How can banks and the government help you save more?

Glen_Clark

Seabee42 wrote: »

If you do save and something bad happens you have your savings to fall back on, if you do not save you get bailed by the government.

Take a look at the benefits forum and you see there is more to it than that.
Those who have kids get bailed out - whatever they do their right to housing and child benefits cannot be taken away.
Single adults are more likely to be sent to try their luck at the charity foodbanks who are facing such record demand they allow only 3 days supply of food per year.
There are also many exclusive charities for children, women, armed forces etc etc but single men are frequently excluded and left to sleep rough, or turn to crime....
Believe it or not, we still have them dying from exposure and malnutrition.

sax11

BillJones wrote: »

Eh?

They should charge even more, until people learn to stop going overdrawn, and to instead save for a rainy day.

Messing up your finance so badly that you have to spend the bank's money to get by, and then blaming them for what you did, makes no sense at all.

It's people such as you that the thread is about, people who spend all that they earn, and then spend some more. We need to find ways to get you to learn to budget properly, and to live within your means, so that you can start saving.

utter bo11ocks

a - i never messed up my finances - divorce managed that

b - i don't spend more than i earn, infact i'm on such a budget it's hardly worth me working. Now with the ridiculous charges they've implememnted the !!!! poor amount i was saving now gets given straight back to the bank in charges.

and people such as me ? Care to explain or is being a concescending !!!!!!! part of your remit ?

Herbalus

sax11 wrote: »

utter bo11ocks

a - i never messed up my finances - divorce managed that

b - i don't spend more than i earn, infact i'm on such a budget it's hardly worth me working. Now with the ridiculous charges they've implememnted the !!!! poor amount i was saving now gets given straight back to the bank in charges.

and people such as me ? Care to explain or is being a concescending !!!!!!! part of your remit ?

BillJones takes the hard line on these things. What he says about circumstances is generally true, but people he talks to (like you) don't regard him as the sympathetic type.

With the "people such as you", I read that as people in the circumstances he described, which may or may not be you because he, nor i for that matter, know whether you're in those circumstances. His comments about people spending more than they earn, and who are willing to go into their overdraft, are spot on - many of these people would be a great deal better off if they sat down, sorted out a budget, sold things on ebay, changed to cheaper phones etc, and got themselves out of a financial quandary.

I'm afraid I don't understand your part b - if you don't spend more than you earn, how are you in your overdraft?

Fen1

Financial Education from primary age. Young children DO understand the value of money, saving, and not buying rubbish.They need good examples from the cradle (which far too many parents do not give).
Financial education in parenting classes. How to set a good example (????)

Overhaul the benefits system. Why save if you know your bills are going to be paid for you? I'll just go and buy another packet of ciggies......

Have the banks ever considered opening outside working hours? Perhaps making themselves available for their customers in the evenings, weekends, holidays? Or is basic customer service and common sense just too much to ask?

DiamondLil

Fen1 wrote: »

Financial Education from primary age. Young children DO understand the value of money, saving, and not buying rubbish.

Many, many years ago, we were taught the basics at primary school.
I remember very well the lesson covering simple interest and compound interest.
And while I'm on my soap box again, the government encouraged children to save with savings stamps.
Every week I'd go to the post office and buy my sixpenny savings stamp, come home and stick it into the book.
Oh, the joy of watching it mount up over the weeks. Almost every child I knew did the same.

Storm

Having been on both sides of the debt/saving - see my signature for the debt I got into after graduating, and when I got made redundant three months ago I had more than that in all my accounts combined, the thing that changed was my mindset. The government and banks are not going to be able to change this, we learn from experience.


Scrapping the tax on savings - no, as others have said it will only benefit the very rich, especially with the increased NISA limit.


What they could make providers do however is insist that they write to people a month before a rate change, include information on where they can get independent advice on the best accounts, and insist that all NISAs take transfers from previous accounts (and make the process very easy for savers).


As others have said, having savings does mean you can't claim the safety net (I didn't claim anything after being made redundant because with my savings I would have only been able to get the basic contributions based JSA, so I figured I'd wait until my savings were below the level so I could get income based JSA, housing benefit & council tax benefit, and I got a job before this happened). For older people, any savings and often even equity in your home will be used to pay care home bills, so savings from the older generation aren't being passed down.


The work-based savings products sound like they'd be a nightmare for small businesses - while a nice idea in theory, as a regular saver it would be great if I could do that before tax. However, it could only work for savings that were locked away, otherwise we could get a huge amount sent tax free to a savings account, but then just draw it out each month. If you want to encourage people to save then by only letting them get tax relief if it's locked away is not going to encourage those who don't already save.


As Mazzie said, many people simply can't afford to save right now. Wages are stagnant, prices of everything else is going up, and the interest rates on savings are so small that unless you can afford to save a big chunk each month it barely seems worth it! The minimum wage needs looking at, and it needs to become the living wage. The other things to look at are the areas of most concern to those on a low income - capping rent increases, making pre-paid utility costs lower, raising the tax free allowance etc. Give people more money in their pockets and some of them (not all) will save the extra.

Archi_Bald

Fen1 wrote: »

Have the banks ever considered opening outside working hours? Perhaps making themselves available for their customers in the evenings, weekends, holidays? Or is basic customer service and common sense just too much to ask?

Many bank and building society branches are open 6 days a week and I can't see how opening 7 days would increase the amount people save. Most banks and building societies are open 24x7 since they are all online. Many even have their phone lines manned 24x7. ATMs can be used 24x7 for cash and cheque deposits if you are really desperate.

Just about everybody has a phone these days, and many have internet access. There is really no excuse to be made about access to savings accounts.

BillJones

sax11 wrote: »

utter bo11ocks

a - i never messed up my finances - divorce managed that

b - i don't spend more than i earn,

Then you won't ever be overdrawn, will you, so won't need to worry about overdraft charges.

It's quite amazing, really, the number of people who claim as you do that you don't spend everything that you earn, but then magically end up in debt. How precisely can you have had more coming in than out, and not then have net savings?

BillJones

Herbalus wrote: »

With the "people such as you", I read that as people in the circumstances he described

Exactly so, hence the "such as" rather than "like".

"Such as" meaning people being charged for an overdraft.

And, to echo your point and mine, how can people sit there and claim that they live within their means but are overdrawn?

I suppose, technically, he may mean that he did not live within his means in the past, but now does so, but that's a rather weasel-worded rebuttal.

And, to return to the main point, rather that getting sidetracked, you do not encourage saving by making overdrafts cheaper. This has exactly the opposite effect.

Glen_Clark

Storm wrote: »

the areas of most concern to those on a low income - capping rent increases,

The housing crisis has been created by the Government restricting the supply of housing through planning restrictions. Its also created the industrial and employment crisis, because it has made buy to let more profitable than productive manufacturing. Government interference in the free market is the problem, not the solution.
And (despite Millibands populist pre election promises) you can't impose arbitrary price controls on the power generators or they won't build enough new power stations and the lights will go out.