Many consumers will be amazed to hear Britain has a savings crisis, when they have been urged for 18 months to keep spending to stave off economic recession.

They have shopped hard but stock markets have crashed and we could wake up soon to harsh reality.

A survey from IFA Promotion shows a savings shortfall of £66 billion threatens the living standards of 29 million adults (almost two-thirds of the population) if nothing changes.

The "savings gap", IFA says, is more dangerous than the pensions fiasco, where the degree of under-funding may be only £27 billion.

A third of adults have no savings at all. More than half have less than £1,500 saved and only one in eight has a savings pot of more than £20,000.

Almost four in five of those earning less than the average wage (£23,600) should be saving more.

And the problem is worse the younger you are: some 44 per cent of 15 to 24-year-olds didn't save a penny in the last three months and thousands of students were £10,000 in the red before they graduated.

IFA spokesman David Elms said: "We borrow 65p for every pound we save, one of the highest ratios ever recorded.

Six in ten people need to save more than £2,000 more each year."

According to Abbey National bank, how we save depends partly on where we live. Only 18 per cent of adults in London, the South-East and East Anglia saved for holidays compared to 33 per cent in the North and North-

East.

People aged 35 to 44 saved the most, £203 a month, and those over 65 the least, £109.

Only two per cent of Londoners saved for home improvements compared to 5.6 per cent in the North.

Abbey National said in Greater Manchester one in adult in two saved regularly while in Greater Birmingham, bottom of the league, it was more like one in three.

When annuity rates were high, people could rely on private and state pensions to see them serenely through old age.

But pension values are shrinking so fast extra savings schemes would be needed by most of today's working population in the 20 to 55-yearold age bracket.

David Bitner, of The MarketPlace at Bradford & Bingley, said: "A savings target of 12.5 per cent of net income after tax is sensible because the value of many pensions is hard to predict in current conditions.

"Unless they are saving for something specific, like a car or a house deposit, most people should hold six months' net disposable income in ready cash and the rest in longer-term savings, according to their risk profile.

"Now is not a bad time to drip cash into managed funds of high-yielding shares in sectors like finance, insurance and tobacco.

"Paying dividends around four per cent a year, they could also produce big capital gains over five years."

A monthly amount of £50 paid into a building society, produces a lump sum of £22,600 over 20 years and £48,700 after 30 years.

With tax relief in a pension plan, the respective figures are £29,000 and £62,500 but savers take only 25 per cent of this as a lump sum, the rest as income for the rest of their lives.