Can we keep our lockdown savings habit?

This is Money Podcast

This is Money

Business News, Business, Investing, News

4.1 • 650 Ratings

🗓️ 2 October 2020

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Lockdown Britain has produced a nation of savers, ONS figures showed this week, with people salting away almost 30% of their disposable income on average.

But for those hoping that we might finally have got the savings habit, there’s a catch.

Those figures cover April to June, a three-month period when most shops were shut, along with pubs, restaurants, hotels and B&Bs, and going on holiday was a near-impossible task.

Deprived of the opportunity to spend, Britain put money aside instead – but is not spending the same as saving?

On this week’s podcast, Simon Lambert, Lee Boyce and Georgie Frost dive into the lockdown saving phenomenon and look at what triggered it, whether there was anything other than an inability to spend that drove saving so much higher than in previous recessions and how the paradox of thrift plays out.

They also look at where people can put the money they have set aside – with interest on savings deals negligible – and whether the sudden imposition of a savings habit bodes well for people building up better nest eggs when life gets back to normal.

Some won’t have been so lucky in lockdown, however, with job losses mounting. The team look at how this affects those already committed to moving home.

And finally, are brand new mobile phones a waste of money? Chasing the latest handset is an expensive game, but a new breed of cheap but high quality phones are changing the minds of some of those committed to holding onto old ones.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to The This Is Money podcast brought to you in partnership with Charles Stanley Direct, the award-winning investment platform trusted by over 40,000 clients.
0:09.0	Investment involves risk.
0:11.0	I'm Georgie Frost and alongside me and editor Simon Lambert today is assistant editor Lee Boyce.
0:16.5	And coming up, we became a nation of accidental lockdown savers, putting away record amounts.
0:22.9	But will it last? The early signs aren't promising. Meanwhile, the cuts continue after NS&I took
0:29.2	the axe to their rates last week, more than a dozen top accounts go in just five days.
0:34.7	It's the elderly savers, though, who have to rely on call centres that this
0:38.4	is money's Adrian Lowry is most concerned about. Also, nationwide launches another savings lottery,
0:43.7	but is the latest offering any good? The Bank of England's chief economist says the sky's
0:48.4	not going to fall in. Good to know, but what's he talking about? Mortgage approved, then made
0:53.1	redundant but confident of getting a new role?
0:56.0	Do you have to tell the bank?
0:58.0	And forget spending over a grand on a phone.
1:01.0	Budget mobiles are back.
1:03.2	So what are the best ones out there?
1:05.0	Don't be getting used up to date.
1:05.8	With all the latest breaking money news,
1:07.6	just go to this ismoney.com.
1:09.3	UK or download the app. But first, so we had more
1:13.8	evidence this week that we saved a fair bit during lockdown. The O&S says the percentage of
1:19.4	disposable income, which households stashed away between April and June this year, rose to an
1:24.4	all-time high of 29.1%. to give some context. The highest this century
	...

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