Saving for all occasions

When we think about savings,' they tend to fall into two baskets: "for" and "against". For your next holiday, or a new kitchen. Against the car breaking down, or a bill you didn't see coming. For the third-year running, the BSA, together with Yorkshire and Nationwide Building Societies, has worked with academics at the University of Bristol's Personal Finance Research Centre to understand what really pushes people to save -  and why so many people can't save more, however much they'd like to. 

You probably don't need research papers to tell you that saving nowadays isn't easy. Energy and housing prices keep climbing, and the cost-of-living crisis has simply  become the cost of life, full stop. So, it's no great surprise that when researchers asked 4,000 UK adults what stops them saving, six in ten gave the same answer: there's no money left once the essentials are paid for. 

Yet money isn't (quite) the whole story. It's not just about what people have left at the end of the month, but what saving has done for them before, and what they believe it could do for them in the future.
 

Habits shaped by age

The research maps saving motivations onto eight everyday reasons, from covering unexpected costs to saving for a house or a holiday. But it also asks a deeper question: what psychological need does saving meet? Why do we all agree we should be doing this thing, without any tangible benefits today - and sometimes even at a cost - for a future self that isn't here yet? 

Older savers (65+) are mostly saving for safety, a buffer against life going wrong. But for younger adults, especially those already building up some savings, the picture looks different. Saving is more likely to be tied to esteem, ambition and relationships: putting money into investments for a sense of achievement, saving towards a big trip or home upgrade as a marker of the life they're building, or setting cash aside for gifts, days out and time with friends and family. Put simply, for many younger people, saving isn't just a security blanket. It's part of how they build the life, and the version of themselves, they've always imagined. In a way, it's self-actualisation. 

That matters, in today's world where younger adults face a wider range of barriers than most. Not being able to save can hold them back from becoming the best versions of themselves. Cue an ongoing mental health crisis which affects the working ability of millions, while social spending on their needs multiply. Because young people do want to save.

Young adults are more likely to say they'd benefit from understanding interest rates better, from help making a realistic savings plan , and from simply talking about money more openly with friends and family. A supportive workplace culture around saving makes a real difference too, particularly for people just trying to get their monthly budgets under control. 

There's also a small but interesting group (1 in 8) who save for no particular reason at all. They just prefer having money set aside. This group also tends to be among the most financially resilient in the whole study, which suggests there might be something in their approach the rest of us could borrow.

None of this changes the bigger picture: for many people, there genuinely isn't anything left to save. But for those who can, this research is a useful reminder that saving isn't one-size-fits-all. Whether you're building a safety net, working towards something bigger, or just want to feel more in control, starting small and talking about money more openly can help.  This is exactly what UK Savings Week is all about.

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Read the report