Mid-twenties, how much should I have saved?

anna42hmr

yeah tbh thats a decent amount, i am 26 would have had more than i do but went travelling in 2007 and spent the best part of 11k savings, now i am up to just over 9k

Robert_Sterling_3

97trophy wrote: »

Remember, it was the tortoise that won the race not the hare.

The fact that two or more thousand year ago a hare had a kip and was beaten by a tortoise is not a good reason for suggesting "The slower the better" as a way of making progress. :eek: :eek: :eek:

superstar_2

jgalt wrote: »

I'm in my mid-twenties, have been working almost 18 months after leaving uni.
I was wondering what would be considered a good amount for my savings?

I have no debts (student loan pain off due to some nifty investments back in 2004/2005) and my monthly expenditure is relatively low, which allows me to save a large chunk of my income. I currently have over £20,000 saved, however, I'm not sure how this compares with others around my age. A large proportion of my friends chose investment banking careers after uni (receiving bonuses greater than my salary thus having a large nest egg), which I fear may be tainting my vision as to an "average" amount to have saved.

Any insight would be much appreciated.

You're doing extremely well, keep it going! :j:j:j

amethystcash

Sorry if it seems I am poaching the OP's thread, but I would also be curious to find out what people would think was a decent amount of savings to have at age 40. Often find myself wondering how the position we are in financially stacks up against what other people have or are trying to achieve.

jon3001

amethystcash wrote: »

Sorry if it seems I am poaching the OP's thread, but I would also be curious to find out what people would think was a decent amount of savings to have at age 40. Often find myself wondering how the position we are in financially stacks up against what other people have or are trying to achieve.

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?p=16945707

amethystcash

jon3001 wrote: »

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?p=16945707

Thanks for this - it didn't really help. It seems to be flawed but I just can't figure out how. My savings are all joint with DH. So if I have what we have to work out my share and work out the calculation, its telling me I'm pretty much destitute lol. And here was me thinking I was doing pretty well.

The thing that's confusing is that it takes current age and current salary. Two flaws spring to mind with that - First, with the age is it therefore assuming that you had potential to save for your whole life even in childhood. Second, with the salary, I'm now earning 4 times what I was when I first started working, but this takes a snapshot now - surely it can't be that simple??

Even more confused!

climbgirl

How long is a piece of string?! If you've got £20K in the bank, I'd say you were doing better than most people your age. I too have a lot of friends who work (or worked!) in investment banking so it's easy to forget that those kinds of salaries / bonuses aren't normal. Although I dare say they'll be needing their savings now as more than half of them are now out of work.

Anyway, I digress. It's tough to say exactly how much you should have saved - there will always be people with more than you and people with less than you.

I tend to work in percentages of pay rather than actual amounts - if you're saving 50%+ of your take-home income, you're doing pretty well.

If your job isn't secure (and let's face it, most aren't), you might want to think about stashing as much as you can, cutting back on holidays etc this year, no matter how cheap. It'd be a shame to have to use the £20K to survive instead of for a house deposit etc. The bigger buffer you have in these times, the better!

Stewster

sh856531 wrote: »

How in the name of all that is holy did someone who is 30 manage to save 76K?

Either you earn a crazy amount of money per year or you got some pretty good inheritence.

Or you robbed a bank

:-)

By saving hard and investing in sharesave schemes and other savings investments as much as you can. I'm just 31 and if I hadn't spent 25k on half of a house deposit (we put down 50k) with my better half I would have had £91k. Yes I do receive an annual bonus but until the last couple of years that was only a few £k a year (even now its not massive - less than 10k).

bazster

Mid-twenties? You shouldn't have any savings, you should spend it all on wine, women and song. You can always get more money but you can never have the time again.

Z1ppy_2

i would say thats pretty good!!

when i graduated it took me 4 years to pay off my 16 K student load whilst saving some other money at the same time!

im 27 now and in a very fortunate position compared to some but that only came about in the last 3 years. many friends who graduated with me have nothing to their name and still a sizeable loan!