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NOW CLOSED: Are you saving for your retirement or your child’s first home deposit? Discuss this topic with Barclays - £150 up for grabs

183 replies

AnnMumsnet · 26/11/2012 16:55

Hello you may have seen that this week Barclays have a big campaign to get people talking about home buying and money topics.

On Monday they asked "When are you too old to ask your parents for help?" and on Tuesday discussion focussed on whether (or not) "A home is still a home if you don't own it".

Finally Barclays are asking: "Are you saving for your retirement or your child's first home deposit"?

They say "We want to know what Mumsnetters think about home buying and money dilemmas - this time we want you to think about the future with your children. Our third question relates to savings and you and your family's future and the question is - if you're lucky enough to be making any savings these days (or plan to make savings) - "Are you saving for your retirement or your child's first home deposit?""

Please share your thoughts on this thread - there are no right or wrong answers and (as we've seen) - the question will mean different things to different MNers.

Add your thoughts and you'll be entered into a prize draw where one winner will get a £150 John Lewis voucher.

Thanks for all your comments on the topics this week do continue to add your thoughts and we'll do the draw for all three threads on Tuesday.

Thanks MNHQ

PS Please note your comments along with your MN name may be used on the Barclays pages on Mumsnet and elsewhere

OP posts:
ArbitraryUsername · 07/12/2012 18:12

I'm quite happy to believe it was an attempt at advertising (you can advertise without pushing a particular product - it's all about the brand and other such nonsense). I just don't think it's worked in their favour.

Does anyone actually think better of Barclays because they asked some stupid questions?

rubyrubyruby · 07/12/2012 18:38

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Badvocsanta · 07/12/2012 18:46

Agree with others...why would I save for my children's house deposit?
Who are all these parents shelling out ££££?
I hope that by the time we get to retirement age dh and I can spend a it of key in ourselves!
Same wrt to inheritance...I hope that they aren't assuming there will be ££££ for them when I kick the bucket.
We would always try to help them if they were in financial trouble, but give them ££££ for a house? No.

TrillsCarolsOutOfTune · 07/12/2012 18:46

This isn't advertising - later they are going to use the "real quotes" in some advertising. The ones that back up whatever message they want to get across.

I'm no more cynical about this than I am about any other sponsored stuff.

Remember the Walkers Sunbites? I thought they were very bland and boring and I said so, but it seemed that either I was alone in that thought or everyone else was overwhelmed by the feeling of "free crisps" and so was very complimentary.

SoggySummer · 07/12/2012 18:48

We are in our 40's and saving for our own home. I have no idea how or if we will fund our DC through Uni (should they decide to go). Infact we have already discussed to very real possibility that our DC will HAVE to do a Gap year if they want to go to Uni to help fund it. By Gap year I sadly dont mean building orphanages in Africa, probably more like full time in a call centre.

Pensions - DH has one, I have a very small frozen one from yonks ago.

We have little capacity for any savings at the moment. The past 3 years have seen a real tightening on how far our income will go. Any little we manage to save usually gets eaten up by emergency needs like getting the car through the MOT or a new washing machine.

pofacedalways · 07/12/2012 18:49

Yes trills but crisps haven't exactly brought the global economy to its knees

ChippingInAWinterWonderland · 07/12/2012 19:01

Ifso

You posted Not sure I'm entirely happy with Barclays using MN for its 'research'. Frankly it's none of Barclays' business where our money is going! Sorry, rant over

I said You don't have to be happy about it. It is MN's business, not yours. If you aren't happy about it, why post on their thread? Barclays are at least doing it 'up front' with MN - a proper business deal. Do you seriously think that some threads aren't started by companies wanting information but doing it in a sneaky way and that many, many other companies aren't reading the threads daily and posting??

I'm not sure how that is 'missing your point' Confused

You have now made an entirely different point in such times when clearly so many posters don't have savings etc, Barclays seem to be rubbing salt into wounds, all in the name of research, winning a competition and giving profile to their banking brand

How on earth was I supposed to extrapolate that from what you originally said Confused

I agree it's probably a bit insensitive to the many who are struggling, but as you can see from this thread - some people are still managing to save and it's a legitimate question... since when was any bank sensitive?

In other news... of course I'm not commenting for the £150k, for that you'd have to say something Barclays actually wants to hear!! Not the fact that I'm saving to replace my bathroom Xmas Grin Seriously though, I reply to these threads the same as I do any other MN thread, to talk to MNers. It makes no odds to me that Ann/Barclays started the thread because any thread could be started by some corporation pretending to me a 'regular' poster.

ChippingInAWinterWonderland · 07/12/2012 19:02

PMSL - £150k??? £150 voucher!! If it was £150k I would say what Barclays want to hear Xmas Grin

pofacedalways · 07/12/2012 19:10

You are assuming they want information Chipping. I don't think they give a toss about the information. If they did they would employ some market research company. They are doing this for advertising, and by partnering with MN they give themselves an 'intelligent parenting' kind of personality, which is endorsed by their using quotes from in forthcoming advertising

pofacedalways · 07/12/2012 19:13

from in??? from us...

for 150k I'd say anything they wanted Grin

DeckTheHallsWithBoughsOfJolly · 07/12/2012 19:21

Actually I thought that the fact it says Add your thoughts and you'll be entered into a prize draw where one winner will get a £150 John Lewis voucher. meant that all the folk who commented on what they were saving for (or that they aren't saving) would be entered.

Maybe I should read the t&cs rather than make assumptions though Grin

rubyrubyruby · 07/12/2012 19:29

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

VivaLeBeaver · 07/12/2012 20:38

I'm saving for my retirement. I pay 9% of my wages into a pension, not that I'm expecting it to amount to a lot as its not a final salary scheme. I wish I could do more.

Dh is saving money for dd's house deposit. Which is all well and good but he's 50 and doesn't have a pension. He's managed to put about 10k in dd's account. She has more money than me!

So I can see dd being ok and me and Dh having a miserable old age!

RufousBartleby · 07/12/2012 20:48

We're not saving for retirement yet - although this is something we might have to think about in later life (I'm still holding out hope that my predicted to be tiny pension might magically increase itself!)

We are trying to save the child benefit though. We had so much help from parents; for wedding, moving fees, university etc etc. I feel the only way I can pay them back for this is try and pay it forward.

BehindLockNumberNine · 07/12/2012 21:22

We are not saving for our children's future, we simply don't have any spare money whatsoever at the end of each month. Our savings account has a grand total of £1.35 in it. We have no isa's, no stocks and shares, nothing. Dh does not have a pension. I do, but only went back to work three years ago after a 10 year gap and am in a low paid job (teaching assistant) so it won't amount to much.

We are totally and utterly depending on our house returning a bit of a profit when we come to sell. But that is not guaranteed. So we are stuck, and scared.

And our children will have to make their own way in life as we cannot, right now, see how we can have any money spare for a half decent retirement...

SirBoobAlot · 07/12/2012 21:47

I have to save for Christmas, there is no way I can save enough to have anything towards a deposit!

I had to empty my savings for my deposit on this place when I moved out of my parents. Don't think I am alone in having no back up money now.

MakeTeaNotWar · 07/12/2012 21:48

I have a pension plan through my employer so I never see or miss the money. We contribute a paltry £10 a month for our first child and nothing at all for our second. Rather than have a savings account, we invest in prize bonds in the hope of striking big but have recently emptied all accounts in order to do some house renovations....so no savings left at all which makes me feel vulnerable and exposed to a rainy day

wonderstuff · 07/12/2012 22:15

I have a work pension which should ensure I don't starve in retirement, I contribute 7.5% of my salary atm, it will go up (teachers pension scheme) DH has a very small amount of pension fund, but isn't saving for pension atm, I imagine his fund will get him hundreds rather than thousands at retirement. We rent our home, so actually I'm not convinced that we will be able to retire fully, hopefully we'll be able to wind down a bit. We are concentrating on paying off debt at the moment, we aim to start saving for a house deposit before the end of next year. We are very much live in the now people we tend to live to our means (which is an improvement on living beyond them as we did in our early 20s). So we are not in a position to save for our children.

We have a CTF for both children and our parents are saving for their future. We can't afford to, we are really proud to have a total of a grand in our rainy day fund. Actually they (our parents) weren't in position to give us much when we were younger - they helped a little with living costs at university, but I still had to work and came out in debt - I guess as baby boomers they were able to go through education and buy their homes without parental help. Life isn't like that now is it, but hopefully our children will be in a reasonable position with their help. If we are able to help our children in later life then we will. Actually one child won quite a lot on premium bonds that dgf has for her, hopefully it will go a long way to meeting university costs. We need our other child to be as lucky now!

Welovecouscous · 07/12/2012 22:21

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

madwomanintheattic · 08/12/2012 01:05

We had to stop paying into our pension fund last year. Tomorrow I am going to go and sign the paperwork to withdraw the only savings we have accrued (in tiny amounts every month over the last 10y 11mos) which were supposed to pay for the dc's university fees.

House deposit? Retirement?

Currently, my main concern is Christmas. Fortunately, we've now got that covered.

My children's house deposit and my retirement are going to have to wait. I had hoped I would be able to help pay for University so that they could afford their own deposits, but hey ho.

Birthhippy9 · 08/12/2012 01:56

Are you kidding we can hardly eat and heat the house times have changed

InMySpareTime · 08/12/2012 07:05

Maytreearch don't eat the house! (Unless it's a gingerbread house, which might explain the heating costs - confectionery is a poor insulator, you need cavity wall candy floss)

toddlerama · 08/12/2012 07:28

No I'm not saving for retirement or my children's houses. We don't even own our own house. I do however need a rug to stop baby ds banging his face on wood whilst he's learning to crawl so I would like £150 to spend in John Lewis.

sleepyhead · 08/12/2012 11:16

I pay into the nhs pension, and all being well will have around 38 yrs contributions on retirement. Its our family pension though as dh doesn't have a pension.

Dc2 is due in april which ds is delighted about despite this considerably damaging his meagre expectations in terms of our savings for his future. I put a small amount each month into ds's ctf and a small amount into a savings account for him. It's going to be very small indeed when divided by two.

The first year of dc2's life is going to be tougher financially for us than with ds. I'll be on mat pay on a part time wage rather than fulltime so will take half as much leave and dh will take the other half as he's the lower earner. No extra tax credits for having a baby under 1yr (that was a godsend with ds), in fact no tax credits at all. Plus hugely increased childcare costs.

Future university savings and house deposits won't be featuring in our lives for the forseeable, if ever. Still, I think on balance ds will prefer the sibling to savings (I hope!)

fallingandlaughing · 08/12/2012 16:43

We can't afford to save anything atm, although I don have a pension.

DD is just a toddler so we will get saving when then is something to save!