How much can you save?

CompletelyLost

Hi Lokolo,

Most of my money is from winning competitions, believe it or not! I won money a nice sum from ITV earlier in the year & have also won a fair few other prizes, some of which I've sold. Things are slowing down a little now though, which is a shame. My savings haven't really gone up much in the last month as I've had to pay out college fees and all sorts.

Masomnia

All quiet on the saving front unfortunately. I haven't had chance to put any more aside recently, so I'm really looking forward to January when I can seriously up my totals. Not putting anything in my ISA though until next tax year, I have my 6.3% fixed egg account for a while yet.

Just worked out I paid £1.88 in tax on my current account interest last year! Seems stupid to claim it back, but then it is my money, and every penny does count...

Lokolo

Masomnia wrote: »

All quiet on the saving front unfortunately. I haven't had chance to put any more aside recently, so I'm really looking forward to January when I can seriously up my totals. Not putting anything in my ISA though until next tax year, I have my 6.3% fixed egg account for a while yet.

Just worked out I paid £1.88 in tax on my current account interest last year! Seems stupid to claim it back, but then it is my money, and every penny does count...

Haha please do!

Yeh I can't wait for Jan/Feb, my fixed rate ends, + student loan means I can fill up my ISA (although I will be very skint thoughout March as I will need to wait until final Student Loan payment comes though in April)

I paid £60 in tax over the summer from my old job (Dominos) and so I want to get P60 from that so I can claim it back, but they never do it so I doubt I'll ever see that money meh.

Crap_with_money.com

Hey guys!

Just stumbled across this thread and I'm amazed at how much money some of you have saved! I can't believe some of you are saving at the rate you are whilst you're at uni as well. I really admire all of you for achieving so much!

I'm 25 and looking to go back to uni next year to do a 1 year post-grad in teacher training - up until now I've been much more of a spender than a saver - but that really needs to change!

I'm not sure if this is the right thread for me, as some of you seem to be seasoned savers - where I'm very much a novice, and probably more in need of a push in the right direction.

Ideally I'd like to save as much as possible before I go to uni, plus I also need to pay off a trip to Mexico as well (for my brother's wedding). (Well no actually, in an ideal world I'd love to be graduating from uni with a little saved towards a deposit for a house - but had kind of resigned myself to the fact that that would need to wait - but then if some of you have managed it?)

My head's kinda fuzzy as to where I even get started - I've focussed this year on clearing my OD and CC - which I've now done - although I'm still paying towards my bank loan - but now I've done that I need to work on building some savings - is this the best place to be to get some advice - or if not - does anyone have any ideas which forum I should be heading to?

xx

Lokolo

Yeh but to be fair I am very lucky. My grandparents pay my living expenses (inc food, they basically give me a monthly allowance), so I save my student loan + extra. I told them not to but they want to and I can't refuse free money!

Plus its not like I am going out getting wrecked or anything, look at how MSE I am!! Its crazy.

You can ask here about savings. Theres not much to it really, getting better savings rates means you have to go and research yourself. Unfortuantely now is the worst time to save as the rates are incredibly low.

Do you know about ISAs and what they are?

briona

Lokolo wrote: »

Unfortuantely now is the worst time to save as the rates are incredibly low.

LOL! Couldn't have put it better myself!

A while back I opened an NS&I investment account at the Post Office purely so that I would have somewhere to easily bank my £2 coins. And today, whilst updating my savings spreadsheet, I decided to see what the rate was like as I hadn't checked since the interest rate cuts. It's plummeted from a fairly average 3.25% to an unbelievably pathetic 1%. :rotfl:

Saver-Rob

Lokolo wrote: »

Wheres that? Yeh I live in Bucks, the house my mum bought was worth £60k in 95 (to be fair though, it had no heating and missing windows at the time). Houses along the road, same type as ours, were going for around £200-£300k. 3 bedrooms town house (3 story). That was around a year ago though.

I guess prices really do vary though. Wonder what they be like in 5 years time. Hopefully low

I am on the Isle of Wight.

Luckily our prices are much lower than yours, but still not as low as I'd like :rotfl:

The plan is to put a big deposit down on a place that needs work doing and then getting some of the major work done whilst living @ home with the rest of my savings, ie new kitchen, bathroom if required. I wouldnt even need to be living there for it - avoiding all of the mess :beer:

Who knows though....

Crap_with_money.com

Lokolo wrote: »

Do you know about ISAs and what they are?

I've heard of ISA's, but don't really know much about them. I currently have a savings account, as well as an e-savings account with my bank. I don't know what interest rates they pay though, and have never used them. One of them pays a higher rate than the other, but that is dependant on you not making any withdrawals from it, whereas the other pays a lower rate, but allows to withdraw money as and when you need to without affecting the interest accrued.

My plan (I think) is to save between £300-400 per month from my basic wage. I'll have the £300 set, but try to keep the other £100 in "liquid" savings for emergencies. If I was saving £400 per month, that would only leave me £200 a month to live on, and I'm not sure I'd manage on that little, so that's really my reasoning for keeping the extra £100 as a buffer. I'll also add any extra commission I earn (which isn't much, but I'll start to claim that monthly rather than letting it build up), and if I manage to get a second job in the new year, I'll put all of my earnings from that towards my savings.

I'll have to make a withdrawal from whatever I save in May to pay the remainder of my holiday, again in July to cover spends, and then drip feed it into my account from August to put towards monthly expenditure when I (hopefully) go to uni. (Either that or maybe use it to pay my rent for whatever period it covers up front, or something like that - or alternatively, just leave it there in the bank until it's absolutely necessary to touch it)

My impression of ISA's was that the money was "locked" into them? So I'm not sure if they'd be right for me given that there are points when I'll need to access my money?

xx

gelato_cat

Hi all

Went to see my best friend last night and converted her into a saver!

We were talking about my plans to buy a house with my bf and when I told her how much I'd saved she said she wished she could save too. She's on a low wage but I said I bet she could put some money by each month, even if it was only a little bit. I estimated she could save £200 a month.

So we added up all her outgoings and lo and behold she had £200 left over every month after she'd paid for all her necessities. I said that she didn't have to save all of that and that I thought she should save a minimum of £50 a month, so that she knows she's saving something but still has some money to spend on treats etc (because these things need to be done gradually!) and if she wants to save any more, she can.

She also has a £700 overdraft, but she has £2k in savings (I think she got this from her parents or from an inheritance), so I advised her to pay off the overdraft. She started on about how the bank makes you think the overdraft's your money (ie it's the bank's fault), but I wasn't having any of that and said she might as well pay it off and then cancel it if she feels like she is being forced to spend it because it was clear she earned enough money to live on! She agreed and is going to do this on Monday.

Her granddad died recently and she is due to get some money. I said she could use £700 of this to replace what she's taking out of her savings to pay the overdraft.

She was quite excited by this point - I don't think she'd ever documented her outgoings before, but now she could see that even on £12k a year she could save cos I'd written it all out for her. She banks with HSBC and I said OK, open one of their Internet accounts and set up a standing order to it and we'll worry about the rate of interest later (because my first objective is to get her into the habit of putting money by on a regular basis without missing it. In six months when she's used to saving I can introduce her to the idea of shopping around and getting better deals (if there's even any point at that stage with the BoE rate reductions). At the moment there are a lot of things about the way she interacts with her bank regarding her current account that confuse her, so I think we need to keep it simple).

So we logged on there and then and I advised her to set up an ISA (the interest rate was actually alright which was a bonus) and so she did that and sorted out the standing order at the same time.

While in there, we had a look at her joint account (she lives with her brother) and HSBC are slapping all sorts of charges on them which she doesn't understand - I said the only way to sort it out is to ring them and discuss it, so she's going to!

I think her dad's going to be pleased because he keeps telling her to sort her life out - but then he gives her mixed messages - he's quite well-off and generous with his money... I see nothing wrong with parents giving their kids money, but they shouldn't then expect them to be able to budget or save or stay out of debt, because if there is money on tap then they don't need any willpower!!!

We shall see how she gets on!

Suze

Lokolo

Thats pretty good. I've managed to do the same with my best mate. He gets a lot of money (more than me!!), his dad pays him £400 maintenance, plus his step dad gives him like £200 a month or something so he should be able to save more than he does.

Hes getting there, I keep telling him to stop spending money on crap but he won't listen. However saying that he's started to save loads from his student loan etc. so just a few more nudges...!!!!

But to be fair I am aiming he will be rich and loaded in 10 years and by that time I may need some cash.... :rotfl:

Next 2 months are going to be jam packed with finances bouncing all around the place (car insurance, student loan, fixed rate coming to an end) and uni exams and coursework all due in first week of Jan. Plus more job stuff so EEK going to be BUSSSSY.

When did you start saving btw?