How much can you save?

cookie9

Can I please join the savers club?
Like many people here I am saving for a house. I have approximately £15,000 in stocks and shares (with PEP/ISA wrappers) and £22,000 in bank savings (some e-savings and others cash ISAs). Currently aiming to save £500 per month.
target actual
Jan 500 1200
Do many people do what I do with windfalls i.e set aside a percentage of any additional monies received to my savings account. This way I have a small bonus to play with but the majority goes to my savings to help with my long term goals.

gelato_cat

Welcome!

In answer to your last point, I'm terrible - I tend to save all of it. Even Christmas and birthday money tends to go in my purse and I spend it on the weekly shop instead of on treats!!! Not because I'm really saving-conscious, but because I'm not really used to spending on luxuries.

Suze

cookie9 wrote:

Can I please join the savers club?
Like many people here I am saving for a house. I have approximately £15,000 in stocks and shares (with PEP/ISA wrappers) and £22,000 in bank savings (some e-savings and others cash ISAs). Currently aiming to save £500 per month.
target actual
Jan 500 1200
Do many people do what I do with windfalls i.e set aside a percentage of any additional monies received to my savings account. This way I have a small bonus to play with but the majority goes to my savings to help with my long term goals.

Angelselondon

Welcome Cookie

this forum is very friendly and motivating. Enjoy it as much as I am.

Angelselondon

Hi Suzie

I know exactly what you mean about luxuries. It's my Birthday next week and my boyfriend has surprised me by booking the cinema and a restauarnt this afternoon. It was so nice, by saving you appreciate it more when someone does something like this.

kippers

We are saving desparately for central heating however we still have £265 of debt to clear. We struggle with money and saving all our little bits can be demoralising sometimes so it would be nice to have some encouragement from everyone.

This is a good idea!

Angelselondon

kippers wrote:

We are saving desparately for central heating however we still have £265 of debt to clear. We struggle with money and saving all our little bits can be demoralising sometimes so it would be nice to have some encouragement from everyone.

This is a good idea!

Hi Kippers,

Welcome!!! Don't be demoralised, you should be proud to be saving no matter how much it is. Sometimes it is hard to go against the flow, even with £265 of debt you are still below the national average of brits that are in debt.

That means that you are probably one of the richest people on your street.



It's nice to hear that people still wish to save of things rather than the get it now attitude that most have. You will appreciate life more.

Well done :T

gelato_cat

zag2me wrote:

Totally agree with that, it just doesn't seem to mean anything once you go over a certain level, but because you have the mentality to save, you keep pushing yourself higher. Its only when someone else your age talks to you about it then you realise how well you have done :P

Yup. You can almost see the despair on their faces when they realise what cr*p they've been spending their money on and how much they could have saved had they put their minds to it.

One bloke I worked with said that he couldn't believe his friend saved for two years "without telling him" and had £8k in the bank. I was thinking "I'm able to save £10k a year minimum easy" (and so could he if he wanted to). Some people just spend what they have (like he did) and they need to accept that they either do that, or save, or find a happy medium. They can't have it all!

zag2me wrote:

One thing I will say though is there comes a point when you can risk a bit of it on a proper investment like stocks and shares or similar. Money makes money and if you can get above inflation gains your pot will only increase in value and at a surprisingly fast rate

Just remember if you keep it in the bank even in a high interest account your money is always staying the same due to inflation, sometimes even decreasing in real terms value.

I've thought about this but really don't know where I'd invest my money. Plus I'm not sure if I want to tie it up (to get a better return) given that I'm going to be leaving these shores for a new life within the next three years... it's a bit of a dilemma really.

Suze

gelato_cat

I don't tend to get this as I am generally quite private about my financial matters - posting here doesn't count as it's semi-anonymous, but "in real life" only a couple of people know how much I earn and nobody knows how much I have in the bank. Makes me laugh when people try to guess though. They usually say something like £5k and I just say if I told them they probably wouldn't believe me.

I don't talk about Canada much either. I find that people turn their noses up at the fact I want to move. One of my mum's friends said it would be hard and when I said I had some savings, she said "a couple of thousand won't last very long" :rolleyes: I just let them carry on - in the end, I'm looking after number one.

Suze

save-a-lot wrote:

Exactly true, I am (unofficial) financial advisor to friends at work and my family, all the family turn to me on matters financial... to me though alot of it is common sense.

moneysavingwannabe

Suzey wrote:

I actually started thinking the other day that I've been saving for so long now and never buy myself any treats, so am thinking about buying a new PC, laptop and maybe a car. I don't need them, but my PC could do with updating (it's a hand-me-down which has been patched up several times and I would like something a bit more robust), I'd quite like the luxury of sitting on the sofa with a laptop surfing the Internet and I've nothing against the bus but sometimes when it doesn't show up and it's windy and raining outside I do think that there must be more to life and I can afford to make my existence a bit easier so why shouldn't I!

Mustn't go mad though - I am sure you will keep me all in check!!!

Suze

Hi Suze,

I used to have a pc but now just have a laptop- it's great I can sit anyway to work or surf the internet even at the bottom of the garden!!
(Not in this weather though! LOL)

You might be ok with just a laptop? Then it wouldn't seem quite as extravagant!!

steady__eddie

If you want to sit on the sofa and surf the net, then you don't want a laptop, you want a wireless keyboard. There's a post on the grabbit board for ebuyer who are currently doing a wireless keyboard AND a wireless optical mouse for £4-99 (no postage if you choose the 5 day option).
Save yourself a couple of hundred quid and get one of those !