What is your saving story? #MySaverStory

Looking back at the decisions I have made about money over the years, there are lots of things I would have done differently and I guess these are the moments when age and experience (and hindsight) are wonderful things.

One thing I would definitely have done more of is saving.  When I was a teenager, I had always worked part-time from the age of thirteen either doing a paper round or at the local marina, as it was much easier to get a weekend job at that age back then and so I was used to earning my own money and even better at spending it before I had earned it too.  I don’t remember really saving for anything at that age, I preferred to spend my money on records, cassettes, magazines and copious amounts of blue Slush Puppies.  Those were most certainly the days, when £10 seemed like a small fortune.

When I was seventeen, my friend and I decided to make the best of the agricultural area we lived in and managed to get jobs working for a local fruit and vegetable grower.  In all honesty, I can say that this was one of the hardest jobs I have ever done.  Six hours of bending and stretching gave us muscles that we didn’t know we had and for the first few days, I had to lie in a hot bath for hours after to recover.  Not only was it hard work, but as we were paid for the amount picked, we didn’t earn a huge amount either.

The sense of achievement however, was amazing.  I wanted to buy myself some new clothes and I saved as much as I could each week and at the end of the six weeks, I couldn’t wait to go on my spending spree.  I can still remember the feeling of handing that hard-earned and saved money over, it was a good feeling.

Over the last couple of days, I have been chatting to people on social media about the things they first saved for and the responses were really varied; fish tanks, teddy bears, cassettes and albums, books, bags, trainers, televisions seemed popular.  There were some that surprised me such as saving for a school trip, a horse and a canoe.  For others, their first saving experience came later when a car was needed or even a deposit for a house or flat.

It is a great feeling to save for something and it is something that I do try to instil into my children.  The two eldest are good savers.  My teenage son is so good at saving that he has been working for the last six months and is going travelling around New Zealand in two weeks using money that he has saved.  It is good to know that he has a good financial head on his shoulder and that he can see the value in saving and not wasting his money which is easy to do at that age.

On reflection, I wish that I had held onto that first feeling of satisfaction when I saved my holiday earnings.  It is all too easy to fall into the credit trap which is a never-ending and downward spiral and whilst it seems so much easier than saving, it really is not the answer.  If I could go back and give my younger self any advice, it would be to save and avoid getting into debt, to hold onto that feeling I had aged seventeen and remember that it is better to wait for things until you can really afford them.

Over the years, I was not a saver.  I so wish I had been.  Luckily, as I said at the beginning, I am older and much wiser now and I really can see the value of saving.  Over the last two years, my husband and I have managed to get our finances in order and we have a much more sensible approach to spending and saving.  This year, we are determined to take the children abroad.  They have never been on an aeroplane and each year, when they return to school after the summer holidays, they always moan about the fact that we holiday in the UK and a lot of their friends go off on much more exotic holiday.  We worked out roughly how much we would need and have been putting an affordable amount away each month into a separate account and forgetting about it.  So far it is going well and we have the sun, sea and sand in our sights this summer.

It is hard to save when you are a parent and this was something else that many people commented on; when you have the responsibilities of cars, houses and children, there always seems to be something that needs paying for and that can make saving a real challenge.  We have found that the only way that we can do it is by sitting down and going through all of our outgoings and seeing which we can cut down on and really cutting back on those necessary extras such as coffees out or takeaways that can really add up over time.

Saving is very much a regular part of our future now with the children in mind.  In an ideal world, I would love all of my children to go to university.  My uni years were amazing and I think that if they want to, they should go and experience university life and everything that comes with it.  The teen will be staring university later this year and then we have a break of a few years before the next one will go and if all of the children go to university, there is the possibility of having at least two at university at the same time for a few years.  As much as the student loan system is a good safety net, I really don’t want them to be leaving university with thousands of pounds worth of debt.

It isn’t all about the children either, we would love to be able to pay off our mortgage early and do some travelling once the children are older which would mean some serious saving but I think it is important to add some things that we would like to do to the list and not just spend all our money on the children.

Budgeting is the key to saving and there are lots of useful online tools that can really help you to make sense of your money, such as this Budget Calculator from NatWest which you can use even if you aren’t a NatWest customer.  If you are customer there is also a very clever Savings Goal tool which helps you too not only calculate your ideal savings plan but also to keep track of your process.

So that is my saver story, what is yours?

This post was written in association with NatWest.