Personal savings rate?

i sock away $.50 a week!

I save about 20%, divided into vacation, Xmas and emergency funds.

30-60%. I always ramp up savings as my salary increases and put away 100% of my commissions.

I spend just about every cent of my paycheck. However, I save whatever I make in my trading account, which is typically 50% to 60% of my take home for any given month.

I also save about 75% of my bonus which results in a substantial savings boost ever year...goes straight to the trading account for additional capital reserves.

@norcaltransplant
My current personal Saving rate is around 20 - 25 %. This year I am planning to increase it about 30 - 35%. My target is to reach upto 50% but for that I will need to make my finance management well.

I try and save 12.5% of my monthly income (not incl. my RRSP). When I start making more money, I will move it up to 25%.

I put all, except the virtually fixed amount for bills that is required immediate and $200 of emergency cash, of my monthly salary into high interest savings accounts with daily compounding. I use my credit card for entertainment and luxuries and paid amounts in full at the end of the interest free period.

I usually save about 40-50% of my take home pay.

Wife and I put money into 401k (10% each). Then with take home pay, we spend almost all of it. My bonus is usually 100-300% of my salary and all of that goes in the bank. So ultimately my savings rate is very high, but if I got shafted on a bonus, my numbers would look pretty bad.

We keep 9 months expenses in savings, max out 401k and 403b plans, employer puts 8% and I put 4% of salary into a defined benefit pension.
I don't believe in carrying any debt and in 9 months, we will be completely debt free.

I started out poor and learned to live way beneath my means.

I put about 60% of my gross pay into various savings accounts last year (457(b), 401(a), CDs, regular ole' savings account, a few other various investment accounts...). I am married with a toddler daughter, we are a one income family, and besides a mortgage (and property tax and insurance) we have no other major expenses. We live in a (locally) desirable neighborhood and we were both working when we bought the house but my wife left her job as an auditor with a public accounting firm when we had the baby. When we were house shopping, we were smart enough to set our budget based on the lesser of our two salaries. Once we became a one income family, I was able to continue my higher savings rate.

I am around 50% of net. Taxes were ***** this year.

I'm 24, and currently on a shoestring budget, with no room for savings. I was brought up knowing the importance of savings (especially how much of a difference an early dollar saved makes compared to one late in life), and I'm growing more and more anxious about my future. But I try to ignore it until things swing around for me. Reading this thread makes it much more difficult.



L.R. said:

I'm 24, and currently on a shoestring budget, with no room for savings. I was brought up knowing the importance of savings (especially how much of a difference an early dollar saved makes compared to one late in life), and I'm growing more and more anxious about my future. But I try to ignore it until things swing around for me. Reading this thread makes it much more difficult.

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I would say don't let this thread worry you. You are dealing with a really skewed data set. If someone cares about saving, he will read this thread. If he is an idiot and doesn't care about it and just blows his entire paycheck on goth ninja garb, he will not bother responding to - let alone searching for - a personal finance thread. In addition, SF has a lot of people that are more concerned with details than the population at large. As a result, it logically follows that said group of people would likely be more concerned about their finances as well. Just the fact that you care and it's something you place importance on is a good start, in my opinion.



L.R. said:

I'm 24, and currently on a shoestring budget, with no room for savings. I was brought up knowing the importance of savings (especially how much of a difference an early dollar saved makes compared to one late in life), and I'm growing more and more anxious about my future. But I try to ignore it until things swing around for me. Reading this thread makes it much more difficult.

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I mean lets face it, someone who is literally saving 50% of their income (and doesn't have a very low income) either has some sort of plan for it or is kind of dumb. The point of earning the money is to spend it on *something*. That could be saving for an early retirement (which requires a lot since you have both less time to earn interest and more time to spend it), saving to send the kids to college, saving to buy a life-size 737 flight simulator, whatever.

Saving that much just because "saving is good" is just going to end up meaning that instead of wasting your money on little bits of dumb ****, you will waste money one one big piece of dumb ****. Either way, you are still spending your money on dumb **** that gives you enjoyment but if you are sacrificing enjoyment in order to save heavily with no goal, you are just going to have a big pile of savings burning a hole in your pocket end up with a house on an island somewhere that it turns out you only end up using for one weekend a year (when you could spent the previous years spending a week on a different island every year with the same money).



otc said:

I mean lets face it, someone who is literally saving 50% of their income (and doesn't have a very low income) either has some sort of plan for it or is kind of dumb....

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After reading a few replies and comparing this thread to a similar post on Bogleheads, I realize that the responders in both threads are really a self selecting bunch. If you can save >40% of your gross income or >50% of net income, you either do not have kid(s) or make well into the 33-35% Federal Tax Bracket. Most savers, including myself, are usually saving for a directed goal. I plan on having a family in the semi-near future. Kids are super expensive. Daycare + education + extracurricular activities = $$$.

The point of earning the money is to spend it on *something*. That could be saving for an early retirement (which requires a lot since you have both less time to earn interest and more time to spend it), saving to send the kids to college, saving to buy a life-size 737 flight simulator, whatever. Saving that much just because "saving is good" is just going to end up meaning that instead of wasting your money on little bits of dumb ****, you will waste money one one big piece of dumb ****. Either way, you are still spending your money on dumb **** that gives you enjoyment but if you are sacrificing enjoyment in order to save heavily with no goal, you are just going to have a big pile of savings burning a hole in your pocket end up with a house on an island somewhere that it turns out you only end up using for one weekend a year (when you could spent the previous years spending a week on a different island every year with the same money).

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I don't plan on spending it on dumbshit stuff, rather, on future healthcare costs. I assume that Medicare and/or Social Security will be no longer solvent when I am ready to retire. The minimum distribution age will likely increase to 67.5 or even 70 before I die which means my working career will have to be extended until I can save a decent sized nest egg. I consider $2-2.5+ million, inflation adjusted for today's dollars, with a 3% spend down rate will be sufficient to live a middle class lifestyle without sweating our respective families.