Normal savings for 30-40yo?

[Daffodils234]

I was having a discussion with some friends about savings. A few people said that now we have all had our weddings / got young children / bought houses or in rentals / have careers etc, so, "technically" we should all have a fair amount of savings. The others were in agreement, that £20k+ was the normal cash value to have in savings.

My question is, what would you class as a "normal" amount of savings for a 30-40yo? I mean, I own a decent car outright, I have an OK house in an OK area (still have 30 years left on the mortgage) and DC to clothe and feed, but I would say I have quite paltry rainy day savings. We don't splurge but if something suddenly cropped up, I would be able to pay X amount from savings if I had to.

I'm 38. Got married last year and have 2 young children. We bought our house 5 years ago and have 30 years left on the mortgage. All of this means the last 5 years have been expensive! I've got enough left over to pay for emergency repairs and we don't need to watch every penny, but I'm a long way off 20 grand I'm savings! Maybe in another 5 years once the childcare bill has reduced a bit!

I am 35, have just shy of 18k savings some in long term investments and others my rainy day fund. I jointly own a house with a LTV of around 70% so some more money there. I would save more buy having a toddler in full time nursery is currently more expensive than my mortgage!!

It will depend on your circumstances and stage in life I guess.

I am in my mid forties and this next ten years will be the most expensive so although we do have savings we are spending almost all of our earned income.

However we have expected this and planned for it.

We have above average savings as we have made a lot of money when we were younger and didn't spend it, to answer your question.

I have never had savings, and I will be sixty this year.

Hardly anything, over the past 7 years as soon as we have had a decent amount it gets spent on things like a new boiler/bathroom/maternity leave then we start again to fund the next thing and don't see that changing anytime soon as we need windows and rewiring done.

Mid 30s, single parent with 1 teen DD I have £4000 in a Lisa accessible after retirement and another £2000 in more accessible regular savers but I also owe £35k to my parents and personal loans for bathroom and kitchen renovations. Although own my home and car outright.

So I think like everything it massively differs to life stage, marital status as well as where you live. On my road I am probably one of the higher earners and only on a salary of £30k whereas in London the price I paid for my home wouldn't even get you a parking space and generally life here is cheaper so I don't need as big a rainy day fund as my outgoings are less.

I'm 38 and at the moment have around £10k, will be fling at our mortgage just before we move to a new more expensive deal shortly

I'm 30 this year, own house with mortgage. I have about 6k personal savings, and can add 600 ish a month without cutting back.

DP far exceeds this but he's on good wage and our savings are separate.

I'd say we are in the sweet spot where i have a few promotions under my belt, 2 income so split costs, no kids yet so low outgoings.

I appreciate this won't likely last so I'm making hay whilst the sun shines! I'd like to get to 20K by 32-33 ish, when ideally we'd start thinking about children, but who knows what the future brings.

37 and less than £1k which is undone by debts. I don't think Mumsnet is an average representation. I suspect more people have debts than 'rainy day savings'. I have 15 years left on mortgage though, so hope to accrue savings later.

Both around 40, no kids. We did have close to £90k but they went on a house deposit a couple of years back. We’re now building back up and saving for some work on the house, have approx £20k between us I think but that will double soon when we receive a small inheritance from a relative.

There is no normal. Some will be massively in debt, some will have huge savings and investments.

At 30 I was virtually bankrupt, at 40 I'd turned things around a lot and was was debt free with savings. At 50 I'm mortgage free with investments but that's on a modest house that many on Mumsnet would consider insufficient in both size and location.

Comparing yourself with others is pointless as everyone has different circumstances and priorities. You just have to do what suits you and your aims in life.

We have 10k in what I would consider proper savings, then a pot for DS which I won't touch around £7k in there so far, then a rainy day pot which fluctuates, it had gone up to around 9k , but we've had car repairs, had to pay a few hundred to get next door's trees cut back because they were so overgrown they were damaging our shed, had a holiday that incurred some additional expenses, and the washing machine broke down, so it's down to around 6k now.
We're late thirties. Having said that our mortgage is up for renewal in six months and that will limit our ability to save each month

If you want to know about the population as a whole, instead of doing the online equivalent of going into Waitrose and asking the women with the nicest coats on have a look at

https://www.money.co.uk/savings-accounts/savings-statistics

Which says that just over a third of people have no or minimal savings.

everyone's circumstances are too different to try and establish an average. Even on an individual level, the day before your house purchase goes through you could technically have savings of £50k, the next day you have no savings, but (/a percentage of) a house! Replace with car/wedding/boiler, etc. Or you could have no savings today but tomorrow someone passes away and leaves you an inheritance, great but you'd feel much richer if they were still with you. Why stress about what others have got?

Nearly 40 but married early 20s and had children earlier ( 3DC ) we do have a low six figure investment portfolio, pooled together by a mix of savings and inheritance, but since paying off the mortgage last year we have focused on pensions and the childrens savings, our eldest will be at uni in a few years.

There is no normal. Some people are so poor they’ll never have savings, never get out of debt.

I'm 34. I've just over 6k but I paid off my mortgage in January. I put £1000 a month into savings.

Thanks all - it's all very interesting to see different view points! Totally agree it's all on an individual basis. For me, I think it's the security of having something to fall back on (I mean, it wouldn't make an overly soft landing as my savings are less than £10k!). But, as many people have pointed out here, it's looking at the whole picture - I have a mortgage, but I don't have private school fees to pay for, whereas someone else would have no mortgage but several school fees.

I am 30 and we have basically no savings at the minute, in the past 5 years we’ve had a baby, got married and bought our first house, am now due my second in a week! We have managed to save up for all of those things without getting into debt (aside from mortgage) so think we are doing ok on that front but haven’t managed to save extra for a rainy day. Hopefully when I am back at work after number 2 we will build up more of a savings pot.

I do also currently pay extra into my workplace pension which I suppose is a form of savings too

So many variables, trying to find 'normal' is going to be difficult unless you narrow down your circumstances.

Also many of those with savings may be asset poor, or have no pension. Vice-versa with other probably having money tied up in property, no real savings but a huge pension pot.

I find it more scary the amount of people i speak to 35-45 who have no pension.

I’m 35 with two young DC and like pps said the last 5 years have been expensive. We bought our first house at 30, first May leave at 31, moved again at 32 and did a big renovation, mat leave again at 33 and we have just bought a new (to us) car outright. Starting to build the savings back up again but I’m going on Mat leave again in January so they will be spent on that. However I do have £10k in an ISA that I try to never touch and I did lock away about £4K in a (terrible) fixed interest account until next year. I will always try to keep £10k minimum as an emergency fund and if we had to dip into it then rebuilding it would be my first priority. We are lucky to be able to save a bit while paying childcare fees. When our mortgage increases in 2025 I doubt we’ll be able to save anything.

Me and partner are in mid twenties.

20 years left on mortgage, around 40k in savings/investments between us

Getting on the property ladder early, not having kids and prioritising saving has put us in a fortunate position. We won't be having kids & planning to keep investing and retire when mortgage is paid off when we're 47, or go part time/start own business etc.

We drive an old small car , don't care much about stuff. Our disposable income is saved or spent on travel.

I’m just about to turn 30, I had £25k in savings in 2021, put most of that down to buy a house and left myself a £5k buffer. Then the CoL crisis happened and I had to dip in to supplement my wages every month until I got a promotion which topped me up about £200 a month, plus working extra shifts every weekend to earn extra. I’m just about recovering my savings now with the money I earn from overtime and have a princely £2k in there 🥴

What is the point of asking this?

Some (probably most) 30-40 year old will have £0 in savings. Others, Lewis Hamilton for example, will have billions.

The answers already on this thread (as BarbaraofSeville has pointed out) are in no way representative.