Just curious, what's your personal savings rate?
I was just running some numbers and I've determined that my personal savings rate is a whopping 45%. I'm still maxing out my 401k and slamming money that I was putting towards vehicles (they're paid off now) into my money market accounts. Ever other month or so, I'll make a planned bulk deposit into my savings account. Even though that sounds like a big number, I feel my family still has plenty for all the necessary expenses and we have an emergency fund of around 9 months. I'm just curious, how much is everyone else saving?
Comments
Is that 45% of gross or net?
Like a passbook account or something; right out of 1971?
I haven't had savings since I was a little kid with a piggie bank.
I'm just not sure where to the draw the line and what your denominator is. Net or gross?
We are putting about 12% of our gross into employee retirement, another 4% into Roths, another 4% into college accts. I guess you could consider that all "savings" though I think of them as investments.
I guess I can count the 5% towards paying down mortgage principal (you know, "forced savings".) Of course I'm "losing" 95% of our gross income a month through declining housing values, so maybe I should treat this as - 90%?
But we are paying 17% in mortgage interest, taxes and insurance as well. Since I'm getting maybe 4-5% of our gross income back through deductions come tax time, can I consider that "savings"?
If you aren't counting any of that, conservatively my savings is pretty close to nil.
If you chose a more generous interpretation, maybe 30%.
Ungenerous: - 65%.
That's a pretty wide gap. Is there a book-keeper in the house!?!
If it's excluding, I can only deduce you either make 200K a year, or you force your family to subsist on Top-Ramen and vacation at Hanford.
That being said, I know people that make a third of what I make and still manage to sock away tons because they've just never really been big spenders. I guess it's who I flock with.
I, for one, welcome the death of a credit economy.
Are mandatory retirement contributions savings?
Is reinvested return on investment savings?
Define mandatory retirement contributions. It's all voluntary last I checked except for social security. I would say for the sake of this discussion, leave out reinvested return.
22% for housing
28% Taxes
8% Daycare
I'd have to be -3% frugal for retirement, food, clothing, utilities and entertainment to hit 45% savings the way you define it.
Maybe you own a house free and clear (or live in a cave) and are a tax-refuser, but that just doesn't add up in anybody's world I know, no matter how big a spender they are.
It's not hard to live below your means when your means are high, and you are lucky enough not to have to pay what others consider mandatory costs of living.
First 10 years I let "investment advisers" guide me. My return was 2/3% a year. Then I decided to actively take over my own portfolio and follow my own instincts. Since then my return on investment has been, shall we say, a LOT better!!
Biggest fear is that my SS, Pension, and savings will be worth just a fraction due to collapse of dollar.
"Excuse me sir, but would you like ketchup with your dog food?" :twisted:
Talking to some older folks, I've been quite surprised as to how generous some of the pension plans are.
Given that it is beyond rare for someone of my generation to have any pension at all, coupled with the under-funding of social security and companies taking away their 401K match, things are going to be much worse for a lot of retirees, once the baby-boomers get through eating up all the benefits.
If you work for the Federal Government, deductions taken for your retirement are "mandatory".
Why don't you set up a poll about personal savings rates? That way responders can be anonymous.
Yes. At least nationally, the savings rate (as defined as the % of disposable income, not gross) is increasing:
http://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/national/pi/pinewsrelease.htm
The bubble-heads here are probably more conservative than most, so their savings rate was probably much higher than 0 before everything started collapsing around us, and it's probably more than 5% now.
A poll is a good idea, but define it pretty clearly.
As for me, I generally like to work against trend, so I was being very conservative and saving and paying off student loans when everyone else was HELOCing up to their eyeballs.
Now, however, I'm spending and taking risks and taking advantage not having to compete with all the folks who are too broke or too terrified to do anything but hunker down and roll pennies.
Our savings rate will probably be close to zero until my boy gets out of daycare. The next 3-5 years will be a little risky, as we will find it pretty hard going if either my wife or I are out of a job for more than a year. I think that has a low enough probability of happening however, that I didn't see any reason vastly change our plans.
I think it's time you buy yourself that Ferrari. You've earned it.
Lol, no thanks! The insurance alone would eat me alive.
Regarding the poll, what would good choices be? I don't want to be too general: <50% and >50%, but also not too specific: 1%, 2%, 3%, 4%. You get the idea.
I don't trust any paper asset before I trust a house (real asset), so no 401k contributions for me until I pay off a house. My savings rate is less than 50% of net overall because I like to buy temporary early retirement--I don't wanna do all my traveling with a walker, or pay through the nose due to a collapsed dollar.
Doing back of the envelope math I guess my balance sheet looks like:
$100k income
$15k 401(k)
$15k income tax
$3k roth IRA
$10k cash savings to trading account
$57k spent on everything else
Of the $57k, about $30-35k seems to be rent/cellphone/internet/TV/food kinds of things (i don't like calling these "essentials" since i could live off a 1/10th of this if i really had to).
That leaves $22-$27k/yr on "other" (diving gear, vacations, toys, etc).
In summary, I'm debt-free and saving $23-$28k a year and clearly letting the terrorists win and destroying america...