Anyone else feel down about how long it takes to see meaningful difference to savings?

jamesd

The PDSA estimates monthly costs for a dog at £50 for small, £65 for medium and £80 for large, plus vet fees. Not sure that a child can be funded at those levels.  

It does imply that on a thirty year plan the dog owner will need between roughly £19,000 and £30,000 of extra capital plus the cost of acquisition and vet bills per dog.

On the accumulation side of things, the £50 a month if not spent could produce a £57,000 pot after 37 years of 4.5% growth. Or £91,000 for £80 a month.

Ibrahim5

You have to look at the OPs original post to see the dog spending.
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6128270/head-out-of-the-sand-saving-for-a-shiny-future
I don't think our children cost that much. Children have the NHS. We never spent anything on childcare.

ForestBluebells

Yeah my dogs cost WAY more than that but I’m thrilled to have them in my life and everything revolves around them including my hobbies so no, they aren’t going anywhere. They bring me lots of joy

QrizB

Ibrahim5 said:

We never spent anything on childcare.

You either spend on childcare, or an adult gives up work to care for them instead. For the five pre-school years alone, that's £150k assuming the adult would otherwise be earning national average wage of ~£30k pa.

Around here, childcare costs about 50% of minimum wage so it's cheaper to pay childcare than to give up work.

Either way, kids cost a lot of money.

NannaH

Or, as in my case,  I provide childcare for my Grandson so both his can parents work and don’t have to pay £1000 a month for full time nursery 😉
I also claim NI credits via my DD to make up a 7 year shortfall in my State pension -  you can claim up until a child is 12.  

Dead_keen

ForestBluebells said:

I only started saving and investing for my future/retirement January 2020, I’ve saved more than I could have originally thought possible with a strict budget and earning as much extra income to invest as I could but being so early in my journey my total pensions/investments still feels so low on my journey. 

How does everyone else keep motivated? I know it’s a long journey anyway but kind of lost my enthusiasm. 

I entered a marathon on Monday and have just under 50 weeks before the big day.  Today I ran two miles at a pace that only just stopped walkers from overtaking me. Only one person took the michael out of me.  My plan is to run consistently and, from what I've read, by doing that there's a good chance that I could end up running the marathon suprisingly quickly. 

This is said as someone who remembers getting a pension statement in the 1990s to say that my pension fund had fallen by an amount almost equal to my annual contributions.  And the following year it said it had fallen by an amount equal to my contributions plus my employer's.  I carried on saving and retired two months ago at 53. 

Prism

My salary is 20% less prorata just to cover 10 weeks of school holidays a year. That equals a considerable expenses and doesn't even cover general school time or half terms. There is no getting away from it, kids cost a big chunk of money.