Almost everyone wants to save and to have money set aside for an emergency. But wanting to save is not the same as being able to do it.
Tight budgets, variable incomes, recurrent financial shocks, competing priorities and navigating complexity with limited mental bandwidth can all get in the way.1 Products that rely on people finding spare money, making repeated decisions and taking action at the right time often don’t fit the reality of people’s lives. As a result, too many households remain exposed to financial shocks: nearly 2 in 5 people in the UK would not be able to meet an unexpected expense of £250 from their savings.2
When we look more closely at low- and moderate-income households, the scale of the challenge comes into sharper focus: around half (52%) wouldn’t be able to cover a £250 expense from their savings.3
This can leave people meeting an immediate financial need through borrowing, without becoming better prepared for the next financial shock. This increases their exposure the next time even a relatively small, unexpected bill or a temporary fall in income comes along.
The borrowing journey is an overlooked opportunity to change this. A loan is one of the moments when people are already engaging with their money and a financial provider. Designing saving into that journey can reduce the need for extra decisions and help saving become part of an established routine. This could mean, for example, people saving small amounts alongside paying off a loan, or transitioning smoothly to saving at the end of a loan repayment period. Inclusive Money has been piloting and evaluating different approaches to joining up borrowing and saving as part of our ongoing work in this area. Joining up borrowing and saving can help people start saving, manage budgets and volatility, cope with shocks, improve wellbeing and feel more in control. It can create a pathway from meeting today’s credit obligation to building greater resilience for tomorrow.
Find out more about the opportunities to join up borrowing and saving
Through our work we’ve identified a set of five opportunity spaces for better integrating borrowing and saving to help people to build a buffer. These opportunities for innovation and inclusion build on five key questions:
1. What if, before they receive their loan, people could demonstrate their creditworthiness and build a savings buffer at the same time?
2. What if the start of a loan also helped people get started with saving?
3. What if the momentum of regularly repaying a loan also supported people to become confident, regular savers throughout their repayment journey?
4. What if the end of a loan became the moment people start or sustain a savings habit?
5. What if debt management plans helped people build their financial resilience through savings?
In this Opportunity map, we unpack the detail behind each opportunity space – and hope it will inspire organisations across the financial system and beyond to consider what their role could be.
You can download it in full here. And if you’d like to find out more about our work on financial resilience or think you could help trial these types of solutions, get in touch with our team at: hello@inclusivemoney.org.uk
1 We acknowledge the importance of income sufficiency as a foundation for building financial resilience. In this work our focus is on savings. Without a liveable income it is very difficult to save. But income is likely to go further and feel more adequate in households where people have some financial resilience and feel the peace of mind and sense of control that having some savings put aside can give.
2 Financial Conduct Authority (2025). Financial Lives Survey 2024
3 Nest Insight (2026). Spotlight on… financial resilience