What financial advice would you give your 25 year old self?

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Mid 20s, earn about £2600 per month
Managing to save about £200 per month
A house deposit feels a million miles away

"Keep going and don't give up"
I started putting away £200 in early twenties and then managed to up it to £500 per month by being frugal and getting better jobs. Eventually bought my home and I feel so grateful. Open a LISA and you get free money too.

Pension, invest, live in shared housing to share expenses.

Then the really hard bits have a long successful relationship with another financially solvent person.

Head over heart always.

Open a LISA asap. The government give you a 25% bonus on top of what you save, so £4k now becomes £5k, and another £4k next April means you’ll have £10k towards a house deposit within a year.

Start a pension.
Put money into a stocks and shares ISA.

Get married before you have children.

Start your pension now.

100% advise pension, savings, emergency fund, investments eg LISA and pay off debts.

Unfortunately houses in cities might be a dual income thing so try and work on your hidden curriculum eg finding a partner with a good job +/- family money to move forward with. Some decades-partnered women I know in their forties are on their fifth home with a swimming pool and I remain single with a flat.

Focus on the goal. Don't spend a fortune on s you don't need..
By all means have a jolly social life but don't throw money around you in restaurants and bars unnecessarily.
As soon as you see the digits in your bank grow from 3 to 4 it's exciting and all so possible. Start investing and pensions are a great security too.
You have a life ahead of you. Be proud of yourself .
Good luck.

Company Pension: Contribute up to at least the company match. Add extra employee contributions to ensure that total contributions equal at least 13% of your gross salary. Make sure this is invested in an adventurous portfolio.

Bonuses: Put half of any bonus into savings or your pension.

Pay Rises: Increase your savings and pension contributions by 25% of any pay rise.

Housing Property: Depending on the price of the house you want to buy, put half of your savings into a Stocks and Shares Lifetime ISA (LISA), preferably investing in low-cost trackers. Adopt the same approach for the other half using a standard Stocks and Shares ISA.

Manage Expectations: Do not set your sights too high for your first home.

Lifestyle Inflation: Do not try to keep up with the Joneses. Buy a new phone only when your old one breaks, and drive a cheap, reliable car.

Budgeting: Set a budget and stick to it. Ensure you are not just prioritising short-term wants, but balancing them against your long-term goals

Financial Literacy: Continuously learn about personal finances so you can make good decisions and not kick tourself later

Move jobs (role and or organisation) relatively frequently and always try to negotiate salary and benefits

In short, it is all about balance. Taking small financial actions today will be massively beneficial in the longer term but still maje sure you allow yourself life experiences.

Non financially wear sunscreen and strength exercises

Save into a company/private pension. Employers usually match what you are contributing up to a given level and the government gives tax relief.

Set up a LISA too, as the government contributes 25%. So if you put in £4,000 over the tax year then it is made up to £5,000.

Hi OP. I was heavily in debt in my 20s, so my advice would have been not to get any credit and start saving.
So you are doing better than I was! Are you able to save any more than that and reduce your outgoings?

Don't go mad & spend your salary as fast as you can every month, try & save something every month no matter how small, think of the future.

Save like crazy as you will become a solo parent at 38 to a newborn and toddler and struggle to afford to feed them.

What are your outgoings? Could you save more than £200? Save as much as you can.

Yessss I could have written this. I remember saving lame amounts of money and thinking I was going no where.

Also I took packed lunches on days out and to work.
Its a hackeyed now but honestly I didnt buy coffee out. Ever.

The £100/200/300 would be saved at the start of the month/ when I got paid... if I started running out I would skip drinks out / not buy X / decline invite to y so I made it to end of month without going over.

At end of the month I would also take what was left in my account and add it to my savings eg. £23.94 or whatever so every month I started with just my monthly salary.

I paid minimum matched into pension to maximise deposit but house prices arent going up 5k pm now so may not be the right approach now.

When I was closer to buying i moved home and commited a fairly long way for about a year or so (it was the "final push") and focused my mind as I was earning more then.

ALSO when you buy... buy a minimum 2 bed and get a lodger.
Buy somewhere practical (2 decent sized bedrooms vs... amazing "master bedroom" plus crappy box.

In my early mid 30s I had lodgers.
My friends were all sniffy about it and "wouldnt want to share their space" and "live like a student". I was able to charge several hundred pm and it was tax free. I put it all against the principal on the mortgage amd paid the term down much faster as a result.
I also was near a station with no car (couldnt afford one!) And rented out my parking space too!

Don’t spend so much money on horses , they are a money pit . Honesty if I’d have saved what I’ve spent over the years I could have retired 10yrs earlier .

Pay into a pension every if you think you can’t afford to.

Open a LISA if you can afford toFor every 4k saved in a year, the government put in another 1k so it’s the best way to save for a property.

Not necessarily. If OP is the higher earner with assets and the future partner is a lower earner with no assets, marriage would not be in her financial interests or that of her children.

25… hmm… difficult. Because from a personal point of view, and for his sake, I shouldn’t have married my first husband. But it has to be said that marrying him meant I was living on a household income higher than £16k a year and I was able to start saving in an ISA, which I took with me when we divorced. So it did have a positive financial impact. That’s a bit embarrassing.

I didn’t make terrible financial decisions back then actually, I just didn’t have any. I joined a pension scheme when I could. I certainly wasn’t doing as well as you are, £200 a month is excellent, and I assume it’s going into a stocks and shares LISA so effectively you’re saving £250 a month.

If I’d stayed solo, I would probably have advised myself to do what I eventually did do, which was to find a way to build a career outside London. It was a long time ago and of course it was infinitely easier then but it is still possible to buy a house outside London for a lot less, if that’s the goal.

Another possibility that I suppose I could have tried to do was to develop more practical skills so that I could have bought a house in poorer condition and fixed it. Unfortunately changing a light bulb is about my limit.

Don’t give up any potential career when you have kids, invest in your pension.

Why do you have so little left? Are you renting alone? If so I’d go into shared housing in order to save more.

And having children isn't in your best interests financially!

Time in the market not timing the market - start now

I was terribe with money in my 20s. My son is quite different. The difference is that he just doesn't spend money on random things - all those smaller purchases... and saves. Savings account for holidays and disasters and an ISA. He has a pension. He still eats out, has a nice time but values money more than me. He's bought his first home (but it needed 2 incomes to do that). What I learnt was to keep working and paying into a pension. Learn about pensions/investments (get a financial adviser). So many of my friends took a long time out for children, or 2-3 years working part time and never considered the impact on their pension. Always protect yourself financially. Also like pp said partner with a like-minded person (that one is not always easy).