How do you strike a balance -saving v's spending?

Jake'sGran

DUKE wrote: »

Money is for spending & spoiling yourself providing you can (& you seem able to do this) afford this.
My husband's the one who likes to spend on the big stuff, I'm the one who likes to spend on holiday's. I always think that when I'm really old .... I can think of all the places I've travelled to & have such great memories, but I wont have such good memories of the great big **** off TV that we have. But I know that in order for me to have my holz then he has to have what he wants too.

You are right of course but those three words in your first sentence ("providing you can")
have turned out to be so true for me. I have never been very good at splashing out, always compared prices and still do. I have been an investor since the 80s and done well. People say "you could go on a cruise" but I would hate it; Mallorca is perfect for me but even that is out now. No one will insure me and in any case I couldn't handle the journey.

My daughter is a spender and is always buying things.... big things like new bathrooms when the others were beautiful.
She is very generous though. She has two great sons and if they were slipping a bit in any subject at school she would pay for extra tuition at home. I came from a poor home and although I went to a grammar school I was not encouraged at home. My Mum only wanted to go home to Ireland once a year.

So, now, I have started giving it away, to my grandsons mostly. It is great being able to buy anything I fancy but I don't fancy anything special. Now, the greatest joy for me is growing flowers from seed.

Osian, enjoy your life and do your best for your child and try to persuade your husband that you don't need big expensive things.

osian

Thank you all, I like the idea of separate savings pots for different things. Do you just keep a record of this via a spreadsheet, or do you have actual different physical savings accounts? Perhaps if we kept 10% of our savings back for treats that would be great.

vegasvisitor

We keep money in separate accounts, although it's not cast in stone. We had money in several accounts before we moved house, but then lifted most of it for deposit, renovations etc.

We now just keep our ISA money where it is (we don't spend it, other than what we had to lift during the house move which we class as eligible to lift money from there), and we also have some easily accessible savings each for holidays etc.