1st October 2026
When the cost of living is rising, telling people to save money can sound almost ridiculous.
If the household budget is already being squeezed by energy bills, food prices, fuel, council tax and other rising costs, where exactly is the spare money supposed to come from?
Yet perhaps that is precisely why we should be talking about saving.
Not about becoming wealthy. Not about making clever investments. Not even about putting away hundreds of pounds every month.
Instead, it is about something much simpler: building a financial buffer that can provide a little protection when something unexpected happens.
Because when household finances are under pressure, having even a modest amount of money put aside can make a surprisingly large difference.
Imagine the washing machine breaks, the car needs an unexpected repair, the boiler fails or the heating-oil tank needs filling sooner than expected. For someone with savings, it may be an inconvenience. For someone with nothing available, the same bill can become a crisis.
That is why an emergency fund does not have to begin with £10,000.
It might begin with £100.
Then perhaps £250.
Then £500.
Eventually, for those who are able to manage it, perhaps £1,000 or more.
The important thing is not necessarily the size of the first target. It is getting started.
Financial advice can sometimes make saving sound easier than it really is. Someone with a comfortable income might be advised to put away 10 or 20 per cent of their earnings. That may be perfectly sensible for some households, but it can sound completely unrealistic to a family that is already struggling to meet its monthly bills.
There is another way of looking at it.
Save what you can, regularly, and increase the amount when circumstances allow.
Ten pounds a week is more than £500 over a year. Twenty pounds a week is more than £1,000. It may take time, but the money begins to accumulate.
And there is something psychologically important about seeing a savings balance grow.
Instead of every unexpected bill becoming an emergency, the household begins to acquire some financial breathing space.
One particularly useful approach is to save the money that has already been saved.
Suppose you manage to reduce an insurance bill by £8 a month. Rather than allowing the £8 simply to disappear into other spending, transfer it into savings.
If you manage to cut £15 from the electricity bill, save that too.
If a careful supermarket shop leaves £20 in the household budget, perhaps some or all of it can go into the savings account.
The amount does not have to be large to be worthwhile.
In fact, there is something satisfying about turning frugality into an asset. Instead of simply spending less and then finding another way to spend the money, the saving becomes something tangible that belongs to you.
Making the process automatic can help as well.
A regular transfer into a savings account shortly after income arrives can turn saving into another household commitment. Even £25 a month becomes £300 over a year. Increase that to £50 and the annual amount becomes £600.
Once the balance starts growing, there is another benefit.
You begin to think twice before spending it.
The money has acquired a purpose.
That purpose is important. An emergency fund should normally be reasonably accessible because its job is to deal with emergencies. It is not necessarily about finding the account offering the highest possible interest rate. The first objective is to build the buffer.
There is also something else that savings can provide which is often overlooked.
They can buy time.
Someone who loses their job but has several months of essential expenditure available has more time to find another source of income. Someone whose car suddenly needs an expensive repair may be able to pay the bill without immediately resorting to borrowing.
Savings can therefore provide choices.
Without savings, people can sometimes be forced into decisions simply because they have run out of alternatives.
Of course, there is an important qualification.
Some households genuinely have nothing left after paying for essentials. Telling such people simply to "spend less" is not helpful. There are limits to how far household expenditure can be reduced without affecting health, safety and quality of life.
Saving should therefore be regarded as something to work towards when circumstances permit, not another reason for people already under pressure to feel they are failing.
But if there is any room at all, perhaps the first target should be surprisingly modest.
Try to build the first £100.
Then aim for £250.
Then £500.
There is no requirement to reach those figures quickly.
The point is to create a buffer that did not exist before.
We are living through a period when households face considerable uncertainty. Energy prices can move sharply. Fuel prices can rise. Food costs can increase. Interest rates can change. Governments can alter taxes and benefits. International events can suddenly affect prices here in Britain.
Nobody can predict all of those things.
But households can sometimes prepare for them.
Savings cannot stop prices rising. They cannot prevent a boiler breaking or guarantee employment. But they can prevent one unexpected expense from becoming a financial disaster.
Perhaps we should therefore change the way we think about savings.
They are not simply money accumulated by people who have plenty of it.
Savings can be a form of household resilience.
A savings buffer is rather like having a spare wheel in the boot of the car. Most of the time it sits there doing nothing. You may go years without needing it.
But when something goes wrong, you are extremely glad it is there.
And perhaps that is the message worth spreading as the cost-of-living squeeze continues.
Don't start by asking whether you can save £5,000.
Ask whether you can save £10.
Then do it again next week.
If circumstances improve, increase it.
If circumstances become more difficult, reduce it or pause it.
But if you can build even a small financial cushion, you may be giving yourself something increasingly valuable in uncertain times.
The ability to say: "I've got something put aside. I can deal with this."
That may not make anyone rich.
But it can make a difficult time considerably easier to manage.
Set your target - but make a start.