'Life savings' - do people still have them?

[Rude-boy]

Garvin said:

State care? Pah, who said anything about state care? My pension ends when I finally expire, not when I enter any care home! That will be sufficient on its own to fund some pretty good care. This leaves all the other 'stashed' resources to be frittered away on wine, women, song and fast cars until I am no longer 'capable'.

Not that many are as lucky as you to have been able to afford to put away enough for £4k+ per month in pension, which is about what a good one will cost you down south in today's money before any state aid is added into the mix.

[Axionknight]

We had a good level of savings all things considered, but it is currently being used to refurbish a house so by the time we are finished, hopefully just before Christmas, that will all be gone - seperate to this is three months worth of outgoings put aside as a just incase, it'll pay the bills and get the food in, but we wouldn't be out at restaurants ETC which it.

Once the house is do we will be saving again, will they be "life savings"? Probably, until I see a car I want!

Edited by Axionknight on Wednesday 13th August 13:06

[TwigtheWonderkid]

sjabrown said:

I try to have about 6 months worth of earnings saved and accessible should something untoward happen.

Exactly. I heard someone on the TV talking about homelessness. Said we should all be sympathetic, as if we lost our job tomorrow, we are all only a month away from being homeless ourselves.

What a load of crap. Loads of people have cleared their mortgage, loads of people have enough to cover many months, and even if you haven't, it would take far longer that a month to miss a payment and go thru all the rigmarole of getting repossessed.

Daft bint.

[Axionknight]

TwigtheWonderkid said:

Exactly. I heard someone on the TV talking about homelessness. Said we should all be sympathetic, as if we lost our job tomorrow, we are all only a month away from being homeless ourselves.

What a load of crap. Loads of people have cleared their mortgage, loads of people have enough to cover many months, and even if you haven't, it would take far longer that a month to miss a payment and go thru all the rigmarole of getting repossessed.

Daft bint.

Did she blame the Tories?

[Hodgie]

I had savings, had saved as much as I could since i started full time working but have just blown almost all of it on a house deposit. Buying a house was the sensible choice as I can now afford it and have been renting for 3 years but not having a nice savings sum in the bank is scaring the crap out of me! Time to start again!

[Grandfondo]

Rude-boy said:

Garvin said:

State care? Pah, who said anything about state care? My pension ends when I finally expire, not when I enter any care home! That will be sufficient on its own to fund some pretty good care. This leaves all the other 'stashed' resources to be frittered away on wine, women, song and fast cars until I am no longer 'capable'.

Not that many are as lucky as you to have been able to afford to put away enough for £4k+ per month in pension, which is about what a good one will cost you down south in today's money before any state aid is added into the mix.

Pension pot of 1.25 million required for 50k per year!

[Ari]

TwigtheWonderkid said:

Exactly. I heard someone on the TV talking about homelessness. Said we should all be sympathetic, as if we lost our job tomorrow, we are all only a month away from being homeless ourselves.

What a load of crap. Loads of people have cleared their mortgage, loads of people have enough to cover many months, and even if you haven't, it would take far longer that a month to miss a payment and go thru all the rigmarole of getting repossessed.

Daft bint.

Agree with you entirely, but that thinking is what prompted this thread. Many many people do live exactly like this. Money comes in at end of month, all spent by end of next month, hopefully (but not necessarily) just in time for the next chunk of money in.

And I'm not knocking that. I lived like it for years, just because there simply was none to spare for saving (or even clearing the frigging overdraft!)

As I always say, good money management is the easiest thing in the world - provided you have enough of it!

But the question is, how many people that are fortunate enough to have surplus, will simply spend it on a better phone/holiday/car payments/mortgage/rent/whatever? How many these days do actually say 'you know what, I'm just going to save the extra and let it build'?

Mind you, there's precious little incentive to save when you make the square root of feck all interest and the value of it is probably going backwards...

[Ari]

Grandfondo said:

Pension pot of 1.25 million required for 50k per year!

This is the bit that frightens me. You need an astronomical amount of savings to get a half decent income from it. Again, makes you wonder whether it's worth it.

[Grandfondo]

Ari said:

Grandfondo said:

Pension pot of 1.25 million required for 50k per year!

This is the bit that frightens me. You need an astronomical amount of savings to get a half decent income from it. Again, makes you wonder whether it's worth it.

It is now that you can get your hands on it, before I was sceptical,

[Cotty]

Ari said:

The thing is, no one I know seems to save any more. If you want something, a new car, a boat, an extension, it doesn't come out of savings, you just finance it. People seem to live to their means, if they have any spare cash it goes on 'lifestyle' or holidays, or a deposit for that new four berth caravan.

Well there is an easy answer to that, don't. I have lived in the same house for 18 years, as my wages have gone up the mortgage repayments have gone down. Paid cash for my car 12 years ago. been putting money into pension and isa for years. I used some of the pot to buy and run a Lotus, sold it for nearly what I paid for it and put it back in the pot.

Obvioulsy it helps not being married with kids.

[TwigtheWonderkid]

Ari said:

Grandfondo said:

Pension pot of 1.25 million required for 50k per year!

This is the bit that frightens me. You need an astronomical amount of savings to get a half decent income from it. Again, makes you wonder whether it's worth it.

Remember that you don't have to save anything like £1.25m to end up with a pension pot of £1.25m

If you're a 40% tax payer, you only need to save £6 to get £10 in your pot. many employers contribute. My employer pays in a further half of whatever I put in, so I only have to save £6 to get £15 in my pot. Plus you get returns on your pot saved so far.

[bertie]

Grandfondo said:

Pension pot of 1.25 million required for 50k per year!

Exactly, and if you go over you get taxed horrificaly, so the message is make usre you save, but not too much!

And £50k a year isn't exactly living the high life!

[Kermit power]

Ari said:

Grandfondo said:

Pension pot of 1.25 million required for 50k per year!

This is the bit that frightens me. You need an astronomical amount of savings to get a half decent income from it. Again, makes you wonder whether it's worth it.

What concerns me is that despite the annual statements and the like, I'm still really struggling to figure out what my standard of living is actually likely to be from my pensions!

Between my contributions and my employer's, I've currently got just over a grand going into my pension every month, which is the sum total of my savings. This, according to my last annual pension statement, will give me a retirement pot of £496k "in today's money", assuming the middling 2% return.

Given that their suggestion is a 25% lump sum followed by an annual pension of £11k from the remainder, they can go and screw themselves if they think I'm going to be buying an annuity!

[Fotic]

bertie said:

And £50k a year isn't exactly living the high life!

If your mortgage is clear, kids are grown up and gone then I reckon it's a pretty tidy sum.

[J4CKO]

Fotic said:

bertie said:

And £50k a year isn't exactly living the high life!

If your mortgage is clear, kids are grown up and gone then I reckon it's a pretty tidy sum.

have a look at his garage, then put it in context

[bazza white]

3 months of my salary in a savings account for if I ever find myself without a job, it would be 6 however its a balancing act for that and the house deposit.

Even when I have a house I could save but its a sacrifice for either more in a pension or paying off the mortgage to get further up the ladder.

I finance nothing any more. Bitten once twice shy regarding debt.

[Don]

I have always maintained a year's mortgage payments as a "deep savings" buffer. If I lost my job (again) then it would give me time to find gainful employment.

Then I have savings. Because one needs to buy a car/new appliance/etc from time to time and so on.

But it is nowhere near as much as I'd like to have banked away. I think in order to make your own decisions, rather than ones made so you can pay the mortgage that month, you need to be sitting on a fair pile.

[Don]

bazza white said:

I finance nothing any more. Bitten once twice shy regarding debt.

Funny how many of us have had that experience. As a young man I afforded I car I really shouldn't have. It hurt mightily when it turned out to be a shed. It's a great memory now - but the lesson stuck with me for life.

[Simpo Two]

Ari said:

The thing is, no one I know seems to save any more. If you want something, a new car, a boat, an extension, it doesn't come out of savings, you just finance it. People seem to live to their means, if they have any spare cash it goes on 'lifestyle' or holidays, or a deposit for that new four berth caravan.

So has the mindset of years of careful saving, slowly accumulating a nest egg gone? Is the idea hopelessly outdated?

It's up to the individual. People can either blow their salary each month so that when they need to buy a big ticket item they have to borrow money and end up paying £12K instead of £10K (especially dire for cars which will be worth half that after three years) - or they can save for a bit then nip in and get it for £9K cash.

I find it quite horrifying that some people, despite having a decent job, have no savings. What do they plan to do if/when they get the chop?

[Grandfondo]

TwigtheWonderkid said:

Ari said:

Grandfondo said:

Pension pot of 1.25 million required for 50k per year!

This is the bit that frightens me. You need an astronomical amount of savings to get a half decent income from it. Again, makes you wonder whether it's worth it.

Remember that you don't have to save anything like £1.25m to end up with a pension pot of £1.25m

If you're a 40% tax payer, you only need to save £6 to get £10 in your pot. many employers contribute. My employer pays in a further half of whatever I put in, so I only have to save £6 to get £15 in my pot. Plus you get returns on your pot saved so far.

I would bet that most people don't even have £100k in their pension pot never mind £1 million!!!