What helped you start saving?

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Any tips.. I'm bad at saving and want to start putting whatever I can aside. Bad habits are mostly clothes for myself and the kids that are always extra. Not much issues around food shops etc.
anything you find helpful when starting to save??

I started using a savings app plum it helped me to start with then as I saw the amount go up or encouraged me

Paying myself first. On payday I move a certain amount into savings/investments immediately and it's non-negotiable.

Top tips:

• Save first (set aside/divert money to savings account as soon as you get paid, not when you’ve paid all your bills / whatever is at end of the month (spoiler: there’s never much or anything left)
• Budget. Learn to budget properly, stick to it and you’ll feel like you’ve had a mini payrise
• Live within your means (spend less than you earn — every month)
• Know your TRUE expenses—people get blindsided/surprised when the insurance is due, holiday payment, kids’ school shoes; birthdays, car tax etc. but the truth is these are not unexpected at all - they all need to be divided by 12 and go into your monthly budget so when the insurance is due — boom. Money is all in the pot ready
• use a banking app like Monzo that has savings ‘pots’ you can stash your budgeted money in safely

Well done for thinking about this stuff — you can do it!

Set up a standing order so that on pay day money moves into your savings account . Make sure it's a realistic amount , you will eventually forget about it .

Getting a help to save account has helped me( only available if you work and get UC or tax credits) the incentive of the bonuses has helped me. It’s only for 4 years( a 50% bonus after 2 then another bonus at the end) the max you can save is £50 a month but it’s stayed in the account and I now have £1300 saved. By the end I will have £2400 and another £600 bonus 🙂

That £50 per month is part of my budget now so I hope at the end of the 4 years I will carry on

Transfer some money straight into a savings account and some into an isa.
Have a month where you buy no clothes and nothing extra that isn't needed.
See how you get on then do it again the following month.
Don't have a boring life though. Still go out but find free things to do, find vouchers on groupon/wowcher, dig out games, toys and crafts that have been unused ina while.

Game changer for me was switching from a savings account to cash. Every month I would transfer a set amount to the savings account, but then the dog would need grooming or it was a birthday or sainsburys was having a sale. Bank transfers are just too easy these days.
So I bought a little box with a key. When I get paid I calculate bills, shoppings, any outgoing necessities, and then immediately withdraw savings amount. It's been a life saver. You forget the money is there because who uses cash these days? And you can't just contactless or transfer willy nilly!

This. I always waited to see how much l had left to put something into savings. Now savings is the first standing order each month. Its makes such a difference as l budget better when my balance is close to the wire as no room for impulsive spending. Also less stress as l have good savings if an emergency arises but l am slow to touch my savings unless really essential.

Make sure both of you make maximum pension contributions. In addition, have a monthly standing order to fund a stocks & shares ISA. Something simple and safe, such as Vanguard trackers.

Stop buying stuff. You only need enough clothes to not run out of between washes. The only clothes and shoes you buy are to replace things the kids have grown out of, or socks and underwear that no longer pass the being run over by a bus test.

A friend of mine saved herself a small fortune by doing house swaps instead of conventional holidays.

I used to be really rubbish also. Best things that helped for me were

• writing down everything I spent in a month, including any direct debits. I was shocked when I saw where my money actually went and had been vastly underestimating what I'd been spending. YNAB is good, I used their free trial.

• for any online shopping, putting everything I wanted in my basket and then rather than buying it, just leaving it there for a few days. Often I couldn't remember everything in my basket, or found i didn't really still want it later. So didn't buy it.

• being organised on lunches, snacks treats etc. Like I often would forget to take water and buy a bottle out (wasteful for environment too) or buy a lunch every day at work for £6-£8 because I couldn't be bothered to pack one. Now I take my lunch and water, and save up the money. But also I'll have one nice lunch or takeaway every week or two and appreciate it more.

• motivation - learning about stocks and shares and playing about with compound interest calculators to see what various returns could be earned from saving different amounts. Easiest way is to open something like a Nutmeg to start off with.

I just have plum.
It rounds up to the pound any spends and it takes a set amount each month into it.
I don’t notice it but get regular updates on how much is in it.
It’s my holiday fund. Soon builds up, dead easy.

I did it by percentages. So, I started off by putting 5% each payday into a savings account. After a year I increased this to 10% and carried on increasing the percentage year on year in baby steps. This was helped by pay rises and increased earnings - I do realise that for a lot of people life is really hard at the moment so even starting on 1% would be better than nothing. It's all about priorities and I've realised that the ability to save really isn't about what you earn but about what you spend.

Pay yourself first.
AND, put half of any payrise onto the savings standing order as soon as you get it (maybe not this year!).

Set up standing orders from Your current account to a saving account. Set it for a date a few days after pay day.

This way you don't have to actively do anything. It will happen automatically.

Start with a small amount and increase it gradually. The best time to increase is if you get a pay rise, as then you won't notice it.

Having enough money to save. It sounds simple to do all of the things already mentioned, but if you are on a low income then sometimes there just isn't enough spare.

I set a budget. I have myself a monthly allowance for clothes for me and DD's and it goes in one of my savings pots. It means anything I buy comes out of that (transfer money back to main bank account) I then keep a track of how much I am spending, tbh it usually sits as negative as I also spend too much but this month if I can not buy any it will go back into a positive balance!

And think of every single annual expenses and put 1/12 away monthly - you should then never have any unexpected months.
Other than an appliance breakdown for example and I put some away for that as well every month.

Online banking and a separate account for savings has really helped me. The minute I get paid into my current account, I transfer X amount over to savings. I just treat it like a bill.

I don’t really buy anything unnecessary for myself or the kids.

Obviously this is only possible if you have enough money in the first place

Similar to others I have a spreadsheet with all budgets on and then when i get paid i can transfer any extra over.
Also i have set up on natwest that it round up any spend to the £ and transfers the difference to a savings account.

Lots of good tips already.
I would add:

• It's good to put away pots of money as pp have suggested for various things like birthday/christmas/holidays etc as this will help you avoid going into debt. However don't fall into the trap of thinking these are 'savings' - they're not really, as you know you will spend them at some point in the year. It's the first step in starting to save but not the last. Check out the UK personal finance flowchart.

• a couple of people have mentioned ISAs - these are no longer the best way to save for most people now because the main purpose of them is to avoid paying tax on interest paid, but you can earn £1k in savings per year tax-free in any savings account, which at current interest rates means you'd need to have about £40k in savings before tax starting to worry about tax. ISA rates are also generally poorer than standard 'regular savings' interest rates. So if your aim is to save monthly then you'd be better off looking at the MSE website to check which accounts are currently giving the best interest rates - I've got a regular saver with First Direct which pays 7% and allows you to save up to £300 per month and a digital saver with Natwest that pays around 6% and you can pay in £150 per month.

I was referring to stocks & shares ISAs @Coffeecoffeeinmytummy - ie long term savings that over time are much more likely to increase in value than any cash savings accounts.

But pension contributions should, for most people, come before S&S ISAs

Totally agree about putting separate money into liquid savings to meet annual expenditures like car service, holidays, birthdays etc, ie anything that cannot be set up as a direct debit.

There are some brilliant posts on this thread OP.

I've paid into work pension for many years
I pay my bills
I pay money into a variety of savings every month

This month I won on Premium Bonds ! (Not a huge prize)

I opened a savings account when I had a small lottery win which I wanted to put towards something, rather than leaving it in my current account to get swallowed up by bills. Then I started putting any left over money in there the day before payday. Then, I started paying any extra money in there - birthday and Christmas gifts. About a year ago, work changed the day we get paid, so now, on payday I transfer the whole lot into the savings account and on my old playdate, I transfer back just enough to cover my bills for the month. It's amazing how easy it is not to buy 'stuff' when it means making extra transfers of funds to cover the cost. My bank also does a thii allied roundups, where any payment from my current account that is not in whole pounds, gets rounded up and the extra pennies go into the savings account. My savings grew by several hundred pounds during lockdown as I wasn't spending on petrol, hairdressers etc and I have managed to cut a lot of unnecessary spending. I do appreciate I am lucky to have anything spare, but have been surprised how much small amounts can grow.

Very basically what helped me first was using those tins you can't get into it like a can opener.
And putting little bits in each week /month.

Working out all the bills then seeing what's left and putting each penny somewhere.
Eg to tins, children expenses pot, holiday, Xmas.
Allocated some to myself, not much unfortunately.
But that's what helped.