How much do you save per month?

[mayerling]

Please forgive me if this sounds like a forward question. I'm really not asking about your income, just what percentage of that income - for those who are employed - goes to a savings account (not retirement funds, etc.). Also, please answer about individual income savings, not your total household savings. I'm just wondering because DH and I have a disagreement on the matter. I think that people usually save about 10% whereas he seems to think that people usually save about 50%!

 

[thbmok]

IMO even the percentage amount likely varies a lot depending on income level. It's easier to save 50% on a $250,000 annual income vs 50% on a $50,000 annual income. But here's the actual data for the US if you are interested: http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/data/PSAVERT.txt

 

[mayerling]

IMO even the percentage amount likely varies a lot depending on income level. It's easier to save 50% on a $250,000 annual income vs 50% on a $50,000 annual income. But here's the actual data for the US if you are interested: http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/data/PSAVERT.txt

Thanks, this is very interesting!

 

[Phoenix]

IMO even the percentage amount likely varies a lot depending on income level. It's easier to save 50% on a $250,000 annual income vs 50% on a $50,000 annual income. But here's the actual data for the US if you are interested: http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/data/PSAVERT.txt

I agree. There's a quantum if you like over and above which your disposable income becomes "available" for saving, as one has to pay for the necessities like mortgage/ rent, food, min. going out etc

At the moment, since I work on a contract basis, it's hard to say how much is saved, as it depends on whether I do actually work, the project and therefore the pay. We're currently saving one-third of DH's take home pay. Once I go back to work full time (which hopefully should be soon - fingers crossed), our savings rate should be about 50-60% of our combined income.

On another note, I find that just saving alone isn't really enough to prepare for our retirement, we have to invest quite aggressively too. We'd like to retire in style!

 

[Jennifer W]

It really does vary for me from month to month. What I try hard not to do is dip into my savings, so if the car needs work done to it, or the house needs a repair, or I bought something expensive one month, it comes out of salary rather than savings, meaning my % of saving is erratic. On the months when nothing happens I can save more, on the months when other stuff crops up, it can be zero.

I do have a pension scheme though, and a % of my salary is paid into every month without fail, matched by my employer. I consider that to be more important than cash savings for me, since I live in the UK and don't have to worry about paying for hospital bills or university education for my kid. I think my priorities might vary with where I lived. I know you did specifically exclude pensions from your question, but for me that is the most significant 'saving' I have. If I didn't have that, I guess I would be trying to save as close to 100% of my salary as possible after bills and food were taken care of. Having been very poor indeed in the past, I have no wish to return there in my old age.

Ultimately, it really does not matter what other people save, but that you save enough to meet your own needs and expectations and to cushion you from the unexpected. In reality I think huge numbers of people save nothing at all or use surplus income to service the interest on debt, to be honest.

 

[justginger]

I used to save about 40% of my base pay, perhaps up to 60% if I had overtime in as well. However, since that point I have elected to double my mortgage repayments and dump a certain amount into a mutual fund each fortnight. Now I save about 20% of my pay. It disappears in chunks though, as I travel and buy diamonds!

 

[Lady_Disdain]

At the moment, I have negative savings (aka, I complement my jewelry making profit and translation income with savings). However, this was planned. When I had a salary, I always saved at least 15% of it. The last year before I quit, I was saving 40% or more, mainly due to a rather simple lifestyle.

 

[yennyfire]

We don't put money in our savings account every paycheck. As long as we maintain a certain balance (i.e. emergency fund enough to cover all expenses for 3 months), we send the rest of our "disposable" income to our financial planner for investment. Yes, right now our ROI stinks, but since we won't be retiring for another 30 years (gulp), we hope that by then, the market will have stabilized and our ROI will have improved. Putting large quantities in a bank savings account with very little interest being earned is not the smartest financial move IMO. Percentage wise, we save about 20%. When I worked full time, we banked my entire salary and used DHs to pay bills, etc. Now that I only work part time and we have two kids (versus none when I worked FT), we save a lot less.

 

[missy]

It varies quite a bit. We try to save (including investments as that is a large percentage of our savings) as much as we can since we are not that far (hopefully) from retirement though what has been going on with the economy over the last few years has pushed us a bit farther from retirement unfortunately.

Before we bought our new beach house we were saving closer to 50% I would guess but now since we have larger monthly expenses due to the beach house purchase I would guess closer to 20% goes to savings.

We met with our financial advisers last night and the last few years have not been overly kind to us but hoping for increased returns on savings over the next few years. But who knows what is going to end up happening regarding the world economic recovery.

Of course with the state our economy (and the world's economy) is in we have been doing rather well comparatively speaking. But that is cold comfort when faced with the prospect of delaying our retirement...

 

[diamondringlover]

I seldom put anything in savings...we are a paycheck to paycheck kind of family...the only time money goes in savings is when we get our income tax check and my hubby's company passes out quarterly profit sharing checks and sometimes we are able to put some of that money in savings..but other then that we hold our breath each month hoping nothing breaks

 

[Octavia]

It really does vary for me from month to month. What I try hard not to do is dip into my savings, so if the car needs work done to it, or the house needs a repair, or I bought something expensive one month, it comes out of salary rather than savings, meaning my % of saving is erratic. On the months when nothing happens I can save more, on the months when other stuff crops up, it can be zero.

Same here. Since I got this job, my "normal" rate on months where there are no big additional expenses is about 40%, but that was lower at my old job because I made less and had higher expenses. I was probably averaging 20% then, but it didn't feel like that much. I'm currently making a serious effort to pay off my law school loans, and I've been trying to find the right balance between putting money in savings and wiping those suckers out...I can't wait until they're gone because I will be able to put a lot more into savings! Oh, and this is just based on take-home pay, after taxes, insurance, retirement contributions, etc have been deducted.

 

[Dancing Fire]

IMO even the percentage amount likely varies a lot depending on income level. It's easier to save 50% on a $250,000 annual income vs 50% on a $50,000 annual income. But here's the actual data for the US if you are interested: http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/data/PSAVERT.txt

not true...i know people with high income whom are drowning in debt with 0 in savings. they must live in a million dollar home,drive $100K cars and go on expensive vacations every 6 months.i know some dishwashers with more savings than the people with high incomes.

 

[Porridge]

I aim for around 30%-40%. A chunk of that goes into shares that my company buys for me at a 15% discount.
I put extra into a pension fund that my company matches.

 

[packrat]

Zero. Our income tax every year goes to Murphy's Law. This year Murphy would like us to pay my parents back for when the furnace and central air conked out last summer. The year before that Murphy decided since no one would listen to me about the size of the leak in the upstairs bathroom he'd make us end up gutting the bathroom down to bare studs b/c of the damage so our tax return went to that. My husband has a lot of hobbies that are apparently more important than savings, and I choose to stay home as much as possible w/the kids while they're little. Bonuses at both our jobs are jokes, so there's no extra there.

 

[Enerchi]

...not enough, sadly.

I like to put away at least 20% of my pay cheque. Sometimes it's more... sometimes its much less but overall, I think I'm doing much better now that I'm working FT again, then with my teeny weeny part time salary! I've also increased my RSP donations and my AVC pension amounts (Additional Voluntary Contributions).

I don't think I'll be able to survive retirement on what the government has planned for me...

 

[partgypsy]

We are saving 10% of my paycheck pre tax into retirement. And then about 6-8 months ago started saving another 10% post tax into a regular emergency savings fund. Hubby doesn't save any money seperately.

Always told that 10% was a decent amount to save, but I think that thinking has changed, and I think we can probably do better than we are currently doing. The only problem is we can't seem to agree on what to save the money for (house, kid's college, additional retirement) so we don't go onto the next step of actually doing anything about it...

It seems we have some great savers on this forum!

 

[rubybeth]

I selected 20-50% because last year we debt snowballed/saved 32% of our take-home pay. We are still on baby step 2 of Dave Ramsey's plan, but have paid off a significant portion of our student loan debt and plan to pay off the rest by the end of 2013. Once our debt is gone, we'll easily be able to save everything that we used to put toward debt.

I will say that DH and I have made some conscious decisions to NOT expand our lifestyles to match our income after we finished with school and got full-time jobs. We still live in our 1-bedroom apartment, drive paid-for older cars, and avoid debt like the plague. Nothing we own is 'borrowed' except our educations, which cannot be taken away from us. We have some shared financial goals, which includes saving for a large down payment on a house, travel, and being generous.

Being on the same page on financial stuff is really nice. I think where some people get in trouble is thinking that they 'deserve' to have the house, the new BMW, etc. and go into debt to do so.

 

[rubybeth]

The only problem is we can't seem to agree on what to save the money for (house, kid's college, additional retirement) so we don't go onto the next step of actually doing anything about it...

You may want to speak to a financial planner about the 'order' in which to do these things. Based on my reading/advice from our financial planner, it would be: a) zero debt, b) save for house down payment, c) 15% toward retirement, d) pay off the house, e) kid's college.

 

[Dancing Fire]

The only problem is we can't seem to agree on what to save the money for (house, kid's college, additional retirement) so we don't go onto the next step of actually doing anything about it...

You may want to speak to a financial planner about the 'order' in which to do these things. Based on my reading/advice from our financial planner, it would be: a) zero debt, b) save for house down payment, c) 15% toward retirement, d) pay off the house, e) kid's college.

how about diamonds?..

 

[Asu]

I try to put a bit more than 20% of my husband's paycheck (the only regular one in the house,I only work a couple hours a week and only get a few extra bucks) in the bank,and then around the 8% get put away toward the annual payment we make for his retirement insurance (kind of a implement to the regular retirement),wich is the only investment we make for now.Sadly our financial situation is not the bst for now,since his paycheck is not that high,as he just opened his own wholesale bakery a few years ago,and we are still investing into it and adjusting things,so if anything unplanned comes up,we have to dig into our bank account.I'm trying to put a few bucks away monthly to put toward a "oops,that wasn't planned" fund,but it's really few money for now.I hope that,once we get into our 30s in a few years,and the bakery get past the first 5/7 years of life,things will get better and we will be able to actually save consistently.For now,I'm just glad our account is always on positive

 

[rosetta]

Good question.

We have pretty good pensions. I save a lot more than my husband as his travel costs are a lot higher.

I think at least 40% each month but we are not good at financial stuff so you've motivated me to have a good long look at this.

 

[Dancing Fire]

never had a savings account in my life..

 

[Mayk]

Way more if I hadn't found Pricescope

 

[Phoenix]

Way more if I hadn't found Pricescope

Ditto!

 

[happybear]

Way more if I hadn't found Pricescope

+1

 

[Enerchi]

Way more if I hadn't found Pricescope

Good one Mayk!!! Agree completely

 

[ladypirate]

We were saving more before I went back to school, now we're more just keeping even for the next couple of years until I'm out. I just started working part time as well, so it's possible we'll get some additional savings out of that, and we usually get a decent tax return, plus DH has a retirement account that is automatically contributed to.

 

[Haven]

I've been slacking in this area for the last several months. For a very long time, I was very, very tight with all of our finances and I had specific savings goals for every month, and always met them.

Then, I got a bit lazy and decided that I would just transfer whatever we don't spend into our savings at the end of every month.

And you know what happened? As soon as I started leaving money in our checking account, we started spending it. I really thought we were more sensible than that, because we've always been so diligent, but NOPE! I don't know what it is, but it is SO MUCH EASIER to save money when you just never see it in your checking account in the first place.

I know this is what all the personal finance gurus tell you, but I suppose I thought we were the exception to the rule.

So, my answer to your question is: Not enough. I have the suspicion that we could save thousands more a month if I just changed one thing: Moved it directly into savings as soon as it hits our accounts. I think it really is true that you adjust your lifestyle in small ways to meet whatever is in your spending account, assuming you aren't strapped for cash to pay the bills, of course.

Okay, you've inspired me to tighten the belt again. Thank you!

Part Gypsy--DH and I had similar disagreements about what to prioritize in terms of savings. We read a lot of different books on personal finance (by "we" I mean "I" read them, and then gave DH a summary,) and spoke to our accountant and retirement guy about it. We ended up going with Dave Ramsay's set of goals at first, this was back when we had student loan debt. His very straightforward approach helped us get on the wagon, so to speak, and it was easy and clear enough that we were really motivated to start right away.

If you live with a spender and you're a saver, I've found the best way to curb their spending habits is to encourage them to handle real money and checks instead of debit or credit cards. For example: I've always physically gone into the bank to pay my monthly loan checks--I took out a loan for my first car and did this, and now we do this with our mortgage. It's so much more painful and real to hand the check over to a real person and watch them slide it through that thingie on the counter. When DH gets the shopping itch, I ask him to use cash only. For some reason, he spends less that way.

Sorry, I've gone a bit long. I think I'm using this post to work out some of my own ideas about how I want to move forward financially. Thanks for that! I was so, so careful for so long, and then my work load grew this year and I slipped a bit and our savings growth has sort of stagnated while our spending has grown. NOT the ideal situation!

 

[Mayk]

Way more if I hadn't found Pricescope

Good one Mayk!!! Agree completely

Enerchi.. I saw your little note to Dreamer about her OEC.. I know.. you know... Exactly what I mean

 

[Enerchi]

Way more if I hadn't found Pricescope

Good one Mayk!!! Agree completely

Enerchi.. I saw your little note to Dreamer about her OEC.. I know.. you know... Exactly what I mean

Hush now!!! This is the "SAVINGS" thread... we shall not judge....
(but yeah, clearly I am VERY weak...)