How much can you save?

longleggedhair

guitarman001 wrote: »

After wasting £10k+ on the stock market (well, it's still sitting there at ~75% down now).... I am sticking to 'safe' saving.

Monies in NS&I now ~ £11800.
Savings in Lloyds Vantage ~ £6800.

Saving ~£900 a month but knock some of that off for the big holiday every year, car insurance etc... Let's say £700 a month, so £8.4k a year. I am going to try and push it (probably unsuccessfully) out to £10k if I can manage it. This is all whilst staying at home. If I were paying extortionate rent or mortgage, savings would be pitiful - what is the point? Currently in a great job but would like more money. Have a pipe-dream to work in Germany - would be worse-off financially but I would love the lifestyle change, to learn the language etc.

Anyway... slowly building the savings back up. Gutted at having blown a load but that was the risk I took.

Hi Guitarman,

Sorry to read about your painful losses on the Stock Market. It can be a painful place at times. I tend to have 50% of my money in S&S and 50% in cash.

I just wondered out of curiosity what shares you lost the money in?

Thanks.

Jharna

How much you can save it depend upon two factor one your income and another your expenses then calculation comes for the sudden expense saving then remaining part goes to actually saving.

guitarman001

longleggedhair wrote: »

Hi Guitarman,

Sorry to read about your painful losses on the Stock Market. It can be a painful place at times. I tend to have 50% of my money in S&S and 50% in cash.

I just wondered out of curiosity what shares you lost the money in?

Thanks.

I lost a little in the Betfair IPO. Don't worry, I got out before it dipped big-time... Held flat in Lloyds and BP. Now out of all those.

I made big losses on junior miners - quite a few promising ones and in times of high inflation, rising commodities/metals looked a good bet. Supposedly the hedge funds had been going long on the metal and short on the companies, so I lost out big-time. Some of the money is still sitting there. I could take out a couple £k and that would be the end of it, but at 75% down, there is no point. Going to hold.

Kittenkirst

Hi all! I want to join in with the savings fun, although am a bit daunted by the sae 12k in 2012 challenge thread! We've just recently cleared our debts and moved into our first (rented) place together, so saving for the house deposit is the next step :0)

I'm aiming to stash £300 a month into my regular savers (8% for the year) and then move the rest across to my instant access account. For the moment I don't want to lock the cash away in case something goes awry and we need the money quick. As we've just moved in it's a bit hard to estimate how much everything will cost but we've set up a separate account for bills and have already overpaid it so that there is an additional months bills cover in there just in case.

Any tips for a new to saving person (who is severely reining in the clothes and shoe shopping- it's all bargain glitches and primark for me for the forseeable!)??

guitarman001

Is that 8% INTEREST? If so, which account??

lvm

guitarman001 wrote: »

Is that 8% INTEREST? If so, which account??

I'm guessing she's talking about the 1st Direct Regular Saver

Got to have a 1st Direct account though but seems worth it!

Kittenkirst

Hi, yes it is 8% with first direct: max per month is 300 but if you are short one month you can make up the shortfall on another month. Seemed a good rate and a good way to start of some savings :0) first direct do a new cust offer too which has a monetary award but not sure what it is!

tinkerbel

Kitten kirst - for me its all about carboot sales for cheap but higher quality clothes - but I guess you'll have to wait until summer now!
with regards to savings, I'm very impressed that you have paid off all your debts!! well done And now, how about you keep acting as if you were paying your debts off but you put the money into savings instead? Or one of my top ones which i havent managed to instate since I've moved into a new place is to pay yourself first, i.e. as soon as you get paid, send a set amount over to savings first and then the rest if for expenses/spends.

snooping_around

...........

Kittenkirst

Hi Tinkerbell, good suggestion about the paying myself a set amount for the month: may have to have a chat with First Direct whether can have a secondary acct (with no O/draft of c