According to the latest YouGov poll on savings, we tucked away, on average, £776 over the three months to the end of December last year.

I can tell you one thing for certain: I didn't and I don't know anyone who did.

What planet are these mystery savers from? If they were squirreling away that sort of cash then I bet they didn't have much of a Christmas, because survey or not, disposable income is still extremely tight and the luxury of saving anything is one that few can afford.

Interestingly, the YouGov report uses the phrase "people claim" when referring to the supposed £776, so even they are not committing to factual accuracy here.

That figure is also double what it was for the same time in 2008 so you might think the 'Save not Spend' message we've all be hammered with over the past 12 months was hitting home.


Or the cynics among you might say that people are just giving YouGov the answers they think they want to hear.

As I mentioned in a blog on this topic a while back, saving money is all well and good but who can really manage to do anything significant when the cost of living day-to-day is so high?

A report on the survey also mentions that 38% of people admitted they raided their savings during the three months to the end of December, withdrawing an average of £1,724. Now that sounds more like the reality I know.

But hang on, if you're saving £776 and withdrawing £1,724 even my maths skills tell me that doesn't quite balance out. What's going on here?

Finally, the survey discovered that the number of people saying they were saving for a rainy day has increased to nearly 27% from just 18% in the second quarter of last year, making it the most common reason for putting money aside.

Of course, everyone knows that 'rainy day' is just a euphemism for 'when I want it'.