Don’t look at percentage of salary, that way lies madness. Work out your realistic costs and then save an element of whatever disposable income you may have left.
Also set secondary savings goals. By this I mean, say you can save £500 a month. Open two savings accounts, one for long term and one for shorter term.
In the £500/month example, put £400 into the long term goals account and £100 into the shorter term account. Use that to treat yourself and partner/family/friends - whatever makes you happiest.
But you only can spend that money when you hit certain goals in your long term savings, so e.g. “when I have £2k in my long terms savings, I will treat myself to a new handbag” or whatever.
That way you know you’re working towards little treats while still managing to make major savings along the way. You have to almost trick your brain into forgetting about that money in the long terms savings and concentrate on the conditionality of the shorter term stuff to satisfy your need for spending gratification. I hope this helps.
Saving technique is hugely underrated. I respect anyone who pays attention to this and it amazes me how many don’t. There is of course a leverage element to it. Fix your costs so that all incremental rises in pay etc go directly to surplus.
The main thing is to set up a direct debit to some form of saving accounts (prob a mix of tracker isas) that is too fiddly to get the money back from.
Im forever losing or forgetting the passwords which helps. Every year or two I go through the palaver of accessing and its like - woah - not too shabby.
Plus maybe over pay on the mortgage a bit. I did that for a while but with rates being so low and the mortgage pretty much down to 50% LTV I dont usually bother with that - would rather spend the money on the house itself which u get some pleasure out of and is probably adding or at least maintaining its value.
At the end of the month sweep any leftover cash in your current account into your savings as well as having a standing order at the start of the month.
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I currently save 25%, once I have paid off my student loan it will go up to 33%
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Don’t look at percentage of salary, that way lies madness. Work out your realistic costs and then save an element of whatever disposable income you may have left.
Also set secondary savings goals. By this I mean, say you can save £500 a month. Open two savings accounts, one for long term and one for shorter term.
In the £500/month example, put £400 into the long term goals account and £100 into the shorter term account. Use that to treat yourself and partner/family/friends - whatever makes you happiest.
But you only can spend that money when you hit certain goals in your long term savings, so e.g. “when I have £2k in my long terms savings, I will treat myself to a new handbag” or whatever.
That way you know you’re working towards little treats while still managing to make major savings along the way. You have to almost trick your brain into forgetting about that money in the long terms savings and concentrate on the conditionality of the shorter term stuff to satisfy your need for spending gratification. I hope this helps.
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Anna is really good with savings so I’m hoping she will chip in with further advice.
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Saving technique is hugely underrated. I respect anyone who pays attention to this and it amazes me how many don’t. There is of course a leverage element to it. Fix your costs so that all incremental rises in pay etc go directly to surplus.
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0
The main thing is to set up a direct debit to some form of saving accounts (prob a mix of tracker isas) that is too fiddly to get the money back from.
Im forever losing or forgetting the passwords which helps. Every year or two I go through the palaver of accessing and its like - woah - not too shabby.
Plus maybe over pay on the mortgage a bit. I did that for a while but with rates being so low and the mortgage pretty much down to 50% LTV I dont usually bother with that - would rather spend the money on the house itself which u get some pleasure out of and is probably adding or at least maintaining its value.
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0
At the end of the month sweep any leftover cash in your current account into your savings as well as having a standing order at the start of the month.
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