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Our spring 2013 savings survey actually revealed a bit of a disappointing picture. We saw savings
levels drop against the previous quarter, the amount that people could save in real
terms fell from £104 to around £88 pounds a month. So clearly it's disappointing that
people are able to save less and interestingly when you look at the difference between men
and women, what we actually saw was women as a percentage of their income were saving
less than men for the first time in almost two years.
We don't know why women are finding it more difficult to save each month, from the research
we do know that almost a quarter of women aren't saving anything and actually when we
look at who's got enough money to cope in the event of an emergency, we actually saw
just under 50% of women about 48% said they'd got enough
to cope in the event of an emergency, whereas the figure for men was 57%. So certainly there
is a difference there.
It's always difficult to forecast what's going to happen in turns of future savings behaviour,
but certainly when we ask people, "How likely are you to save in future months, do you think
you'll save more or less?", the picture we got back was that men seem to be more optimistic
than women, about how much they'd be able to save in future months. So from that it
looks like these trends will continue at least into the next quarter.
And it is difficult to save at the moment, but I think it's really important for everyone
just to try and take a bit of time out, to have a look at how much they're spending and
to see if it's possible to a little bit of money aside each month, however small because
it will add up and it will help build up your savings pots.