How much savings do you have and what age are you?

User9thousand wrote: »

I am 28 and have around €50,000 saved. Is this too much or not enough at this stage? I can only manage to save €1,000 per month though. Do others of a similar age save much more?

That's sounds v impressive to me.

Different people have different priorities in life and these include financial priorities too. If you are thinking about your own wealth it's better to do a net worth calculation than base it purely only on savings. House, car, savings, pension, investments, debt are all considered in a net worth calculation and it's a much better indicator of wealth than savings alone.

By all accounts I would say that 50k savings for a 28 year old is pretty good going though.

39 and absolutely none. I have got very liquid assets though that can be cashed in within a week at any time and also some that would take months to liquidate and achieve their full value. Also I have no mortgage anymore, no car loans or any personal debt. Reasonable levels of business debt though.

I have had savings at different times in the past but always empty them into some venture every few years. I will continue on this trend for another 10-15 years hopefully and then focus on putting something together for retirement.

I had really good savings until we bought a house last year. Now I have around €2,500 in personal savings and we have another small amount in a joint savings account. It's been a big year on spending (I'm 32).

Go on, I'll set out my story....

I'm 31. I have €16,000.00 saved. I am a Solicitor.

I did a degree and a masters over 5 years and partially worked during them as I had a lot of support from my family and college fees back then were a lot smaller. I didn't really ever save during those times or if I did I had to use it eventually and it would be gone.

I finished up in college fully in 2011. I did law. There was barely a job going in a petrol station, never mind in the legal field. So off I went on the dole for a while.

I then said I would do the FE1s and look for a solicitor traineeship (entrance exams to be able to qualify as a Solicitor. They are notoriously hard). I worked in a cinema while doing them and got them done over 2 years. Actually saved €3,000.00 while working in the cinema but again it was dipped into for various things and went down. I was ambitious to break into law and did an unpaid internship and even a jobbridge. Didn't really save during these times. It was all week to week and having fun during your 20's.

I eventually got a decent paying job in a legal department of a bank. Worked there for a year and saved around €10,000.00. However, I then got offered a solicitor traineeship, which is what I always wanted, in a mid-sized firm with a good reputation. This was 2015, and traineeships were still hard come by even though the country was picking up a bit. The terms were awful - had to pay my own law society fees and it was minimum wage salary while working with them. But, I always wanted to qualify as a Solicitor and I was still reasonable young so I said I'd get it done and knew I'd have to dip into savings and have 2 years on a small wage.

I then qualified with the firm I trained in on €45,000.00 a year. After a year I moved to work as in-house Legal Counsel for a financial institution on €60,000.00 a year for a few months and loved it but it was in a bad location and took too long to commute to so I moved to a firm closer to home now on €55,000.00 per year.

I didn't save much when I qualified at the beginning as after 2 years on minimum wage I wanted to enjoy a bit of the money again. I try to save €1,000.00 per month now. I could be saving a lot more and plan to increase it now as I want to get a mortgage in the next year.

I know that despite being on low salary most of my 20's that I could still have been saving a bit as I lived at home, but that's not realistic if you want to enjoy your 20's and go out with your friends and meet people etc., overall I enjoyed my 20's. A few regrets but overall happy enough.

I do always wonder, if I didn't go back and do the traineeship, I'd have kept saving and probably went up in salary. I might have had around €50,000.00 now if so.

Age 40+

Gross wealth = 475-500k

Net wealth, after liabilities = 325k approx

Wealth = value of house plus financial assets

This thread makes me sad. I'll leave now and be sure never to come back.

35 and 8k in savings but have nearly zero borrowings just a couple of hundred on a credit card so it could be worse

44 and a couple of €m

Forget families and mortgages; my biggest regret, and I feel the reason Irish people struggle so much to save: nights out.

Work out a rough estimate of how much nights out cost you per week.

Multiply this number by 1600.

That's a conservative estimate (assuming an average 5% market return) of the opportunity cost of your nights out over a 20 year period.

In other words, the money you would have in your account right now if you had instead put that X per week into a balanced investment fund returning 5% per year.

Example:

Average weekly cost of night outs: €100
100*1600 = €160k

Do the math if you don't believe me:
Current principle: 0
Annual addition: 5200
Years to grow: 20
Interest rate: 5%

Future value: €166k

Scariest thing is, in Ireland, 100 quid a week on nights out would be a fairly conservative estimate.... especially in Dublin...

MattS1 wrote: »

Interesting but more likely 0.000001pc interest unless you are dealing in equities which is not guaranteed 5pc a year.

Yeah you're right, it's closer to 6%, but I went with a conservative estimate

Geuze wrote: »

When I go out in Dublin, I spend maybe:

Tram = 2.00 + 2.00
Beer = 30 approx
Total = 35, maybe 40 max

When I go out where I live, I spend 22 on beer.

You have far more sensible spending habits than I...

So if the night out starts in the local, that'd be maybe 2 drinks: ~€10
Last bus into town, or taxi if we missed it: €2-€7 (sharing the taxi if applicable)
Box of cigarettes: €5-€10
Nightclub entry: €5-€10
Drinks in the nightclub: Say 4 drinks at... maybe 5-8 each: ~€25
Kebab after: €10
Taxi home: €10-€20 depending on whether the group dispersed

So that's a fairly tame night out (no late bar crawl before nightclub, no trip to the casino afterward, total of 6 drinks, not getting stung on an unreturned round, etc):

€80

Hogzy wrote: »

I get what youre saying but there is value in having a healthy social life and being able to blow off some steam. Im not saying one needs to spend 100eur per week on nights out to maintain a healthy social life though, to each their own.

Oh absolutely, I completely agree with you.

But it's a nice baseline to gauge the benefit of at least scaling back.

Say you get the €100 down to €80 per week, well, in 20 years that could mean €30k saved, etc.

Hogzy wrote: »

In my eyes all this will come when I have kids and even a whiff of a pint on a Friday night will be but a distant memory!

You'll be getting a whiff of something else, several times a day