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.

15% of both salaries into pensions.
£500 into a S&S ISA
Anywhere between £0-1500 into cash savings depending on what’s going on that month
£25 into each child’s ISA (GP also saves £50 each for them monthly)

Coming to the end of expensive childcare years so it’s gone up recently. We have a combined income of about £125k so I feel like we should be able to save more but that’s what we’re currently managing.

Am making a concerted effort to keep the cash savings at the higher end of that range as we recently rinsed our savings on an extension and they need building back up again.

350 minimum in my personal savings
Then a joint account taking the surplus left from our buy to let but this varies.

2k a month. We have a very small mortgage left on our house which helps.

Jealous.

My rent and bills take most of my monthly salary, then I have three kids to feed.

This thread has made me think we are definitely not saving enough. Our childcare plus mortgage is £3k and then we have bills on top of that. We do save though but it's more for general stuff eg. we need a new washing machine plus holiday savings account.

We are not saving for the long term

£300 my pension
£500 DH pension
£150 ISAs (long term savings with no particular purpose)
£20 DD Trust Fund
£100 Christmas
£100 for when we have to replace the car
£800ish for general savings that gets used for holidays and home improvements

@DollyPartBaked

This thread has made me think we are definitely not saving enough. Our childcare plus mortgage is £3k and then we have bills on top of that. We do save though but it's more for general stuff eg. we need a new washing machine plus holiday savings account.

We are not saving for the long term

But how much is your income?

Unless you're high earners, you won't have much spare money as you'll need £4k to just cover mortgage, childcare, bills and food, plus obviously you'll have cars/day to day travel to pay for and might even want to do something nice like a day out, so you can't save what you don't have.

Other people who are saving thousands will have much lower outgoings or much higher incomes. You can't necessarily conclude that you're 'not saving enough' if you don't have the spare money to save.

£300 into savings but I also put a monthly amount towards irregular expenses in my budget (MOT, tax, glasses, dentist, gifts etc). I use the budgeting app YNAB so it all stays in my current account but it's been allocated to categories in the budget and isn't there for spending.

Last year I did well, but then had to spend all my savings on an unexpected expense. This year I am struggling to put £100 a month away, and once I've done my tax return, and know what I'm going to have to pay each month to pay that off, my saving position will be worse still.

To be fair, I have spent a bit more this year on things for the house and for myself (after a 3 year drought). Also, I will have cleared a debt by October, and my expenses in other areas will drop too. So I should be able to go back to saving at least 10% of post-tax income each month. But even then, I shall only be working my way back to building up a cash safety net. I won't be contributing to my ISA, or overpaying the mortgage. Ideally, I'd like to be saving 20% post-tax, splitting it across cash and longer-term investments. But I can't see myself being in that position for a good while, not until DS leaves university and I can stop paying his rent.

So only 6/10 for me, OP!

This thread and threads like it are horrible.

It's just wealthy people congratulating themselves for having spare money, and framing it as a moral virtue.

Can you give examples @moofolk?

I’ve just read the thread back, and my take is that it’s quite supportive as far as these threads go. People offering advice (ie using YNAB) or just generally hand holding where people aren’t in a position to save as much, due to expensive childcare etc.

I don’t see a problem in people saying that there’s a light at the end of the tunnel for people who are in the thick of expensive nursery years.

@moofolk

This thread and threads like it are horrible.

It's just wealthy people congratulating themselves for having spare money, and framing it as a moral virtue.

It’s really not.

A lot of people are interested in reading about, and learn a lot from, how other people manage their finances.

You seem to have a massive chip on your shoulder for some reason - maybe read the thread title amend move along?

About £400 a month. Some goes into our emergency house fund, rest is split between Xmas and holiday pots.

@moofolk

This thread and threads like it are horrible.

It's just wealthy people congratulating themselves for having spare money, and framing it as a moral virtue.

I disagree. A few years ago I had debts and no savings. Threads like this really helped me. I felt stuck and couldn’t see a way to change it but got really good advice.

It doesn’t say anywhere that only those that are struggling can create a post but so many posters get their knickers in a twist when they can’t relate to a post for whatever reason.

My DH had virtually no savings our whole marriage (26 years), it’s only been since out DC finished university that we’ve been able to save. For a few years our mortgage was over half of our income.

@moofolk it's really not, I'm a single parent on less than £25k, it's through a thread like this I found out about the Government's Help to Save scheme for people on a low income and LISAs, both of which I use now and opened when I was on around £12k + tax credits, sometimes I only save £1 or so a week in my LISA but its flexible and I can do that on the app.