How much can you save?

purplevamp

LucyTheDwarf wrote: »

As ever, yes! I do it more than once a month too, purplevamp 16th, 27th and 1st!

:eek: I'd brag about it too if I did it 3 times a month!!!:rotfl:

amethystcash

I've been looking for a forum like this to find fellow savers as we are in the good position of being completely debt free. I'm a newbie to MSE and loving the encouragement and support from everyone. Really making a determined effort with various challenges.

To give you all a summary of where we are with savings:

We have a monthly target for saving (set at £1850 in Jan 08, excluding any overtime earned by DH) that I monitor monthly. This breaks down to £300 and £250 each respectively for ISAs and Regular Savings for myself and DH (so £1,100), that I consider to be long term savings, plus £750 for general savings, which are more short term and often go towards holidays, new stuff for the house, etc.

Currently we are slightly over target at an average of £1,900 since April 08.

At the moment we are saving with no particular long term goals in mind, apart from the magic £100k number I have in my head. Our original aim was to save as much as possible after we paid our mortgage off, rather than frittering away the money.

If we continue to save on target we will achieve £100k I think by Sept 2011.

We are quite risk averse so everything is in Savings A/Cs rather than investments.

purplevamp

Added up my interest today - a very poor £7.99 . Did bank £40 in coins though. This has hardly dented my savings.

slowlyfading

purplevamp wrote: »

Added up my interest today - a very poor £7.99 . Did bank £40 in coins though. This has hardly dented my savings.

Better than nothing though its a start!

EagerLearner

dezzi_83 wrote: »

having £300 a month to live on?? does that sound like a ok plan? was also wondering what else can I do to make money??? I want around £7000. Sorry to have a moan but u lot kno better than me!! Car x

Hi Dezzi that sounds like a great plan - you could put it all into a cash ISA (IceSave and Barclays seem to be some of the best ones but see Martin's article). Then when it is maxed (£3600 per year) you could start a Regular Saver at least, because the rates are very good.

I think £300 a month is very good for your own spending - I manage on £200 'pocket money' which covers clothes, going out, hair, lunches/dinners etc. Maybe try £300 and then see if you can cut down slowly? See how you go.

And to answer folks questions about interest - I get my ICICI at the end of the month (stoozing is earning me £26 a month!:T ) and my IceSave mid month - both for personal (say £25 a month) and the ISA (around £80 a month). I hate to say it, but I do get excited! Then there's the 'free' money the government give me each month into my SIPP on the 21st :beer:

As MrEL pays rent, give him £150 towards it, then I save on average £200 from my wages into IceSave for me, then £500 to ISA for our house deposit, and £200 to the SIPP for my pension. It has taken a long time for me to get this strict but it can be done no matter what you earn - something in savings is always better than something owed x

Aussieonabudget

Hi all,

Update for this month - managed to save £294 to the ISA and 16.3% of my total income! Very proud of myself since that comes out of the 25% of my income that is mine to spend/save (the rest goes into the joint account and at the moment any spare is going to debt instead of saving!).

Was very excited to get the interest on my various accounts - wish I had some coming in mid-month so I could spread the excitement. At the moment pay and interest come a day apart so the excitement can get a bit much!!!

Hope everyone had a good month!
Aussie

a_silver_lining

http://www.sjdaccountancy.com/common/calculators/savings.html

I was wondering if you could all give me a little help? I'm not great with figures!

I've been trying to work out how long it will take to reach my goal.... Basically I want to be mortgage free by the time I'm 30, this is in just less then 9 years. My easiest way would be to buy a very small studio flat, though obviously I don't know if I'll be wanting a cramped little flat in 8 years even though I'd be thrilled with it now. I currently live in London but love Brighton so was looking there and in todays current market the average cost for an ok one is about 85K. Obviously, I'm hoping in a few years when I'm itching to buy it will have gone down and maybe I'd be able to afford something even bigger, I realise if I buy earlier I'll have interest on my mortgage to contend with too, but I've still set 85k as my goal.

I need to find the exact amount but I have just over 25k savings leaving me 60k to find! I'm guessing I have 29.4% of my goal?

I would like to aim to save approx £500 a month. Some months I will be saving more like £800 but I also like one big holiday a year... so I'll play it safe at £500 in my calculations and adjust it as I earn more / save more.

I'm having trouble working out how long it will take to save to my total. I currently have £3600 in an ISA giving me I think just over £200 pay out a year, and my 20K earns me about £85 a month in a 6.5% interest account. In my head if I earn 10k interest, then 500 a month for 8 years should work. Putting in my figures to the calculator above it says:

25K savings, 6.5% interest, 3% inflation, £500 a month saved, 8 years = 104K savings then, but 82k in todays money.

What does it mean by 'todays money'? and are my calculations correct??

I feel really out of my depth

markalun

Hi guys, managed to save my allotted 20% of income this month but i'm going to need to lend some of it back to myself quite soon - I'm off to Brazil next week, and need some spending money!! I've filled up the ISA so I'm now squirreling away for next April. See you in September!

purplevamp

baibelle wrote: »

... My easiest way would be to buy a very small studio flat... ...but love Brighton so was looking there and in todays current market the average cost for an ok one is about 85K.

£85K in Brighton?? Where are you looking? These are recent studio and 1 beds in Brighton. I think you'll need to up your budget a bit, sorry. TBH if you're looking at cheaper places in Brighton, like M**lsecoomb or W**tehawk then you will regret living there, trust me!

zag2me

baibelle wait for the house prices reductions to take place over the next few years and you should be able to reach your goal. One thing from experience though is you wont want to live in a studio flat for more than a couple of years. I owned one for 2 years and it served me well but life changes! Look at a studio as a stepping stone to better things. Just keep saving and you will reach your goal one day

This month I managed to save another £300 so i'm on 20,300 now. Only 300 quid left to fill my isa this year then its holiday funds to fill for the rest of the financial year.