Average amount of savings for a 30 year old...

ShootForTheMoon · 12 May 2014 at 3:18PM

I'm 26 and paid off all my debt including my student loan this time last year...

As things stand at the moment, I have built £3,000 as an emergency fund which sits in an account earning 5% interest.
I also pay £300 every month into my regular saver and £300 into an investment account straight from my salary. I then save £150 into an online account for car maintainence / insurance etc.
And finally £50 a month into a credit union run by my employer which I leave to build up over time.

I earn around £30k without overtime and live in privately rented accommodation and run 2 decent cars (one convertible sports car and a run-around). In the past year, I've been on several big holidays spending around £8k in the process - travelling is my passion!

Overall, I aim to save approx £10k a year - with the aim of having a substantial deposit for a house by the time I'm 30-32. I don't count planned expenditure (eg. Holidays) in my savings.

I'm quite open about my finances - and tend to find that most friends and colleagues of a similar age to me are in crazy amounts of debt on loans, credit cards, cars etc... Will follow this thread with interest!!

Shoot x

TBagpuss · 14 May 2014 at 11:42AM

Are you paying into a pension, and do you count that as savings?

I agree that averages can be very misleading as there are so many variables such as income, housing costs, relationships etc.

maddermanblue1_2 · 16 May 2014 at 11:44PM

At 29 (almost 30) I had £12k in the bank, my job went down the tubes. Time for a big career change. I packed up, left my home town, moved 150 miles and went to go on a training course. 8 months later passed my course and down shy of £500. (Spent money on the course, rent, living expenses etc, didn't qualify for any benefits as over savings threshold). Went on the dole and HB, got a job 2 months after in more or less what I had trained for. Stayed in that job for 3.5 years picking up valuable experience etc, 2 months ago applied for the job I got now. Couldn't be happier.
Best decision I made getting trained up, but now thinking about moving back to my home town.

I'm 34 now, been saving properly for 4 years, now have £31k in savings, this is a deposit for a place of my own in my home town. I just started my new job with almost double annual salary. I'm hoping to save at least £43k this time next year.

OP, I hope you do well what ever you do!

catwoman73 · 19 May 2014 at 7:49AM

Your suggested figures look like a good start, but depending on how much you plan on spending when you buy your house, you might need more than £10k as a deposit. Don't forget to factor in fees as well, which will be a couple of thousand or more on top.

Things you need to plan on saving for would be annual expenses such as car and home insurances, holidays, and other expenses that will crop up such as car or household repairs. If you can pay for these without using credit, that's a long way towards financial freedom. Always factor the cost of these into your budget - it will be a few hundred pounds per month, if you plan on taking foreign holidays, so not an insignificant amount.

I disagree with the poster who said to save for a purpose - The main thing with saving is to get away from the mindset that all your salary is available to be spent within the month that you receive it. If you can put something by, money stresses often disappear.

Then, a few thousand in an 'emergency fund' to pay your basic bills would be good, in case you lost your job, or couldn't work due to illness etc. If you have this, you don't need any of the rip off 'redundancy insurance' or similar, that is expensive, and doesn't always pay out when you need it.

misskl · 19 May 2014 at 3:28PM

maddermanblue1 wrote: »

At 29 (almost 30) I had £12k in the bank, my job went down the tubes. Time for a big career change. I packed up, left my home town, moved 150 miles and went to go on a training course. 8 months later passed my course and down shy of £500. (Spent money on the course, rent, living expenses etc, didn't qualify for any benefits as over savings threshold). Went on the dole and HB, got a job 2 months after in more or less what I had trained for. Stayed in that job for 3.5 years picking up valuable experience etc, 2 months ago applied for the job I got now. Couldn't be happier.
Best decision I made getting trained up, but now thinking about moving back to my home town.

I'm 34 now, been saving properly for 4 years, now have £31k in savings, this is a deposit for a place of my own in my home town. I just started my new job with almost double annual salary. I'm hoping to save at least £43k this time next year.

OP, I hope you do well what ever you do!

Thank you for your post, this is a similar situation to what I am in now. I'm at a crossroads and looking towards a new career! (I think I also used to spend money because I was bored!)

Sometimes you have to go down to come back up again...

I don't have a pension. Am planning on having a savings goal of 40k for a house and 5k emergency as a starter for ten (once my debts are paid, of course).

Thank you so much everyone for your comments :T

lkmc01 · 20 May 2014 at 3:42PM

I am 29 years old and live with my partner of 30 years old and 2 children. We bought a house in 2011 for 85k and used my 3 years of student loan and a bit of savings (£1000) as a deposit. The deposit was 25%.

Now in term of savings we have at a push about £80. My partner earns 20k a year pre deductions as a coach driver working about 45 hours a week. We get tax credits (100 a week) and child benefit for 2 kids.

I would love a job so I could get off antidepressants, but my partner works on a 24 hour day with some shifts 14 hours long. Wouldn't be able to afford childcare and my parents already look after my sisters child. Partners parents have a hard enough time looking after themselves!!

SomethingGood · 7 June 2014 at 9:08AM

I'm 29 and have £45,000 saved (no mortgage). There are a few reasons for this: one is that I suffered from depression for a very long period of time and didn't go out much. I was living at home with my parents and didn't have to pay any keep. I also happened to have a fairly well paid job, which by some miracle, held onto despite my internal anguish. I'm not a consumer so I only buy what I really need, and I move my money around for better interest rates. Unfortunately I had a pretty crappy existence for a while but it enabled me to save a hell of a lot.

Thankfully I emerged from the black cloud age 26 and packed everything in to travel the world last year. I'm now about to start a masters course and retrain for a new career but I'm also a freelancer so hopefully only my fees will come out of the savings and I can pay my living costs as I earn.

Edit: I should add that a £4600 win on the euromillions helped my decision to travel the world!

Spuggy200 · 25 September 2014 at 2:32PM

Well done SomethingGood, that sounds like you've turned your life around. Depression is an evil beast. A £4,600 win on the EM isn't a bad way to get a fresh start. Where did you go? I did four years in SE Asia, but love being back in the UK.

Just to update this, my wife and I are debt-free now. I didn't have much any way but it was bad debt from being out of the country and not realising I hate the debt - CCJ. Anyway, it's paid off now and my wife's is too, so we can start saving properly without having monthly commitments apart from bills etc.

SuperHan · 27 September 2014 at 8:35AM

I'm 25 and my boyfriend is 32, and between us we have about £11k. We bought a house two years ago, and got help with the deposit and are paying this back to family too.

lindsaygalaxy · 27 September 2014 at 9:28AM

If you have access to money in an emergency like a cc, use the savings to get rid of a chunk of debt. The debt interest will be costing you more.

Average amount of savings for a 30 year old...

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