I chap I work with says his retirement plan is to rely on his wife.

Who earns about 14k at best and is about 20 years younger than him.

I also upset him when I worked out that since the lottery started he has spent well over £7,500 on tickets and still hasn’t won more than a tenner.

Mr Salmon, the point isn’t that people don’t have savings that they are using to generate more cash by investing it, but that they don’t have even a small amount of available money if something simple, like a broken washing machine occurred.

Of course not. What’s the point in savings when interest rates are virtually zero.

If you’re in a position to, it sensible to have some liquid assets in case of unforeseen expenses You need a buffer. Not tens of thousands but some.

It’s no good paying every penny you have off the mortgage if you need to borrow at a higher rate to pay for a new boiler or something.

I chap I work with says his retirement plan is to rely on his wife.

Who earns about 14k at best and is about 20 years younger than him.

I also upset him when I worked out that since the lottery started he has spent well over £7,500 on tickets and still hasn’t won more than a tenner.

You sound a bundle of laughs to work with.

wobbliscott – Member

Of course not. What’s the point in savings when interest rates are virtually zero.

What’s the point – for me, it’s to cover unexpected ’emergencies’ like the boiler dying on it’s arse, big car bill (although I have a separate car maintenance account that would hopefully take care of that), blocked drain that needs sorting etc, and worst case scenario; redundancy….

I’ve always hated the idea of debt & always wanted a ‘buffer’ of savings. Even when I was in my mid-teens and working part time at Olympus Sport I would endeavour to only spend half of my monthly pay; didn’t always work, of course.

I’ve got a lot more than £100 saved, but I wouldn’t say it’s a huge amount. We have no investments to speak of, we chose a house that enabled us to have a modest mortgage, we own both our cars outright and don’t have any credit card debt.
But, mainly that’s through being sensible with our money, as opposed to being loaded – we are far from that – although I recognise that compared to a lot of people in life we are very fortunate.

Still gonna buy a Euromillions ticket on Friday! 😆

I’ve got some cash in savings, but I’ve mostly been over-paying the mortgage the last year or so. I can borrow it back or take a payment holiday if I need to, so it’s still my main safety net, but because it means going and asking the building society, I’m not tempted to fritter it away on cars / bikes on a whim.

large mortgage > large savings pot. So I guess we have liquidity rather than savings? What does ‘savings’ actually mean?

Mr Salmon, the point isn’t that people don’t have savings that they are using to generate more cash by investing it, but that they don’t have even a small amount of available money if something simple, like a broken washing machine occurred.

That’s not what I meant- see jon1973’s post!
The point of saving to me is basically to have that money in the bank for some future use as opposed to not having it because I spent it on something else instead. Whether there’s any interest earned is neither here nor there in terms of whether having that money is a good thing or not, and surely most people would think that it is…?

Obviously I appreciate that not everyone is in a position to do this though.

the credit card company cannot lend more than they can comfortably afford AND can afford to repay,

not sure this is true at all. first credit card they gave me £5k limit. I was making monthly payments, as i put money on it the limit increased to £5k above the balance. I realised this was dangerous and paid the lot off.

If i maxed it out i’d really struggle to pay it back.

I got paid this week. After the overdraft had been cleared off (and before any outgoings came out) my current account in credit to the tune of £0.09. Go me.

not loads more. but yes.

400 / 500 quid in an easy to access savings account (will be zero after christmas, then build up again)

shares – about a grand

pension

70k of equity in house, as an absolute last resort. I do think about it, and I know I need more ready savings to hand, but coming out of vast amounts of stupid debt, I’m in a much better position than 2 years ago.

generally about – 2.5-3k pcm

Hi five cougar, I’ve had a year of being skint on payday, well on the 1st of the following when all the DD’s come out, the boss gets the housekeeping + other budgets and the childcare bills get paid.

The wife’s back at work now though so I’ve got a bit left over to…….pay off the credit card and overdraft from when she wasn’t working. (and buy a new bike on 0%, ssshhhhh)

No cash at all, but I keep 2 kilos of coke in a mattress so that come the zombie apocalypse I can either barter with it, or hoof a kilo up each nostril and die in a blood-soaked psychotic blizzard of baseball bats and kitchen knives

that they don’t have even a small amount of available money if something simple, like a broken washing machine occurred.

I may not have savings but I’ve enough clean underpants to see me through until the next payday.

no but I’ve got 2 cars and if i HAD* to then I’d shift the 2nd car and that would keep us afloat for 3 months or so. No point having money in the bank at 0.2% when I could be cruising round in it listening to sick tunes**

*I don’t want to, I’m having a love affair with my truck
**Radio 4

Ish, but I’ve got loads of bikes and snowboards to sell so no probs.

I chap I work with says his retirement plan is to rely on his wife.

Bloody hope not. I’m relying on her too.

My approach is 3 x monthly outgoings + 25% in my savings account. Then every penny I could save each month gets put into over paying the mortgage

It’s almost impossible to comment why people don’t have savings though isn’t it.. Low paid jobs, hardship etc, or a BIG expense had cleared them out…

We’ve an offset mortgage, so I class that as savings (the money in the offset, not the mortgage)…

However, truck lover up there made an suggestion they other day that made me think.. Completely max out your mortgage ability with no intention of paying it off, but live in a nice house for a few years. Then, once equity in the house increases, and the kids have left, sell up, pay off mortgage, get small house…

DrP

This is an interesting part of the article – some poorer people manage things ok:

However, the research also showed that some people on low incomes do save money.

Roughly a quarter of adults with household incomes below £13,500 have more than £1,000 in savings.

And 40% of people in that income bracket manage to save something every month.

I’m 26 and have approx £16k in ISA/assets. I will liquidate that asset this month though to get the cash. Not sure what to do with it, plan was to buy a house with my partner but then we moved to London. Still might buy to rent elsewhere in the country. (we are combining money, obvs £16k wont get me owt)

I’ve saved a minimum of £400 a month (avg around £700) since I got a job after Uni at 21 (or was I 22). I went travelling for a bit which ate up £6k but it was worth every penny and I’d spend it all again in a heartbeat.

Living with parents, paying minimal rent, not paying bills, etc put me in a very advantageous position in my early 20s. Im fortunate enough that I have a good relationship with my parents that allowed me to do that, otherwise it would be a different story I’m sure.

I think I’m now able to save + live comfortably on my salary, so that’s cool for me, but appreciate at 26 years old i’m massively in the minority.

I don’t have £100 of savings but I do have, in a pot at home, cleverly converted to foreign currency, mainly coins, so I don’t spend it, my emergency stash…

Includes

Greek drachma
French Francs
about $6 in $1 bills (only foldy stuff)
Random Danish coins
lots of Portuguese escudos

Bound to worth something if I get desperate

^ I was in a similar position, saved as I was single at the time. had a good sizeable deposit then met a girl.. and she already owned a home. happy days. combined forces, bought a house. comfortable. but little savings. usually have a least half a months wages on standby with no debts other than the mortgage (no loans and CC card gets paid off monthly – if i use it). had really good savings rates back when i was saving too.

running on fumes because of summer hols, so battening down the hatches and promised myself i can save for a new bike, if i can save for a new car first (which will take a while, but with the right choices will give me better economy, and less running costs overall).

^ I was in a similar position

Think the holiday coins in a pot is quite common 😆

I have a pot like that tiger.

Only its nigerian niara , turkmenistan manat , angolan quanza , equatorial guinea cfa , azeri manat

I think the coins from each are worth more as scrap than as coins ….

Not a bean what’s the point with interest rates as they are. I have a pension because free work money but that’s it. All my spare cash goes toward clearing the mortgage. I have a 0% card for emergencies if I need it. No other debts though bar a very cheap car which my allowance more than covers.

Think the holiday coins in a pot is quite common

sorry i was replying to plyphon and actually had to do some work! til i noticed 😀

…come the zombie apocalypse I can either barter with it, or hoof a kilo up each nostril and die in a blood-soaked psychotic blizzard of baseball bats and kitchen knives

Crikey, do you have any idea when this is happening? 😯

I have a buffer, and a selection of other investments. If necessary I could cover the costs of living for about 2 years, but I may buy a C250 estate on Saturday, so that’ll knock that back a bit…

I’d be fine if it wasn’t for those pesky bikes 😳

So no, I don’t have £100 in savings (or rather I do, but I also have a credit card at a similar level so it all balances out to about zero).

We have a bit in a savings account (5k or so) thanks to some windfalls in the last year or so that were horrible at the time personally but have worked out OK financially. We save about 500 quid a month but that’s for holidays, Christmas, etc. so is all spent at some point.

Fair bit of equity (100k-ish) in the house so if push came to shove we could downsize and be OK.

Balancing that are a couple of personal loans for car, etc. that on the salary of two experienced teachers are currently easy to afford.

So overall, I think we’re lucky enough to be in a relatively comfortable place but up until maybe 5 years ago we weren’t due to my youthful stupidity with a bank employee’s rate credit card and the financial fallout of my wife’s previous relationship. At that point we’d have probably been some of those people in the article…

Savings are all subject to income and outgoings and I can recall quite clearly when I didn’t have a pot to piss in, so got that T shirt.

I’m fortunate that I have earned enough in recent years to save regularly, but then it burns a hole in my pocket and I feel the NEED to spend it!! 😳

I have a bit more than £100 in savings. But maybe not for much longer. Just opened a letter from my bank saying my savings interest will be going down from 0.25% to 0.05% per annum. Great. Time to blow it all on coke and hookers I reckon.

Too little information in this headline grabbing story.

How old are these people? It does not stipulate they are adults. There are 11 million under 18s in the uk. That could seriously effect the figures.

Secondly if you have a £10K personal loan and £1K in your savings account are you counted as having £1K in savings or minus £9K in savings

Thirdly – what constitutes savings? Does it have to be in a savings account? If it’s in your current account or your wallet does that count?

Finally, at what point in the month/year were they asking? £100 is less than a third of the weekly wage of a full time person working on minimum wage. Asking them on a Thursday or a Friday might make a hell of a difference.

I do have more than £100 in savings. When I was younger i got into minor debt difficulties and saw how quickly a small debt can escalate into something unmanageable. Since then I’ve gone pretty much debt free, I have a credit card but it’s just for convenience and is paid off early every month.

There’s been a few periods where I’ve cut back quite dramatically on expenditure in order to stay debt free but I’d rather do that than live beyond my means and rack up a debt even if I thought it was a temporary situation.

I do very much appreciate that I am financially fortunate, and that for a great number of people being able to put money aside for a rainy day is very difficult.

Yes and agreed a scary headline.

Of course not. What’s the point in savings when interest rates are virtually zero

So if you loose your job how do you pay your mortgage ?

There’s been a few periods where I’ve cut back quite dramatically on expenditure in order to stay debt free but I’d rather do that than live beyond my means and rack up a debt even if I thought it was a temporary situation.

yep, I’ve had a real mind shift over the last year or so. I used to rack up debt at an alarming rate, then with kids, realising i was spending hundreds a month on debt, and not stuff like family holidays, fun times out, I changed how i live and spend dramatically. best thing I’ve ever done. long way to go, and I still get urges to blow a massive amount of money, but I’m resisting.

the amount of people driving brand new Audi’s and mercs these days is frightening, I can only imagine the debt they’re getting into…..

the amount of people driving brand new Audi’s and mercs these days is frightening, I can only imagine the debt they’re getting into…..

I often wonder about this on the motorway, the national average wage sometimes seems hard to square with the cars making up the traffic.

I have been busy saving a few pennies this last year, since my better half began working and paying her share of the household bills, besides all the money I’ve spent on bike related stuff since picking up the fatbike.

But we are still “throwing away money” on rent, I reckon we have paid ~£64k in rent here over the last ~10 years! 😯 😯 😯