# 40% of Irish people using savings to cover living costs



## tiger (11 Jun 2009)

According to EBS:


> More than a third of people say they've been forced to dip into their savings in the past three months to cover their living costs


 
Wow!  I find this shocking/worring.  I can't believe that many people normally need to dip into their rainy day funds.  What will happen if they have to keep dipping and the fund runs out?
Stories like this make me think we haven't seen the worst of things yet, I think it will only be toward the end of the year when we will know how bad it will get.


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## csirl (11 Jun 2009)

Be careful of headlines. This could simply be someone dipping into their savings for a purchase and replenishing the savings next pay day. Would have been better surveying whether or not peoples savings are declining.


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## Ann1 (11 Jun 2009)

Yes I agree. I know quite a few parents of adult children who bought homes in the boom and have now lost their jobs are dipping into savings to help keep a roof over their grand childrens heads. In other words grand-parents who are retired or close to it.  I believe we ain't seen nothing yet!!!


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## UptheDeise (11 Jun 2009)

AFAIK people's savings are increasing. This is too be welcomed, using your savings instead of credit cards or personal loans reduces peoples debt.


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## tiger (11 Jun 2009)

I agree the headline could be misleading.  We all have months where we spend more than we earn (paying for holidays and so on), but I wouldn't classify that as dipping into savings.  Really need to see how the question was asked.
Peoples savings are increasing also, but that's probably only those who haven't been hit by layoffs, salary cuts or shortened work week (the majority I hope...)


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## AlbacoreA (11 Jun 2009)

tiger said:


> Wow! I find this shocking/worring. I can't believe that many people normally need to dip into their rainy day funds. ...


 
I'm surprised your surprised at all. I'd reckon lots of people have no rainy day account at all. Celtic tiger passed a lot of people by. Wages never increased anything like the cost of goods and services.


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## rory22 (11 Jun 2009)

> I can't believe that many people normally need to dip into their rainy day funds


 
Don't know if you've noticed but it's lashing out at the moment (metaphorically speaking).


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## so-crates (12 Jun 2009)

Bearing in mind how sketchy the information in that link is and the lack of source material...
In the past three months we have had to endure a fair swipe at our take home pay and a rash of redundancies, sounds to me like the sensible thing to do to dip into your savings. If income changes appreciably and suddenly it normally throws me for a month or two until I re-adjust and I dip into my savings to smooth the transition - why would that be worrying?


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## TJason (22 Jun 2009)

Not every survey is as representative as they claim to be but I'm pretty sure there is a big number of people out there who actually have to use their savings.


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## Doingabit (22 Jun 2009)

A more interesting survey would be to see how many people are completly debt free. And of those how many are dipping into their savings.
A lot of people maintain savings at 3% or 4%, while also having car loans/ credit cards at 9/10% - one reason being that they need to show ability to save regularly as part of the criteria to obtain a mortgage for instance.


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## Bob Nellies (22 Jun 2009)

the source is the Independent newspaper - the irish equivalent of News of the World...oops - didn't mean to insult the News of the World....


of course somesensible people are using savings to keep themselves out of debt they can't afford....

there is no way that % figure is accurate - indo is NEVER accurate..


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## AlbacoreA (23 Jun 2009)

I doubt anyone has any expectation of accuracy.


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## Chris (23 Jun 2009)

I'm surprised that 40% of people actually have a rainy day fund, I remember reading this was way less!!! Therefore I think that these figures are correct/irrelevant/misinterpreted.
If I look at my savings accounts over the last 18 months it would look like I am very heavily dipping into my savings, where all I am doing is moving funds to the highest yielding account every 2-3 months.
As someone said above, only a decline in savings overall would justify such a headline.


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## Perplexed (8 Jul 2009)

As a frontline banker I frequently see people dipping into their savings to pay ESB bills etc. Like previous poster I don't think it counts if it's for holidays etc but electriciy bills are not a luxury.
Some would have been put on 3day weeks or had spouses made redundant. There are definitely ordinary people around who will soon be in trouble if the economy doesn't pick up. It's great that so many have savings but sad to see them having to be spent on basic needs.

Like Chris above I move my own money around regularly for better rates etc but in this case I don't think the Independent is incorrect. I've seen enough myself to know otherwise & it scares the hell out of me.


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## so-crates (9 Jul 2009)

I think what is most sad or scary is for those who have only got savings to rely on (as opposed to using them as a temporary measure to manage abrupt changes), as the savings are finite at some point they will run into their delayed affordability crisis when the savings are exhausted.


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## MANTO (9 Jul 2009)

AlbacoreA said:


> I'm surprised your surprised at all. I'd reckon lots of people have no rainy day account at all. Celtic tiger passed a lot of people by. Wages never increased anything like the cost of goods and services.


 

I think the Celtic Tiger Passed most people - he gave me a slap of his tail on the way by


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## AlbacoreA (9 Jul 2009)

I think for a lot of people there was a veneer of wealth. The fundamentals underneath are a different story.


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## rory22 (9 Jul 2009)

> I think what is most sad or scary is for those who have only got savings to rely on (as opposed to using them as a temporary measure to manage abrupt changes), as the savings are finite at some point they will run into their delayed affordability crisis when the savings are exhausted.


 
Good point, but when you think of the country as a whole we're all collectively beyond this point, the country has no rainy day fund and we're bowering millions a day to pay massive, escalating social welfare costs (not to mention bailing out banks). I think that's scary.Could we end up like California - printing IOU's to give out as dole!?!


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