By saving up a portion of their monthly income, 31% of Baltic residents have managed to accumulate up to EUR 5 000 in savings. Savings of 21% of Baltic residents are higher than that. Estonian residents generally have the biggest savings. Latvia, on the other hand, has many more residents who don’t have any savings at all, according to results of a survey by Luminor Bank.
The survey was done in cooperation with Norstat in March. 3 020 Latvian, Lithuanian and Estonian resident aged 18 to 74 years were interviewed. 30% of Latvian and Estonian and 32% of Lithuanian residents have savings up to EUR 5 000. 11% of Latvian, 23% of Lithuanian and 28% of Estonian residents have more than EUR 5 000 in savings.
In Estonia 25% of residents have no savings. The same can be said for 18% of residents in Lithuania.
In Latvia there are 32% of residents who have no savings.
Additionally, compared with data from a survey performed in December, savings have gone down the most or 16% for seniors aged 60 to 64 years, as well as residents aged 30 to 39 years, whose savings have gone down by 9% in two months.
“In an ideal situation residents should divert about 10% of their monthly income towards savings. The most shocking is that 36% of residents aged 30 to 39 years cannot afford making savings even though they should have stable and growing income,” explains Luminor Bank business development manager Jekaterina Ziniča. According to her, society in general should develop their savings habits and they have to be educated about savings possibilities.
Residents who have larger amounts of money saved should differentiate risks and not keep savings in a single place. It would be better to invest money into long-term deposits and alternative instruments. This includes investing into funds, securities or pension funds, all of which provides the option to repay 20% of taxes from contributions, the expert recommends.
Also read: Average consumer price level up 17.3% in Latvia in March