Very good income but wife constantly saying we can't save

david_1982

Our household income is around £120k before tax. We have a mortgage payment around £1200, which leaves around £6k net take home each month, we have no car payments, no loans to pay off, cheap phones contracts and no expensive TV package. We have 2 children who go to a couple of sports club and cubs and beavers, each year we go to UK based holiday cottages for about £1500, we don't do centre parks as we think it's too expensive.

That's the basic summary.I think we're doing very well, but we spend a lot on random things, amounting to over £2k a month, but my wife doesn't want to spend time pricing apart what we spend but then complains we don't save much.

Am I unreasonable to think we should be easily able to save a few grand a month with our income and still have a good lifestyle? We have no big outgoings, but lots of small things... Anyone else in this situation?

cymruchris

david_1982 said:

Our household income is around £120k before tax. We have a mortgage payment around £1200, which leaves around £6k net take home each month, we have no car payments, no loans to pay off, cheap phones contracts and no expensive TV package. We have 2 children who go to a couple of sports club and cubs and beavers, each year we go to UK based holiday cottages for about £1500, we don't do centre parks as we think it's too expensive.

That's the basic summary.I think we're doing very well, but we spend a lot on random things, amounting to over £2k a month, but my wife doesn't want to spend time pricing apart what we spend but then complains we don't save much.

Am I unreasonable to think we should be easily able to save a few grand a month with our income and still have a good lifestyle? We have no big outgoings, but lots of small things... Anyone else in this situation?

It depends on your mindset - but on a salary of £120k with £6k take home a month with a £1200 mortgage - there should be ample opportunity for putting some of that away for the future. Your wife might not want to record it all - as it might scare her in terms of what's being spent. Maybe you need to take the lead, and start monitoring for a couple of months where the money is going, and what you're buying. What happens when the income dries up?

njkmr

I would say you need to get a grip of it.
That is a lot of money to be squandering.
It's hemmeriging somewhere.
You could be saving a lot of money for your futures if you find where it's going .

Kathy_1965

download a app like money hub . You link bank accounts and it categorises spending . It’s free for like a month and was an eye opener where money was going. Worth doing for a month or two it does the tracking for you and you can enter budget of what you think you are spending and it shows the overspends 

then you have hard evidence where costs can be cut or transfer funds at beginning of month so saving. From that salary should deffo be able to save. How much is upto you 

J63320

Why not set up one or more regular saver accounts. This means that the money will go out of your account just like any other bill. They also have great interest rates! 

You might not be able get a couple of grand a month put away, but it will be better than nothing - especially if, when they mature, you move the money into another savings account and don’t go splurging it on something silly. 

Brie

regular savings accounts are great but why not also try saving before the money actually hits your account.  So do your employers have any kind of saving scheme?  Share save is great and share purchase is good.  Putting more money into your work pensions via AVCs etc.  You can't spend what you don't have.  

And people think that budgeting is something that only poor people need to do.  There's nothing the matter at all with someone on a higher income such as yourselves filling out the Statement of Accounts that's on the top sticky on the debt free board.  With that you can see where your money goes.  Hopefully!  You'll likely need to check a couple of months worth of bank statements and credit card statements to see how much you are spending on groceries, take aways, dinners out, random coffees at Starbucks.  The figures will likely shock you.  Then there's the notorious addictions like tobacco and alcohol and the less obvious ones like clothes shopping.  Gym memberships that are never used.  Subsciptions to Peleton or similar.  Every one of those that you can cut and divert the money elsewhere will soon add up very nicely indeed.  

theoretica

One advantage of the move away from cash is it can be much easier to look back at where money has gone.  Many accounts have a function to show something - but it can give strange results if you transfer money between accounts.

Budgeting and keeping track of money can be a bit of a chore, but is very useful.  As above, work out what you plan to save and then save it - don't just hope to save whatever hasn't been spent.  Maybe put fixed bills aside into another account and only have the money earmarked for spending available on the spending cards.

Mands

david_1982 said:

Our household income is around £120k before tax. We have a mortgage payment around £1200, which leaves around £6k net take home each month, we have no car payments, no loans to pay off, cheap phones contracts and no expensive TV package. We have 2 children who go to a couple of sports club and cubs and beavers, each year we go to UK based holiday cottages for about £1500, we don't do centre parks as we think it's too expensive.

That's the basic summary.I think we're doing very well, but we spend a lot on random things, amounting to over £2k a month, but my wife doesn't want to spend time pricing apart what we spend but then complains we don't save much.

Am I unreasonable to think we should be easily able to save a few grand a month with our income and still have a good lifestyle? We have no big outgoings, but lots of small things... Anyone else in this situation?

"Hey honey. It feels like we both feel our finances could do with some fine tuning. Not so much the day to day stuff but the medium and long term stuff.

How would you feel if we set aside time for that? I could organise a babysitter** for a Wednesday* evening when neither of us have anything on and book a table for our local coffee shop/pub/restaurant*. We could talk some of this stuff through and make a plan for the next month/quarter/year* to focus on the priorities that matter to both of us. 

If that feels good we could make it a monthly/quarterly/annual* thing.

What do you think?"

* edit as appropriate
** you, not her

Newbie_John

How much you actually save a month now? £1k? What would be her goal? £3k?

Try to start with something in the middle (£2k in example above), as soon as you get paid, put the money aside, stop using credit cards and pay with debit cards dropping/delaying not urgent purchases. See how it goes and then adjust savings up or down.

Some people would save £4k in your case, some will end up in debts - no one answer for all what's the right amount.

Also, paying mortgage is also way of saving money - at some point in the future you will start saving £1200 a month (no more mortgage payments) plus a value of the house if you decide to downsize etc.

lr1277

Some thoughts.

Do you have money left over at the end of the month? Or is the money spent because it is available? If you have money, then there is capacity to save. I ask because you don't specifically mention it.

The first priority is an emergency fund. Do you have one? If not, some people have the equivalent of 3-6 months salary in an easy access account for emergencies or others things not in the budget.. So in your family's case that would mean say between £18k and £36k in an easy access account. Now you may not want to save that much, but that can be a starting point for discussion.

As suggested above, save the money as soon as you get your money. You could think of it as paying yourself first. So as soon as the money comes in put it away. I used to get paid on the last working day of the month. So I had a standing order setup to send money to my savings account on the first day of the next month. As every month has a 1st.

If you don't have money leftover, then as suggested above, you need to keep track of your income and outgoings, to the penny. I use software to keep track of current accounts, savings acounts, credit cards and cash. With cash being the most painful to track as it involves a wallet full of receipts. But does mean I enter the transaction data into the sotware on a daily or near daily basis. This works for me but might be onerous for you. And everytime I enter my cash transactions into the software, it means I can remove and bin the receipts from my wallet.

Adding the transactions to the software based on receipts in my wallet was useful when 1 fast food transaction took about 3 months to post to my account. Not a huge amount, but was something I kept an eye on till the transaction posted. When it posted i could mark it reconciled in the software and was one less thing to worry about.

kimwp

I think on that income, it's definitely possible to save decent amounts of money each month, but it depends what your outgoings are at the moment. My signature has a link to an statement of affairs template which is a good start for laying out what you spend on, alternatively there is a budget tool on MSE somewhere. Go through your accounts to help you fill it in accurately. Then you can see if you are spending in areas that you don't want to be and realign to where you want to be spending/saving for.

Everyone should be aiming to have an emergency fund to cover unexpected spend or income loss, then think about your aims in life - do you want to give your kids house deposits or help with university fees, how much do you want in retirement or do you want to retire early, do you want a new kitchen in a few years time?

As posters have said above, the way you save can make it easier - setting up regular savings or paying into savings/pension before you get paid means that the month's savings are done already and you know what you have left. It's the same with bills - set them up for a few days after payday and it's clear what there is left after bills (and savings) for spending a- this makes it a lot easier to keep within the spending limits you have set. Alternatively you can create "spend" pots for you and your wife that you transfer into each payday.

It's worth (as with any endeavour where people aren't on the same page) trying to understand why your wife is reluctant to do this. There are all sorts of reasons, reminder of tighter times, stigmas about financial discussions, her parents arguing about money when she was young - be prepared for her wanting to hide some spends or possibly even debt from you. Whatever it is, you can face it together.