5 million first-time savers: a 17-year-old's view on how we get there

Hi, I'm Theo, a 17-year-old currently on work experience at Sync, and this is something I've been tasked to do. In this blog I'm going to break down why so many young people avoid saving, what actually gets them to start, and how I think we could realistically bring 5 million first-time savers into the habit. It's not as impossible as it sounds.

As a young adult I am beginning to come into a stage of my life where money is becoming more and more relevant, and I am starting to get more money through work having started my first job recently. Me and my friends, who are in similar situations, are beginning to have holidays and a gap year that we want to start saving for. However the link between starting to earn money and starting to save is very weak - once people find a job there is little-to-no talk about saving. I am in a fortunate position. I am aware what to do with parts of my salary when it comes to saving as my dad is accountant, and today, when I get paid I will (probably!) put 25% of my salary into savings - a habit my dad has told me to build. There is research to suggest the youth are becoming better at saving, however, I still believe many are oblivious to saving and do not know how or where to save that is easy to view, and to access when you need it. I believe this is a market for companies offering saving products to target.

Many people my age to don’t save for multiple reasons. To begin, many think that saving can be strenuous and take a lot of effort. However, this is not the case, saving can be easy and companies like Sync should advertise this. For example, showing people how saving can be automated so when their income comes in an amount can be automatically added to savings. This would make it much easier for people to save as it takes out any effort or decision making to be done.

Also, people in my generation entering the workforce for the first time, do not have much expendable cash that they are willing to save as 71% of people who are employed aged 16-19 work part time. Which may be a reason many are reluctant to save as they would rather have the money to spend immediately.

The younger demographic agree that saving is important and whilst we may think it takes a lot of effort and we may not have enough money for it, we all agree that beginning to save at a young age can grow great savings habits going on into the future. A good example of this that we are aware of is pensions but it would be good to know about other saving opportunities for before retirement.

My generation are not young people who “don’t save”, we are a generation who are financially anxious about the future. This fear is caused due to the daunting fact that we may might not be able to afford housing and the cost of living is relatively higher than it has been for decades.

As a young adult the attraction of having a lot of money on payday can be overwhelming and tempting for me to spend it all, especially with things such as credit cards it can be tempting for some to spend money they don’t even have yet. It would help me if I had better tools, advice and more knowledge about saving and money. This is where Sync can help out, giving tooling, guidance and support to people in my generation like me who are dealing with payslips for the first time. I also think it is really motivating to see what I will get on return of a certain sum of money, to visually show a younger audience the benefits of saving. This can gamify saving and encourage more to save.

I am positive that my generation will build good habits and save with a nudge in the right direction and through correct guidance from businesses like Sync.

Written by Theo Heath, intern @ Sync