Whatever happened to "saving for a rainy day"?

Oh very good!
Does he ever make cheese ones, just out of interest?
With cream cheese and tomato chutney inside?

I'm going to make myself a gold blend in a minute, and use a small drop of warmed milk in it.

He has made cheese scones, but not often. Usually he makes raisin scones and buys clotted cream to go with them, plus strawberry jam of course.
Enjoy your coffee, I’m already in bed.

I'm going to sit on my back doorstep with my coffee and keep an eye out for the missing watering can borrow one off someone else's doorstep

Are you planning to sleep?
It is evading me, lately.

Not everyone who cannot save is wasting their money.

We had to support our daughter for three years. She was renting, her entry level salary after graduating from university was so low and she could barely afford anything. She even struggled to buy food.

Instead of saving, I was getting into my overdraft and was raking quite a lot of debt on my credit card which I managed to clear when I had to work from home during the lockdown.

DD is financially independent now. She has plenty of saving, no debt and she never waste food.

MissAdventure, maybe your watering can will reappear soon, if there is no water with which to fill it?

Night night,xx

LtEve

A house for £100k? My DD and her brother have just bought a two bedroomed flat together, it cost them £264k. Neither could have bought on their own despite being amazing savers.

It depends where you live. When my daughter graduated she was offered graduate training schemes in business science in London and in Liverpool. Knowing the cost of living in London, she decided to work in Liverpool with the view of relocating later if she needed to. She has been very successful in her career as she works very hard and had had several different jobs gaining experience. I doubt that she will now move to London as her love of the outdoors in The Lake District and Lancashire is very important for her.

My daughter bought a house on her own when she was 32, she saved up the deposit while paying rent and her student loan. Her rent was low as she lived in a small room in a shared house to save money and her two bedroom terraced house cost £110 ( at todays prices). She works in Manchester mainly and chose to live in Atherton, a small town near Bolton where property is cheap. She could have paid three times that to live in a trendy suburb of Manchester or in the city centre but knew that in order to get on the housing ladder she had to look in cheaper locations. She is now buying a new house with her partner and looking to start a family - happy days!

Had she decided to work in London or some other parts of the UK I don’t think she would ever have saved the deposit.

MissAdventure

Oh very good!
Does he ever make cheese ones, just out of interest?
With cream cheese and tomato chutney inside?

I'm going to make myself a gold blend in a minute, and use a small drop of warmed milk in it.

With cream cheese and tomato chutney inside?

... mango chutney also works with the cream cheese - absolutely delicious!

Cor! Lovely!
Trouble is, if I buy anything like that, I won't be able to leave them alone.
I never ate anything sweet at all until I was into my 40s, too, so I have to make up for lost time!
Scones, bananas and custard, crumble.
So many desserts, so little time so much heartburn!

I work as a carer and earn minimum wage my husband is self employed gardener. We just get by. I dont have anything like the savings shown on previous post. We are incredibly worried have no idea how we will manage my 12 year old and 21 year old still live at home im having to charge my dd more to live with us. We don't go on holidays rarely go out for a meal only on birthdays. We live in the North of England ive been looking for another job cant find one with enough hours. I applied to a local shop but the manager told me the contract is 16 hours so although I can do more hours each week if im on holiday thats all I will be paid for. I work 35 hours as a carer I walk I dont have a car I physically can't do any more hours. All this is frightening

Nanna29

I work as a carer and earn minimum wage my husband is self employed gardener. We just get by. I dont have anything like the savings shown on previous post. We are incredibly worried have no idea how we will manage my 12 year old and 21 year old still live at home im having to charge my dd more to live with us. We don't go on holidays rarely go out for a meal only on birthdays. We live in the North of England ive been looking for another job cant find one with enough hours. I applied to a local shop but the manager told me the contract is 16 hours so although I can do more hours each week if im on holiday thats all I will be paid for. I work 35 hours as a carer I walk I dont have a car I physically can't do any more hours. All this is frightening

It's people, such as yourself and your husband, doing jobs that are essential, but getting paid peanuts that make me so angry with the self-righteous brigade.
No matter how hard you work - you will be forever running faster just to stay in the same place.
The fact is, you are not paid a living wage. And you, along with many others, have probably already tightened your belt as much as you can.
It's a disgrace. And it's absolutely shameful that Truss is determined to cut taxes - which is purely aimed at keeping the party faithful happy knowing full well that it will do very little to help the low-paid. And she then has the gall to insinuate that helping people with an aid-package is a "handout" which, by the very nature of the word, implies money being given to the 'undeserving'.

Good post Dickens.

There is also the issue of if you take a second job you automatically have to pay 20% tax on that job even if you are still under that tax threshold. It's all very well saying well you claim in back off HMRC at some point but people need that money NOW not in 6 months time.

Great post Dickens. Maybe the “self righteous brigade” should direct some of their anger towards the oil companies and energy providers that are making excessive profits and paying huge salaries and bonuses whilst the government does little to curb these excesses.
The rising cost of fuel in particular, food prices is not really a rainy day. The costs of my gas and electricity already takes up half on my state pension (which by the way I paid contributions for 40 plus years) and with winter consumption and the price hike I can already see it will swallow up my entire pension!

Sawsage2

'53MadeInYorkshire'. It must be very hot for you if you're living in the conservatory. Could you not move into a cooler room?

Sadly not - because of the cost of living and the cost of private renting in the area, my daughter and son-in-law have had to move in with my 2 pre-school granddaughters .... then my eldest had to give up uni as her MH took a very bad downturn and had to come home too .... so there are 6 of us squeezed in to a 3 bed semi - the smallest room is a box room with a huge box in it - the stairs bulkhead or whatever it's called and my eldest is literally squeezed in there with only a bed! The 2 double rooms have my youngest and husband in and the 2 children. That's okay as I can't get upstairs, and originally bought this house as there is room to create a downstairs bathroom - however I just cannot raise any money to help us to make the house work - even equity release won't entertain it as it is an ex council house - I had no idea it would be so difficult! It was the only house I could afford and it is on a huge plot backing on to the forest and there's nothing wrong with it at all ..... but if this goes on much longer, we will either have killed each other, topped ourselves or be homeless! My plan was to live in the conservatory anyway but it is too hot even with the air-con on, so it needs a roof to make it liveable - OR solar panels so that I don't have heat failure every time I put the air con on! The kitchen is falling apart and isn't big enough to seat us, and the utility room/my bathroom needs walls down and replanned completely ..... but looks like I can only manage to get £23k which won't do much of a job anywhere .... Council have said not to hold my breath about getting a grant for the bathroom, so it's all very stressful, nothing changes there!

Teacheranne

LtEve

A house for £100k? My DD and her brother have just bought a two bedroomed flat together, it cost them £264k. Neither could have bought on their own despite being amazing savers.

It depends where you live. When my daughter graduated she was offered graduate training schemes in business science in London and in Liverpool. Knowing the cost of living in London, she decided to work in Liverpool with the view of relocating later if she needed to. She has been very successful in her career as she works very hard and had had several different jobs gaining experience. I doubt that she will now move to London as her love of the outdoors in The Lake District and Lancashire is very important for her.

My daughter bought a house on her own when she was 32, she saved up the deposit while paying rent and her student loan. Her rent was low as she lived in a small room in a shared house to save money and her two bedroom terraced house cost £110 ( at todays prices). She works in Manchester mainly and chose to live in Atherton, a small town near Bolton where property is cheap. She could have paid three times that to live in a trendy suburb of Manchester or in the city centre but knew that in order to get on the housing ladder she had to look in cheaper locations. She is now buying a new house with her partner and looking to start a family - happy days!

Had she decided to work in London or some other parts of the UK I don’t think she would ever have saved the deposit.

Good example of why people do save what they can to make their deposit, instead of spending on nails, coffees, fancy phones, vacations. She made good choices and it worked out well for her, you must be pleased.

I've never been referred to a food bank and I was unemployed for5 mths. But I'd hate it. I was just talking about this today. Everything is going up. B&M expensive now. I don't drink don't smoke don't go out for meals. Can't remember the last time I bought ñew clothes. I've shelled out for my car tyres and oil change lately. I'work full-time can't afford to retire next year. No savings. Its a worry

nipsmum

Any savings I had were swallowed up when my husband left. My children were 17 and 14. I worked as a nurse in private Nursing homes. I retired when I was 68. I am now 81 and anything I had in the bank is long gone. You don't know anyone circumstances and I am not sure lots of you are qualified to comment.

Well said. There's an awful lot of assumptions and judgements being made.
My daughter and her fiance moved into their first home together today. They've been living in his small rented flat up until now, and they're delighted to have bought their first house together, even though it is a modest two-bedroomed semi. They both work extremely hard as nurses and have saved hard to be able to do this - and even so, they probably wouldn't have managed to scrape together enough for a deposit if my daughter hadn't been left money when her granny died. It's easy to judge young people as not 'living within their means' - when many are struggling to even do that.

Hear hear Blondiescot. Our older generation have had so many more benefits than young ones today, and it’s sad to see criticism of them for “frittering” money on phones and t/a coffees. This is part of modern life which wasn’t available in our time even if we wanted it.

it seems it is easy to judge anyone when you are on the other side of a computer screen or away from someones face

People like Dickens and Happyretired123 and others like them do restore my faith in humanity and society.

I've been offered refferal (yes, you do have to be referred!) to food banks a few times recently.
What I see here is enough to confirm that I'd sooner do without than be judged as lazy, workshy, too thick to budget, and so on.

We couldn’t save for many years, we lived hand to mouth. I worked 3 nursing jobs to keep us afloat for several years.
We bought our house when I was 45, a 20 year mortgage and it nearly crippled us but at least it’s paid off now.
It’s only recently, in the past 5 years that I’ve had any savings, a few thousand, and more recently a small inheritance from my parents who both died during Covid.
So at 69 years of age I finally have a small financial cushion those goodness knows how long that’ll last.

crazyH

I’m going to be screamed down for this. Disability Benefit should be means tested. If you can afford to fly abroad on holiday twice a year and pay for your family (abroad) to live comfortably, paying for your grand-nieces’ education, then you can surely pay for your own cleaners etc or whatever DLA is meant for,

WHAT??

In 2019 Scope, in their report called The Disability Price Tag found that "On average, disabled adults face extra costs of £583 per month"

I haven't been on holiday for over 12 years, even in the UK, and I am definitely not getting enough to pay a cleaner! I wish .... they even wanted mine off me to pay almost £200 a week for a 30 min daily wash! That would have left me with a deficit of over £500 every month and didn't give me enough to buy food! Finally managed to show them I couldn't afford it, but it took months to sort out! Somehow they are managing to fleece the system in some way! Most of us are destitute - I certainly will be when British Gas finally give me a bill for the last 8 months! They keep telling me that my Gas is costing £10 and my Electricity is £61.61, which is exactly what I was paying before I moved in with 5 other people! Constant washing of clothes, using air conditioning in the conservatory where I live - more like £611.00 a month!!

SueEH

People in the same nursing home as my relative have no savings and are funded by the state. My relative has worked hard, has savings and owns their house. They receive the same care but my relative is self funding to the tune of approx £40,000 per year. I don’t know the circumstances of those being state funded but how on is this system fair? My relative would have been better off spending all they earned and qualifying for state funded care.

Hi, SueEH. I was wondering - if you feel it isn't fair that your relative has to pay £40,000 per year to be sharing care home accommodation with others who are state funded, how would you prefer to see the state funded people being cared for?

I’m not SueEH, but I will answer from my own perspective which is that everyone should be cared for from taxes that should be a lot fairer, and probably higher. With sensible taxation people might have less in their pockets, but would have less to pay for, so it would even out. What people do have left should be theirs to spend or save as they wish, without some having their life savings taken from them and others being able to spend with no penalty.

I think it’s very wrong that two people could be on the same salary (so equally able or unable to ‘afford’ care fees) with one spending while the other saves, and the saver ends up not only paying for the care the spender gets free, but is charged more in fees to subsidise the spender’s care. If anyone can explain to me how that is fair I’d be interested to hear them.