How much are you now saving?

[cnspotts]

Honestly I feel like we never save enough.

I drive DH nuts sometimes because of it. Recently I realized that he has a pension, no matter what we save he has that available thankfully. On top of that he saves a certain $$ (15%) amount through his checks that we never touch. I save a certain amount into a 401k also (20-30%). Then after that we have two other savings we save into. One monthly amount associated with our checking (MMA), the other is a weekly amount, we don''t touch those unless we need to (generaly don''t). Typically we also pay extra (10-50%) principal each month on our mortgage, not so much recently as we''ve been preparing to renovate our home and need to extra cash available.

Thankfully we''ve been saving because we''re buying another home to move into while we''re renovating our current home (we have to live somewhere), we scored a house that had been previously a foreclosure that we''re buying from a man that generally "flips" homes. He says he''s done with it and not going to put anything into this house. It really needs very little work, it''s adorable and it''s just 2 streets away! If we choose to we can sell it when we''re done with it for 3 times what we''re paying for it as is. So that was a great timely investment for our purposes.

I still feel like we''re not saving enough but I know we''re saving more than any of our friends & family.

 

[Puppmom]

We save about 15% of our net monthly income and each put aside 4% into 401k. I''m pretty fortunate in that my employer puts 14% away for me into my Retirement Plan and I got started early so 4% is enough...for now.

As far as the savings account goes, it never seems like enough. One big expense and there goes the savings...

 

[MichelleCarmen]

Date: 4/9/2010 2:28:52 AM
Author:Phoenix


I also heard on TV that more and more Americans are downsizing their homes or at least are having more realistic expectations of what their ''dream house'' should be like. So instead of having a home of some 5-6 bedroom of 4-500 sq ft, more and more folks are looking at 3-bed 2-3000 sq ft. Are you guys having to adjust your expectations too?

Oh, incidentally, I am planning to go back to work soon and practically all of my take-home income will be put into our savings. So, this would increase our savings rate quite considerably, though I don''t know what it''d be yet, as it''d depend on my salary amount. We may also even sell our current house in Singapore and downsize to a condo.

We downsized our house. Went from a 2600 sq foot house to a 2000 (ish) sq foot towhome condo. Difference in expenses was substantial! Then after a year, we realized that the townhome condo wasn''t right for us since we have four people and moved into a larger home at 2400 sq feet - 4 bed, 2.5 bath, etc. Today, my dh and I again talked about downsizing again because we''re renting and the price is just crazy. More than many mortgages. The only deal is ALL of the homes in our kids'' boundries are the same price and we don''t want to move them out of it, which means doing a school variance. ahhhh!

 

[PumpkinPie]

Date: 4/9/2010 12:18:13 PM
Author: RaiKai

Date: 4/9/2010 10:13:04 AM

Author: Maevie

a 3 bedroom house that''s 2500 or 30000 square feet is enormous! I hope that''s not the average person''s plan. Here in Alberta that would cost on average between 650,000-850,000$! I don''t know many people who can float that type of mortgage



My husband and I currently save about 60% of our take-home income in an average month.


This month it will be a tiny bit less because we just booked flights for a summer vacation to visit my parents!

I did not know you lived in Alberta! Us too. I am however a fairly recent transplant (lived in Winnipeg where the cost of living is super affordable compared to here!). DH is originally from Alberta, up near Edmonton, but he has lived out of province for many years due to work (postings on the West Coast, the East Coast, and all in the middle). We moved here just last year - down South - and absolutely love it. But the cost of living IS higher for sure!

Yup! we live in Calgary. My husband is from Edmonton but I grew up in Nova Scotia. Huge difference from the little town where I grew up - I actually had no idea what a mortgage really was before I moved here at 24!

 

[kama_s]

Date: 4/9/2010 10:13:04 AM

Author: Maevie

a 3 bedroom house that''s 2500 or 30000 square feet is enormous! I hope that''s not the average person''s plan. Here in Alberta that would cost on average between 650,000-850,000$! I don''t know many people who can float that type of mortgage

Which would cost upwards of 1.2M here in Toronto! (ofcourse, that doesn''t include the greater Toronto area, just core Toronto).

We save 25-40% of our annual salary (last year some of our annual savings went into the wedding and hmoon). Now with my job, that would also increase substantially.

 

[Haven]

I quit my full time teaching job last summer and have only been working very part time this year. Since that switch I''ve been putting in 10-20% of our income into savings. Before I quit my job we were saving that plus most of my take home, as well.

RE: Downsizing the lifestyle:
When DH and I bought our house we made the conscious choice to a) buy something we could afford on one salary, and b) buy only as much house as we think we''d ever need. We did buy in a relatively expensive area, the North Shore of Chicago, so we could have gotten much more house if we bought in the northern suburbs of Chicago where I grew up, but location was more important to us. We live in a 1480 sq ft ranch with 3 bedrooms, 1.5 baths, a 1 car garage, and no basement. We have SO MUCH space. Right now it''s just us, the dog, and the three cats.

I grew up in a house this same size, too, and we all lived very happily together. (Even with only one full bathroom.) We''ve decided when we have kids we''ll stay here. I''ve never understood the need for a large house, but that''s probably because I grew up in a smaller one. DH grew up in apartments in Chicago, so he''s *definitely* used to living in smaller spaces. I love our house. I never want to leave.

I''ve found that living far below our means has given us a lot of *freedoms*, which I value far more than *stuff*.

When I start teaching FT again in the fall we''ll go back to socking my income away again.

 

[MakingTheGrade]

We just bought a house so our savings are soon to be pretty much all sucked into mortgage and doing some work on the house. It's a big house, about 2500 sq ft on almost an acre, but it was a great price in a nice neighborhood. We checked out the comps, and it just seemed too good to pass up, and in our price range. I'm in school, so no savings for me. But once I start working, I suspect much of it will go towards savings.

So excited to be a first time home owner! And I'm so in love with the house! It's much more space than we currently need as it's only the two of us. But we're thinking of starting a family soon, and there's a good chance my parents may live with us awhile (pretty normal in Chinese culture), so we wanted some extra breathing space just in case.

 

[Dancing Fire]

the avg PSer''s house is 2300 sq ft.

 

[Phoenix]

Date: 4/9/2010 10:54:08 AM
Author: winelover23
The whole housing thing just irks me off. Who needs a 4,000 square foot house unless they're the Dugar Family? Who needs a formal dining and a formal living? If everyone started buying only what they NEED we'd be far better off economically. Our house is just under 1,700 square feet and we still have a lot of space we don't necessarily NEED. Thanks to the real estate market going T/U we just recently purchased our home for about 80k less than what it was listed for a year ago. We currently save about $800 per month but we're also paying for our wedding ourselves (September) so hopefully after that is over we'll save more. We like to have 9 months salary in savings, I watch too much Suzy Orman

This is exactly what they were saying on this TV programme. Apparently, people are no longer wanting extra rooms which are now considered superfluous to their needs. The 5-6 bedroomed so-called average home was much more than what most people need.

Bearing in mind that this was an American TV programme, a 3 bed 3000 sqft house (average nation-wide), is still quite large by European or Asian standards, or even when compared to certain places in the US like New York City.

We are lucky that we bought our house in Singapore shortly after SARS so got a pretty good deal (there's absolutely no way that we can afford it if we were to buy it now). DH has been saying forever that we have/ had far too much space in SG and that we were paying for rooms that we didn't need; and I finally agree with him. We're planning to move to a 2,000 sqft condo when we go back to SG.

I love Suzy Orman too, btw. She makes a lot of sense.

 

[Hera]

We''re not saving much but we have a sizable emergency fund until I''m finished with graduate school.
I agree with the comments about the size of homes. Whenever I used to watch that show "house hunters" I would laugh when small families would need 3,000 square feet. I would look at the humongous houses they were previewing and think to myself that they''re never going to get that room to feel even somewhat cozy.


My disagreement with some of the comments above though is with the formal living and dining. I actually love my formal living room. It''s the room that stays perfect all the time and with time, will house beautiful fabrics and the sofa will keep it''s shape etc. We spend most of our time in the den where comfort is the order of the day and I just love walking into my formal living room.

 

[rierie26]

I try to save as much as I can for an emergency and cushion (not the diamond!) account. I also noticed that stores and restaurants are not as packed as they used to be, but there still are people spending. I just got back from a trip to Europe and the flight going to and coming back were completely packed!

 

[luckynumber]

HA HA!

Nothing.

I live in London.

Half my pay goes into rent.

You do the math....