Anybody else finding it impossible to save money at the moment?

friolento

Can you and your partner give yourselves a bit of a boost with current account switching? It's not a get rich quick scheme but over a year or two you should be able to make £2k+, and it's tax free.It obviously depends on available offers but they seem to come along quite steadily. Plenty of help available on the Budgeting and Banking board.

Exodi

strawb_shortcake

Two mistakes I made

1. Comparing ourselves to others

oldernonethewiser

Comparing ourselves to others - that is definitely something to avoid.

InvesterJones

Agree with the above. Don't compare

I'm going to be a bit contrarian here and suggest comparison isn't necessarily a bad thing, if done in the right way.

Instead of comparing ourselves to specific people who we perceive as having more time/money/health than us (which to be fair is a natural habit that has helped us develop as a species, formally known as 'upward comparison'), I think it's important to put it into context -

We are living in the greatest time ever before in history. We have the longest life expectancy in history, better healthcare than ever before, vaccinations mean we aren't dying of smallpox, measles, polio, etc, technology has never been better, we have TV's cars, phones that do everything, food is abundant and we can order it with a few movements of our finger, we're able travel and see the world for not much money - never possible before, everything is faster, everything is more convenient, it is easier to connect with each other, to communicate, to be entertained than ever before, virtually all information at our fingertips, displayed at whim. And on top of the lottery of being born in the modern era, already single digit odds, you were born in a well off developed country. In the context of all of humanity, you have won the lottery twice.

Yet, despite significant objective progress, we live in a period of subjective misery (not just the OP for being negative about their circumstances, this unhappiness is widespread).

A simple answer for this might be hedonism - e.g. you always want more than you have, but truthfully I don't know what the real answer is. I guess it could be a lack of real insight - I have never experienced abject poverty (not just having to cut down on takeaways, real poverty - e.g. sending kids to work, living in a state of constant mild starvation, etc).

Despite keeping all this in mind, I'm no different, I still can't help spending more time feeling envious of those with double digit employer pension contributions than feeling appreciative I wasn't born 100 years ago and dying from a minor cut. It's human nature, after all.

kimwp

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82078866#Comment_82078866

Ah! You were saying that the mortgage would be high! You only mentioned house prices changing and I didn't make the connection to mortgage payments.

Albermarle

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82078953#Comment_82078953

By coincidence, I am currently reading 'On the road to Wigan Pier' by George Orwell. His accounts of how miners ( often unemployed ones) lived in the 1930's makes you realise that even the poorest people today are living a life that these people could not even have imagined in their wildest dreams. In fact we would not today let dogs live like that, and it was only 100 years ago.

Of course that does not help the distress caused by modern day poverty, but some historical context is often quite useful for a lot of things.

oldernonethewiser

" We are living in the greatest time ever before in history. "

I think that is very subjective depending a number of factors.

elsien

You can still have days out with your son if you look out for the freebies and discounts.
I have a free national trust day pass that I’m using tomorrow and will take a picnic out for.

No it’s not the same - I’ve not had a pay rise for three years, no chance of one this year and obviously the cost of living just keeps going up - but there are still things out there that you can do for fun that don’t cost a lot of money

So for example if you google heritage open week there’s a week in September when NationalTrust and English Heritage and various other places offer free entry on different days. Your son doesn’t care how much money you’re spending; he just wants to have a fun time with you.

Aylesbury_Duck

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82078912#Comment_82078912

I hear stories like this a lot, but ask yourself this: would you be comfortable in their position, knowing that a couple of policy changes would completely undermine their lifestyle, without the insurance of regular income or savings?

It's a bit like the people that don't make any pension provision on the assumption that government will take it all away or will tax it or something else, so they live today on an increased income, but with no idea what their future might look like.

Look after your own financial situation, which it sounds like you're doing. It will pay off, and more importantly, you can sleep at night knowing you could weather some shocks if they come. Your in-laws probably couldn't.

Martico

One crumb of comfort might lie in the fact that the early years of a mortgage are the toughest. As your earnings slowly and hopefully rise broadly in line with inflation, the mortgage repayments stay the same so (again slowly) become more affordable. But yeah, it's a long term thing

daveyjp

First 5 years with a mortgage are the hardest. Don't beat yourself up about not being able to save now, just ensure pension is covered and other saving will come later. Once nursery finishes that's a huge boost in disposable income, unless you decide to add to the family and it all starts again!

thegreenone

Does your bank do Save the Change or their version? They automatically "skim" a small amount to a savings account after you spend on your card. And/Or skim yourself. Balance £81.23. Skim £1.23 to a savings account.

Small bits seriously do add up. I paid off a store card, with horrible interest rates, doing this many years ago.