what are you saving for?

katejo

yellow218 wrote: »

Hi all

Hubby and I want to save more. Savings rates seem very low, but we are hoping to be disciplined enough to put money aside each month.

There are loads of topics about being debt free or mortgage free, but what else are you all saving for.

Do you have particular goals, is it is just the point to save as much as you can for a rainy day?
I'm thinking that if we have particular goals then the choice of spending vs saving will become easier. (ie lots of small treats, or save them up and have one big treat!)

I already have an emergency cushion though I am still adding more to it. Apart from that I save for home improvement projects and holidays. I also do mortgage overpayments but there is no need to increase those further because I have a lifetime base rate tracker mortgage.

chanda_2

I'm saving just to save and future deposit for my own flat.

Pincher

If you need to ask, then you don't really have a goal of your own.

My mother used to take me to museums and castles and still try to feed me spinach: BECAUSE it's good for me. As it turns out, she has no interest whatsoever in art, architecture and vitamin C. She just read it somewhere, maybe Readers Digests.

She use to take multi-vitamin pills, as well, but can't be bothered any more: actually a good thing, better than overdosing on the damned things.

I far rather get my vitamin C from oranges and mangoes, thank you very much.

Get a house and garden sorted, before you get old. By the way these builders and plumbers waste my time, it will take a lifetime to get right.

HornetSaver

I'm in my mid-to-late 20s. And to be brutally honest, I'm working hard now and saving heavily so that by my early 40s I'm mortgage free in a decent-sized home and have no desperate need to work hard - that doing beyond the bare minimum will carry incentives, but on the other hand I have the option to start winding down early and enjoying the fruits of my labour.

Given the way interest rates have gone and inflation is about to go, I have no option but to absolutely bust my guts over the next 18 months to accelerate the start of those plans if I want to maintain that schedule. If I time it right inflation might actually work to my advantage. Such is the likely situation in the medium term that saving for saving's sake no longer appears to make sense, beyond having an emergency fund.

Sapphire

I save mainly to feel secure. I have been in the position a few times in my life when I've even actually had to make Christmas presents for lack of money, and I really didn't like the feeling of living on the edge. I would also hate to rely on the State (i.e. fellow taxpayers) for benefits for not working. It would make me feel bad about myself because I have a strong work ethic, and believe that being productive keeps you going and gives you a sense of achievement.

Having never had an inheritance dropping conveniently out of the sky, as some have had, I've had to rely on my own resourcefulness, and have done so since leaving school at 17 (I did a degree a few decades later, while still working, for pleasure, which I paid for myself).

I have various interests, and it is great to be able to splash out on them occasionally without having to worry about money! I don't spend money wantonly, though, on fripperies – and if I'm making an expensive purchase of anything, I tend to think about whether I really want to make it for a while. That way I also get more pleasure from it if I do actually buy it, than I would if I were to make it an impulse purchase…

Sapphire

Sapphire wrote: »

I save mainly to feel secure. I have been in the position a few times in my life when I've even actually had to make Christmas presents for lack of money, and I really didn't like the feeling of living on the edge. I would also hate to rely on the State (i.e. fellow taxpayers) for benefits for not working. It would make me feel bad about myself because I have a strong work ethic, and believe that being productive keeps you going and gives you a sense of achievement.

Having never had an inheritance dropping conveniently out of the sky, as some have had, I've had to rely on my own resourcefulness, and have done so since leaving school at 17 (I did a degree a few decades later, while still working, for pleasure, which I paid for myself).

I have various interests, and it is great to be able to splash out on them occasionally without having to worry about money! I don't spend money wantonly, though, on fripperies – and if I'm making an expensive purchase of anything, I tend to think about whether I really want to make it for a while. That way I also get more pleasure from it if I do actually buy it, than I would if I were to make it an impulse purchase…

I'd like to add that if you start off with nothing (and we were really poor when I was a child, like some others at the time in Britain), it makes you appreciate what you achieve yourself. My parents lost everything material during the war, as well as family in the case of my mother, and their country. They were broken by the war, and did not have the ability or capacity to 'make money', except for basic living (though we were brought up as decent and high-achieving, if slightly eccentric human beings by my mother and grandparents). My sense of insecurity if I do not have money saved and feel 'close to the edge' probably stems from the fact that I know what it is like to lose everything…

Joe_Bloggs

I allege The concept of money is just a hypothetical means of temporary storage of value available at the time of exchange. Let us make the most of it for mutual benefit rather than try to profit from it as individuals.
J_B.

DigForVictory

I was saving for a passport & a holiday in Italy.
Now, I'm saving for them, next year...

Suggestions on how to stop raiding the stash over Christmas & birthday season appreciated!

eskbanker

Joe_Bloggs wrote: »

I allege The concept of money is just a hypothetical means of temporary storage of value available at the time of exchange. Let us make the most of it for mutual benefit rather than try to profit from it as individuals.
J_B.

....or even J_C[orbyn]

Joe_Bloggs

Dear eskbanker, Please elaborate as your comment is too cryptic for my understanding.
On a separate matter:-
If a nation wishes to alienate itself then surely some plans should have been put in place for the aftermath. It is at this time that they should be read.
J_B.