how important are savings?

perth_worker

Hello,

My question today is how important are savings?

I was always told education/career are very important and so i spent a lot of my youth time focusing on getting a good degree, getting a good job, blah blah blah blah blah.

Anyway I ended up getting a good degree and a good job, working in a mine site as an exploration geologist with a starting salary of £50 000 a year - which is assume will go up through my career.

Anyway having worked full time for two years I am so feed up of the rat race. By that I mean, I do not like the stress, comptetitiveness and the amount of hours I have to work, and I don't actually enjoy my job. and this is when I am in the office. The work I have to do on the mine site is pretty crusy however conditions are a bit rough there and its very long hours.

I would rather spend my time at the gym, playing wii or chilling.

In saving that, I have made a considerate amount of savings. I have 50k savings and I am only 26yrs old.

I feel like that I just want to quite my job... just work a few hours a week doing a dead end job in tescos just so i have enough money to go by and just chill and enjoy life and not focus on saving money, buying a house/car anymore.

So my question is, what should I do. Carry on working 40+hrs a week and save lots of money or be a bum. Does life get a lot harder when I get older (should I save lots and lots of money) and i am just being very immature?

doubleJackD

perth_worker wrote: »

Hello,

My question today is how important are savings?

I was always told education/career are very important and so i spent a lot of my youth time focusing on getting a good degree, getting a good job, blah blah blah blah blah.

Anyway I ended up getting a good degree and a good job, working in a mine site as an exploration geologist with a starting salary of £50 000 a year - which is assume will go up through my career.

Anyway having worked full time for two years I am so feed up of the rat race. By that I mean, I do not like the stress, comptetitiveness and the amount of hours I have to work, and I don't actually enjoy my job. and this is when I am in the office. The work I have to do on the mine site is pretty crusy however conditions are a bit rough there and its very long hours.

I would rather spend my time at the gym, playing wii or chilling.

In saving that, I have made a considerate amount of savings. I have 50k savings and I am only 26yrs old.

I feel like that I just want to quite my job... just work a few hours a week doing a dead end job in tescos just so i have enough money to go by and just chill and enjoy life and not focus on saving money, buying a house/car anymore.

So my question is, what should I do. Carry on working 40+hrs a week and save lots of money or be a bum. Does life get a lot harder when I get older (should I save lots and lots of money) and i am just being very immature?

tbh i wouldn't bank on your salary going up. mining is a bit cylical, if you don't believe me have a look at the copper price over time.....

i would stick your job as long as you can, you not think you would get bored at tesco?

being stuck on site is poor, i'm stuck in a desert with 200 guys

JustinCredibleGillespie

To me savings is really important, I wouldnt have anywhere near £50k and I'm 26, but I know if you want nice things in life you have to work for them. I have a few things on my bucket list that I want to do & they all require ££££.

Anyway, my advice.....Keep saving

JCG

xx

le_loup

perth_worker wrote: »

i am just being very immature?

Yes.
..............

p00hsticks

perth_worker wrote: »

I would rather spend my time at the gym, playing wii or chilling.

I think you need a bit of a reality check - you aren't going to be able to cover the price of gym fees and wii games by 'working a few hours at tesco'. You'll be lucky to earn enough that way to get a shared room in a sh*thole and a few tins of cheap beans to eat.

I suspect that if you;re honest you'll find that you actually want a better standard of living than you could achieve by dropping out in this way completely.

Mojisola

There are plenty of options between your present job and a dead-end minimum wage one.

What a good income or plenty of savings do is give you choice.

Why not set yourself a target of a certain level of savings and put as much away in your pension now as you can. It's much easier to put up with things if you can see an end and if you've got a target to aim for.

Once you've got the money saved, reassess the situation. Do you want to take a year out and go traveling? Spend some time volunteering here or abroad? Do you want to retrain for something else? Do you want to try a spell in a minimum wage job - pretend you haven't got any savings and see how difficult it will be to manage.

It can look like madness to walk away from a well-paid job but if you're not happy, it's worth reassessing things.

Rob_192

For god's sake, just grow up.

You have a good job with career prospects and a few quid in the bank, something many people would give their hind teeth for.

At 26 you are only just starting out in life, you will in time find yourself with responsibilities, family etc and you should be looking towards using your savings as a potential deposit on a house and looking to make sure you get yourself financially secure for the rest of your life.

What about pension? you have to look out for yourself these days, early contributions are the easiest way to do this - plow as much as you can into your pension. If you think part time work at Tesco is going to allow you to retire at a reasonable age on anything more than minimum income, then think again.

Learn to 'work to live', not 'live to work'. Even working long hours, you can still make the best of life, but please, get some sensible hobbies...playing on the wii! how sad! Take up climbing or mountainerering or something, life's too short to waste playing computer games.

R

Starbrite

Could always do what a lot of people do, Work 6 mths in a job then spend the other 6 mths doing nothing!

A lot of the people who work ski seasons and or on oil rigs etc do this.....

Then your have best of both worlds

calypso_rhapsody

I went through that heartache a few times in my working life too but in the end stuck to the grind stone, saved as much as i could and retired at age 45 with enough money to last me until well into my 90s (and that's without selling the house which will almost certainly be too big to manage one day). The last 9 years have been a ball - doing exactly what my OH and I want to do, when we want to do it, and with the comfort of knowing that our old age will also be comfortable.

JustinCredibleGillespie

calypso_rhapsody wrote: »

I went through that heartache a few times in my working life too but in the end stuck to the grind stone, saved as much as i could and retired at age 45 with enough money to last me until well into my 90s (and that's without selling the house which will almost certainly be too big to manage one day). The last 9 years have been a ball - doing exactly what my OH and I want to do, when we want to do it, and with the comfort of knowing that our old age will also be comfortable.

I envy you calypso

innovate

I first thought it's a wind-up, but the OP seems consistently not very well informed, judging by another post

perth_worker wrote: »

Yes that is correct - I have no other no alternative savings or pension arrangements. To be honest I haven't really thought about pensions yet. Doesn't the state government pay a pension or something? In Australia, the employer has to pay 9% of your salary towards your pension (its called super superannuation which you can access when your 65 or if I leave oz permanently). So I was kind of relying on that. I haven't really given my pension much though as it seems very far away.
<snip>
Should I really start thinking about private pension now as I am only 25?

Haven't seen any mention of the potential of a family - may be the OP has already decided not to ever have kids, so at least he wouldn't need to cater for costs of bring up a child or two.

Everybody has good and bad days in their working life - thinking of chucking it all in at the age of 26 is just ridiculous. Unless you fancy ending up homeless, with a life expectancy of around mid-forties.

If you suffer from depression, see a doctor.

Others have already said anything else I would add.