ a week etc

Do you actually just buy what you need?

What about the parents, do they buy essentials only or do they carry on and buy the nice food that they like, and the new clothes/trips out they would like rather than having their budget and doing without because they can't afford it?

They either rent a house above the local council rate for its size/what they are entitled to or it's chronically badly insulated so they are burning £ in heating bills.

Something doesn't add up because they rent so are entitled for pensions credit for rent, council tax etc. there is so much help for those in debt with that level of income. So something somewhere isn't making sense.

My DC had pretty much everything 2nd hand apart from shoes and knickers but even they were passed down between them, bought when on offer. Same with toys and gifts. They were so cheap in the early years.

Minimal hair cuts and never in a hair salon, never ate out etc etc.