The price of financial security

Simonne asks:
How much money do you reckon the average Brit needs to sleep well at night, feeling safe in the knowledge that they’re financially secure, without any money worries?
Well, Kaupthing Edge (the Icelandic bank who made a debut in the UK savings market a couple of months ago – yes, I know, strange name!) has done some research on this very question.
They believe that £92,507 would do it. In fact, for men the figure came out as £101,999, while women apparently don’t need quite so much to feel secure - £82,193 would do it for us.
Financial security means different things to different people.
So, my question to you is how much money do you need stashed away to give you financial peace of mind? And, if you’ve got a partner ask them this question too. You might learn something about each other.

For a mere £46 a week you can hire a Jimmy Choo Rock.

That’s a top-of-the-range designer handbag, now rentable by those who really feel that’s what’s missing in their lives.

For a tenth of that - £4.60 – I filled my straw basket with vegetables from the local farmer’s market yesterday and came home feeling rich. Mmm…leak, broccoli and watercress soup…because I’m worth it.

Are we going M.A.D?

There’s a psychological condition called Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD). It’s really just pathological worrying about absolutely everything. From whether a tsunami could hit Bournemouth to whether the fridge light really does go off when you close the door. Psychologies May edition has a feature, for which I was consulted, all about money worry. Or Money Anxiety Disorder (MAD) as it may come to be known. There's a lot of it about. More than two-thirds of women in our Sheconomics survey had worried about money in the last 7 days. Antidotes to worry? Control (seizing it) and action (taking it). Although there are lots of emotions (fear, guilt, shame, embarrassment) that stand between a person’s worry and the solutions. We devote lots of pages of Sheconomics to curing this MADness!