Savings

enthusiasticsaver

Depends on circumstances and lifestyle. Also personal financial goals like buying a property, travelling, retiring early.

Your first step would be to ascertain how much you need for basic needs like rent, mortgage, utilities, food, car running costs if you have one or travel costs. Keep 3-6 months expenses in an emergency fund in case you lose your job or get ill and are unable to work.

Think about your short term, medium term and long term goals. Holiday would generally be short term or medium term if long haul. Replacement cars, home improvements and mortgage overpayments I would consider medium term and early retirement long term. Different savings vehicles for each of them.

The thing is how much you "should" have in savings is irrelevant. We could all say we want a million in savings but unless you are a high earner or are willing to plough every penny you can into saving that is not going to happen.

We just made our objectives personal to us and our income and lifestyle and used percentages of our income and our usual expenditure patterns to determine how much to save.

webjaved

short_butt_sweet wrote: »

Haha this popped in to my head even before getting to the post!

elephantrosie

no one seems to be answering your question seriously

Neil_Jones

elephantrosie wrote: »

no one seems to be answering your question seriously

Fine then I will.

There is no right answer to the OP's question, it depends on the situation - your lifestyle, your housing arrangements, your outgoing bills - and your income.

Considering the so-called "average" income is somewhere around £29k, and average outgoings are apparently £2,500 a month, that suggests nobody should have any savings at all. I presume these are based on your typical 2.4 Children family setup.

Of course for a single person your outgoings won't be anywhere near that figure, unless you live in a mansion or something.

I'm therefore going to argue that if you're lucky to have money left over at the end of the month then you're in a better position than most. To quote a Charles Dickens character:

Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen [pounds] nineteen [shillings] and six [pence], result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.