Well, is it true so many of us have saved a little fortune during the pandemic?

It's not a "nonsense", inflows into deposit accounts have increased.

https://twitter.com/seamuscoffey/status/1339895929684570114

Saved a decent wedge so threw some of it at the mortgage.

Our final mortgage payment will be on December 21 so it'll be a special Christmas for us this year.

Saved about 150K

Since March 2020 lockdown.

I checked the numbers, and this is accurate.

Jaysus, there's some people in here who make great money! (or have great imaginations :D)

Makes me wish I'd stayed in school and got an office job.

No real changes for me, work in a metal working workshop so still went to work every day, no furlough or WFH, no major changes to life other than missing out on theatre tickets which would be a fairly big expenditure for me.

Savings still around the same as before (very, very little!)

But...not spending is what saving is.

I would say my spending was altered. I changed the car, we did a few bits around our home and we now have a baby on the way. I was mostly WFH for last 18 months so saved money on commuting, lunches and childcare. I didn’t buy as much clothes as usual for myself but my son still needed new clothes and shoes etc. We didn’t go abroad last summer or this summer but we did staycation so no savings there. We save for anything we want so never have debt (house only exception).

plenty of us breaking 5k restrictions, it was actually really nice, places were very quiet, but good points

It probably depends on everyone's individual situation. In our case (family of 4 with 2 very active children) we saved an absolute fortune during the pandemic. We were in the lucky position that our incomes weren't impacted, with me even getting a very good Bonus and 8% payrise last July. But where we saved was:

• Hardly any fuel costs for 2 cars as no commuting or driving kids around, easily saving 150 a month
• No major Holidays this in 2020 or 2021. We had 2 big trips planned (and budgeted for) that were swapped for 3 small staycations. Saved around 12K on those planned Holidays
• No School dinners to be paid, which probably saved us around around 80-100 a month.
• No Music lessons for the kids for a more then a year, saving us another 120 a month.
• No Sports, saving us around 350 a month (both girls are very active and competitive in their sport with 3/4 training sessions a week and competitions etc.).
• Far less shopping overall. While I can't put a figure on it we certainly spent a lot less money on clothing and other gadgets.

And while I am happy for the savings I am as happy to return back to normal and to get the kids back into their music and sports etc.

WFH would have saved me a fair bit in commuting costs and the couple of times a week I'd have bought lunch (The company I work for has always paid for a bean-to-cup coffee machine and did a weekly shop for the office that covered the basics to make lunches with: bread, ham, cheese, cereal etc.) but you'd occasionally just fancy a chicken fillet roll or a break away from the office with a few colleagues to go grab a meal out etc.)

Obviously spent less on holidays / new clothing etc. too

However, as Mrs Sleepy worked as a child-minder, her income dried up completely once the first lockdown hit so overall, we're far worse off than we were before the pandemic hit.

I worked through it all as normal.Saved about E20,000 because I could'nt go to the local or go away on holidays.But then I spent E13,000 on a used car.The rest is still in the bank,where it'll stay.