Do you save money every month?

AndyCr15 said:
I like the idea of it, but as someone that tracks every single transaction on my accounts, all of those would drive me nuts! :cry: I did have £25 a week to my ISA and £100 on payday, which will give a similar result, but easier to set up and work around in MS Money!

I wish I'd thought more about it when I was young. If I had, I could maybe even have retired this year when redundancy was an option. Mind you, I now get torn between the idea of retiring as soon as possible and just enjoying my life now, while I really can. I wonder how mobile I might be by the time I get to 65+

Someone mentioned overpaying the mortgage. Having a play with this calculator, I don't really get it. I threw in some numbers - £200k left over 15 years, paying £1,100 a month. One off overpayment of £40k and it says "Overpaying would save you £-695 in interest alone"? For one, that's a double negative and saying I would pay more? Secondly, only £695?!?! Investing £40k would get me a lot more than that over 15 years... lastly, it says I would pay off about 3 years early, well that's simply £40k's worth of repayments? Is the calculator just bad?
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For some like me, it's the mental aspect of having the mortgage paid off. Plan is for it hopefully paid off by the time I've 40 ish and then don't have to worry about it them.
You don't do massive overpayment it one go as there's usually a decent penalty for it. Doing the numbers of monthly over payment that we do (but still under where we pay the penalty) We have a saving of £10k on interest but the big thing is it's paid off 7 years earlier. Probably will not be able to afford the same overpayment when interest rates go up so that's why we are making the most of it now.
 
I guess what surprised me, the way people recommend it as a good investment, I expected it to work a little like compound interest, so if I pay a bunch off, the overall amount I would be paying back would drop significantly as I'd pay less in interest... but no, it just comes down by the amount I pay early... :(

Paying into an ISA seems like a better idea for a long term (15+ year) plan then (aside how the market is at the moment! :eek: )
 
MikeTheNative said:
Depends on what your finical goals are I suppose. We are both over paying the mortgage and paying some money into a LISA at the moment so doing both really.
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Can I ask why you're paying into a LISA instead of a pension? I've been reading up on LISA's recently (for retirement purposes, not house buying), but it seems that a pension is the more favoured option.
 
Yes I save quite a bit each month. I like to have at least 10k in reserve just in case. But savings on top of this go towards mortgage overpayment, home improvements etc.
 
Every intention to every month but then something breaks or we need to buy a new thing and the savings money just comes straight back out again. I have a small £1800 credit card debt which I am trying to get rid of before remortgaging but somehting always happens. Just yesterday I lost my homeward bound train ticket so had to buy a single home. £30, off peak too. Absolute daylight robbery.
 
NotAGolf said:
Can I ask why you're paying into a LISA instead of a pension? I've been reading up on LISA's recently (for retirement purposes, not house buying), but it seems that a pension is the more favoured option.
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Doing both, I'm not a higher tax bracket earner so the salary sacrifice is of less benefit? From from what i read a LISA was a good idea, probably wouldn't want to listen to me on pension advice though. :p
 
dLockers said:
You should grab a Chase account if you haven't already. They have 1% cashback on purchases for 12 months - okay, not that great - but they also have 5% interest on roundups.

They also have an unlimited savings account at 1.5%.
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Moving my general spending account to them has already netted me nearly £80 between the roundups and the cashback since the middle of last month.
Can't argue with money for nothing and the 5% interest on the roundup account gives me a good reason to not touch it and let it build up.
 
NotAGolf said:
Can I ask why you're paying into a LISA instead of a pension? I've been reading up on LISA's recently (for retirement purposes, not house buying), but it seems that a pension is the more favoured option.
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LISA for pensions is the worst possible usage of a LISA.
 
I'm involved in a SAYE scheme through my work. It's basically share options, when the window opens you decided how much you want to save each month (e.g £50, £100, £200, £400 etc but capped to 10% of your monthly salary) for either 3 or 5 years and your given a set amount of shares at a slight discount. Over the next 3 or 5 years your savings are automatically deducted from your salary and at the and of 3/5 years you have the option to buy the shares at the original discounted rate or your take back all you contributions. Obviously if the share price has gone up over that time you take the shares which you can immediately sell them and take the profit or hold onto them if you expect them to grow.

I save £250 a month currently and the scheme I'm in ends in September and it's a been a winner for me, I was offered shares at just under $100 a share after discount and right now they are trading at $160 and have been as high as $177. It's an easy way to save money with little risk (other than inflation) and I will defiantly take out another 3 year scheme when the window opens latter this year.
 
Yeah my pension and ISAs are all way down at the minute but I don't see that as a bad thing, I see it as now is the time to put more in. My children's ISAs are 100% equity and have 16+ years to go.
 
robj20 said:
Yeah my pension and ISAs are all way down at the minute but I don't see that as a bad thing, I see it as now is the time to put more in. My children's ISAs are 100% equity and have 16+ years to go.
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As things aren't going to improve any time soon I'm taking the opportunity to move my investments to a cheaper platform. That's another way to save money...
 
No, but that's because a lot of money at the minute is going on a garden renovation. Once that's finished, any extra a month is going into paying off the mortgage.
I'm done with debts. Everythings being paid off, and if it means having a crap car then so be it.

My goal is in 4yrs to have both the house and car paid off. That then gives me a few years to save up for my midlife crisis at 50.
 
Yeah I'm a single guy with a good career so there's always money left at the end of the month. Goes into emergency fund, stocks and shares isa, and mortgage overpayments, in roughly equal amounts. However I'm currently between jobs, so my emergency fund is getting used, so it defo wasn't useless. Current goals are to find a stable job, and getting the mortgage paid off before interest rates get too crazy.
 
need to sort out overpayments now, have rebuilt my emergency fund to a satisfactory level after it was sunk into the deposit. So while i have a few years left on the fix should get that down. No guarantees what the rates will look like at the end of that at this point....other than worse, probably.
 
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