How much do you save?

[Kaya1990]

As in the subject. How much can you put away every month? Combined if living with partner. Rent/mortgage, bills, salary, other expenses and financial story no need to be included.

My DH and I about 400-500 per month.

4-5k a month.

£1,200 a month.

The £200 is historic left over from a car loan that was paid from the joint account into mine, we got used to living without it, so continued it.

Enough.
I have a general savings account, Christmas and birthday account and a holiday account.

£500 into long term savings, £400 towards flat fund, £185 towards yearly expenses so things like car insurance etc.

Hardly anything! But we currently pay over £1200 a month on childcare, once that stops we will be able to save again. Just clinging on until then!

Try to save at least £200-£400 a month.

£100 a month

If you include my pensions, I'm putting away about £900 a month

About £550 a month in accessible savings and £900 a month into pension. I've also got a bank account for sinking funds where I keep money aside for things like annual insurances and Christmas.

Got a new job recently and able to do more now. £100 for DD, £150 for Christmas, £200 general stuff and £250 holiday fund. So £700. Before that nothing, my pay rise was £700 net 😅 we pay nursery fees of over £700 a month, mortgage is £1150 etc. my car finance will be up in November which will be £350 and hopefully cover our fixed energy tariff ending.

I work in public sector, you're either in or out of pension. My contribution is £583 and my student loan is £278

@Kaya1990

Do you actually save all year for Christmas? Is it to cover the gifts or overall cost of Xmass? Like the idea. Gotta do the same next year after we pay off the debts!

I don't really count money put aside for Christmas (or holidays, car repairs or similar) as 'savings' because it's money you know will be spent in the next few months.

I'd say 'savings' are more money that is put aside with no purpose, mainly for retirement or to cover loss of income or similar.

But everyone is different with different amounts of spare money, priorities, life stages, income stability etc. Saving £4-500 pm could be really good if you don't have a large income and have high fixed costs because you've recently bought and are paying childcare.

Or it could be appalling because you're a high earner, have little in the way of fixed essential outgoings and you spend thousands a month on non essentials.

But I would question the wisdom of saving when you have debts. Unless the debt is interest free, you'd almost certainly be best throwing everything at the debt, and only keeping a modest emergency fund, say £1000. You can save more when you've paid off the debt.

When we used to be in cheaper rental accommodation we used to save £1400 a month for our house deposit and £100 into DS’s savings. Now we’ve moved we can save 700-800, plus DS’s savings, during a a good month as energy bills have just gone up massively but thankfully we have no other debt that the mortgage.

@BarbaraofSeville oh yeah we got the money from the best bank of all! Bank of mom and dad ;-)
All makes sense.

Married to DH, own our house (with mortgage), two young DDs. We usually save around £600 a month. This will hopefully increase when DD2 finishes nursery, all being well with our jobs. Our current savings are made up of:

£300 into a standard savings account that we use to fund holidays and Christmas.

£100 into my Stocks and Shares ISA earmarked for extra savings for retirement.

£100 into DH's Stocks and Shares ISA earmarked to help our DDs with house deposits (they're 5 and 2 so a long way off!)

£100 extra as a mortgage overpayment

If we have any extra left over at the end of the month we decide where to direct that money. Some months we'll make a larger mortgage overpayment, or if we know we're going to have the car insurance bill coming up we'll keep in cash savings, usually we split any extra between our savings pots.

Zero because have DC in university we are supporting.

About 30% of salary between pension contributions, savings, investments and work Christmas savings club.

How on Earth do people save so much? We are on a higher than average income but after mortgage, bills, food, childcare & any other ad hoc costs eg car we often save nothing. Especially now cost of living is so much higher. I have a tight budget and we are careful.

I can’t imagine saving £1000! Well done to those working extra shifts etc to do this, it’s really impressive.

Just under half our combined salary, normally averages out at about 3k a month.

@Thedogshow

How on Earth do people save so much? We are on a higher than average income but after mortgage, bills, food, childcare & any other ad hoc costs eg car we often save nothing. Especially now cost of living is so much higher. I have a tight budget and we are careful.

I can’t imagine saving £1000! Well done to those working extra shifts etc to do this, it’s really impressive.

We sound in a similar position to you but a few years ahead. We have four children and after years of paying them we no longer pay any childcare costs aside from school holidays. This means we can actually save! We try to save £650 a month towards annual abroad holiday, Christmas and birthdays. Then another £850 a month towards our savings pot which is used to do our house up and we also need a new car next year. When we were paying childcare we could only really save for things like Christmas. I'm hoping once the house is all sorted we can get to a point where we aren't touching our savings

How on Earth do people save so much? We are on a higher than average income but after mortgage, bills, food, childcare & any other ad hoc costs eg car we often save nothing. Especially now cost of living is so much higher. I have a tight budget and we are careful.

Like with anything there's a load of factors involved- how much you earn, where you live, how many children etc. We made a lot of compromises on the house we bought so we could secure a mortgage way below what we could borrow- we didn't want to max ourselves out in case one of us in the future lost a job or we split or whatever. We have one child so childcare is not too bad, and both earn a reasonable amount. Obviously people who only earn enough to pay the bills etc can't magically save money they don't have!

We have long term and short term savings.

I've set up a startling account with the saving spaces.

So we put £1300 a month in there for things like Christmas/holidays/kids clubs etc. We then have a slush fund which we use for different things.

Then £1000 a month into long-term savings that we don't touch.

Right now about 2-3k. But now I'm on maternity leave and unsure what I'm doing next! Either SAHM or go back part-time, so definitely won't be saving as much! It was great while it lasted.

@Thedogshow

How on Earth do people save so much? We are on a higher than average income but after mortgage, bills, food, childcare & any other ad hoc costs eg car we often save nothing. Especially now cost of living is so much higher. I have a tight budget and we are careful.

I can’t imagine saving £1000! Well done to those working extra shifts etc to do this, it’s really impressive.

Do you have a high mortgage? We only pay £278 as we've overpaid so much in the past - trying to get rid as fast as we can! Our first child has only just come along so no high childcare fees yet. Only one car between us (DH and I work at the same place so we only need 1). So very low outgoings here allows us to save 2-3k a month. Soon be changing now I've had a baby though.

So yes, we have high childcare costs and a mortgage on a 3 bed detached house that will hopefully last us for many years. 3 children. I would imagine that less people are able to save with several young children and the various costs that go along with this.

It’s all choices. We are happy in our life but don’t have much opportunity to save at present. Paying into our pension, plus a sinking fund for bigger costs and Christmas. V small amount into an ISA. Hopefully more one day!