Am I saving too much?

[Pensionpot123]

Hi all,
I'm always a bit concerned that I don't splash out - I am very frugal....am I too frugal?

Household income ~£100k in West Scotland. Wife and I are mid 30's.
One DC - 6 months.
Value of house - £600k, mortgage £200k with £50k savings. Plan to pay mortgage off in 10 years.

At the moment our pension is looking to be approx £76k/yr combined exc. state pension.
Long term plan would be to downsize on retirement to house maximum half the value of current home (if nothing changes, profit £300k from sale).

Should I be spending more? Am I leaving myself too much for later life?

At the moment we -
Don't eat out
Go on 2 good holidays a year (Florida, cruise, New York etc)
Don't do hotel breaks
Get a takeaway every ~3 months
Change car every 2-3 years to a new-ish budget car (Ibiza, Fabia, Clio etc)
Keep all other outgoings to a real minimum

Any opinions or serious advice about pension is welcome!
Realise there may be people who earn a huge amount more or have a much bigger pension pot.

Strange thread. Presumably you can't reduce the amount you are putting in pension so the only lever here is when you retire.

Separately- you have a 6 month old. What's your childcare plans? Holidays will get more expensive too. Perhaps wait a bit before you upgrade that Clio to a Porsche. But in the meantime- take your family out to dinner. Enjoy your life.

I don't need mortgage statements, I just don't understand how you managed to make huge overpayments & amass 50k in savings when your salary isn't that high & was lower until recently. Which is pretty much what I said in my first post.

It really hasn't 😂😂 honestly can't believe it.
"You don't earn £49k" - ok here's a link to the public salary page
"You couldn't have that as a deposit" - em ok, not sure what you want me to do to prove I'm not lying 😂😂.

Anyway - thank you for trying to get it back on track
What I wanted to know was - how much do I need for a decent Scottish retirement (realise certain places down south live in a slightly different financial climate), am I saving too much when I could be spending more now and still having plenty for retirement 😂.

That was it.
Thank you!

You couldn't have that as a deposit" - em ok, not sure what you want me to do to prove I'm not lying

You had the initial deposit because you lived at home presumably rent free which as I said isn't just therefore down to "sacrifice" as you claimed....

I had help getting on the ladder too, no shame in that but without it I wouldn't be where I am now regardless of how much sacrifice I made.

Go out to eat & see if you want to do more of that?

Maybe it's just me (and this is not me telling others how to live, I was actually looking for the opposite 😂) but I genuinely think people have huge outgoings. I know friends that spend >£150 a month on their TV and broadband subscriptions, £50 on phone, £500 per month on their car. Only my opinion but I think when it's all added up it's a surprising amount.

To put into context, I've currently got £50k in savings/ISA's earning ~6%. That's £250 a month interest I'm earning....pays my utilities and petrol pretty much.

Trying to stick to the point if your original post.

Does the life you live fulfill you? Would spending a little more bring you joy?

Is there anything you want to do whilst you are young enough to enjoy it? If so have you planned this in?

What do you want your retirement to look like and what will that cost? What age can you retire to get this?

We have a higher household income, cheaper home, probably cheaper cars and lots of savings. Despite being happy with our lifestyle we decided to consciously spend a bit more for convenience or to reduce stress eg stopped spending huge amounts of time shopping around for best deals, get cleaner/gardener if too busy to do it ourselves, don't over think small purchases. This increased our happiness and didn't cost much.

We have also chosen not to reduce our standard of living with the recent price rises. This means significantly less going to savings each month but it helps our mental health and wellbeing.

I think it depends on your preferences, if you’re happy as you are then why change it? Personally, I love having a takeaway once a week and going on about 5 holidays a year so I balance that with my savings goals (still planning to clear the mortgage by age 40, but could do it sooner if I wanted to!) If you were being frugal to the point of depriving yourself that’d be a different matter but if you’re happy then I think that’s fine.

This is one of the most goading threads I've ever saw in here. Ffs. How were you paid £300 per month to go to uni?😂. You obviously think you are fabulous and have life sussed, so you do what you want, eat out/don't eat out, we really dont care! 😂

If you wanted to boast, why didn’t you just post your bank statement?

I paid (if I remember correctly) approx £250pm for staying at home. I've got to be honest, I thought that was the done thing...I'd maybe be surprised at how many people move out when they're late teens/ early 20's and I maybe didn't appreciate that although I didn't get inheritance, or someone hand me £20k to start off or whatever that actually living at home was a bit help 👍

You don't want to get to the age of 60 or 70 and think you missed out on life's little treats. It wouldn't hurt you to have a takeaway every month and to eat out once a month and a couple of weekend breaks each year. It wouldn't make a lot of difference to your pension but you'd look back and think you enjoyed your lives rather than just got through your lives. Also you can't take wealth with you and no one knows when they will die. My Dad was frugal all his life and died 3 months after retiring. It was a huge shock as he'd not known he was ill. He had a massive heart attack with no real warning signs. My Mum sat me and my sisters down about 6 months later and gave us all a share of money Dad left. She told us not to be like Dad and save it and never enjoy using it. She wanted us to enjoy using it. I put most against my mortgage but paid for a lovely family holiday.

Great point. We got a cleaner for a short time and my frugal mind couldn't take it on long term but would be great to have!

I'd love a couple of holidays a year in retirement too!

Just to confirm that your pension forecast is broadly correct based on your current salary and the 1/57th pension contribution that your pension scheme provides.

Assuming that you earn £55k PA (ballpark figure I’m using assuming future career progression and pay rises) on average for a 35 year career, that would give you a pension income of c.£34k PA. Plus your pension is linked to inflation so will grow in line with that too.

Of course, whether you would work full time for that long and not have any period of illness or take any leave etc. is impossible to predict.

You are in a very good position, but don’t forget that your mortgage costs are likely to increase and you only have one, currently very young child who will only become more expensive (you don’t seem to have any childcare costs?).

Personally, I’d maybe ease of the savings a little just to enjoy life a bit more whilst fit and healthy, but be very proud of the hard work so far that has built you and your family a strong foundation.

Couldn't be further from the truth. I literally came on to ask, how much do I need for retirement, am I leaving myself to get to 65 and wish I had spent more when I was younger.
I was asked to prove everything, I had no intention of talking about that 👌

Stealth boast, with inflated figures.

Thank you!
We will have childcare costs which for 2 years will be approx £400 per month (not full time). As you say, children are expensive and we've yet to experience that! No-one really prepared you for the cost of what's to come with that!

Our mortgage will go up, we've still got a few years before that and hoping the overpayments that we done will help to absorb a bit of that.

Thank you so much for sharing, appreciate your honestly and can understand how that would affect the way you view life.

i haven’t read all the posts but life is for living no point in being frugal if you don’t need to be
I’ve had an awful year of 5 sudden unexpected deaths the oldest being 62 so none of them even reaching retirement age dh brother died of a heart attack a week after he turned 60 the day his army pension went in
so to me it’s about making memories living in the moment obviously planning for retirement but finding a balance

That's ok 👌 you don't need to comment.
I double checked the amount, I received £160pm for uni, apologies for getting this wrong...it's called a bursary. Feel free to check it out if you want 👍

Thank you... And sorry to hear of your loss.
I think my original post was looking at the balance of life - looking after the future whilst enjoying the present and potentially taking the time to relook at that balance.

My question would be why are you going on cruises in your mid 30s?

I'm absolutely agog at your savings and overpayments. My husband and I earn more than your figures and are nowhere near a 600k house with big overpayments.

My question would be why are you going on cruises in your mid 30s?

Fair point 😆