How much to save

[janedoe]

How much of my income should I be putting towards savings, percentage wise? The question might sound very simplistic but is there supposed to be a "set" amount? I'm trying to re-evaluate my budget

[Velvetshady]

I don;t think there is a "set" amount. What are you saving for?

[Roc A Bee]

Are you asking for retirement? Cash savings? Both?

[arch01]

as much as possible?

we put 15-20% away into savings. i'm sure it is probably on the low-middle range of this board.

[janedoe]

Liquid savings. Retirement is taken care of.

I guess no matter what, I always feel like we are never saving enough and always trying to cut down on bills

[Balki.Bartokomous]

50%, or as much as possible.

My father has always stressed that one should live on half of her income & save the other half, and my ILs have a similar view on finances. It's worked out very well for both sets of parents, and it's working out well for us, too. Two words: compound interest.

I'm one of the more conservative savers on this board, so take that FWIW. But, I can tell you that having money in the bank really helps lower your stress level. Like, a lot. Lol.

[Deleted]

We save $1000 a month, which is only 10% but we are paying off debt right now. Ideally I'd like to be able to save 25%.

[janedoe]

Thanks I've actually never heard of saving 50% but I really like that idea

[M]

We save ~50% or whatever we don't spend. If we were both getting paychecks at a regular job then we'd probably put one in savings and one in checking for bills. Our finances are more complicated than that though haha.

ETA: I should rephrase . We only spend 50% of our income. The rest goes into investments of some sort. I call that savings haha.

[aspentosh]

As much as you can is a good place to strive for. 10%-20% is a good place to start (if you're not already there).

Just don't deprive yourself too much!

[SJ]

We save less than 10% of our take-home into non-retirement accounts.

Just wanted to even out the answers here

[aspentosh]

Dec 4, 2012 11:40:14 GMT -5 @charky said:

Dec 3, 2012 23:57:27 GMT -5 Balki.Bartokomous said:

50%, or as much as possible.

My father has always stressed that one should live on half of her income & save the other half, and my ILs have a similar view on finances. It's worked out very well for both sets of parents, and it's working out well for us, too. Two words: compound interest.

I'm one of the more conservative savers on this board, so take that FWIW. But, I can tell you that having money in the bank really helps lower your stress level. Like, a lot. Lol.

I'm in this camp too. Save as much as you can. 50% is great.

My H and I try to strike a balance between aggressively saving while also enjoying some of our income. For us, that means saving >80% right now, but we're high-earning DINKs and realize it might not always be like this.

Holy monkey balls! Good for you!

[countthestars]

We're at about 20%. I would like to get to 30% or so. I have no desire to save half my income in non-retirement funds.

[mellymel]

We are at about 10% but we are paying down some CC debt and are a single income family. That's just cash savings, not retirement/other investments. Retirement is 14.5%.

[winnied]

We are at 20% while H is in grad school.

[Roc A Bee]

I'm at 16% of my net income in non-retirement.

[Deleted]

I am in the sarajoy school of thought, and currently am saving less than 10% net for non-retirement. We focus on maxing out retirement and paying off our 2nd mortgage.

[Deleted]

When we were DINKS I liked the 60% solution.
Live on 60%
10% Long Term Savings
10% Short term savings
10% retirement
10% Fun

I think where we are now, I'd change that to 15% retirement and 5% Fun

When I go back to working full time, we'll be getting back to this.

[Deleted]

I'm not sure what our exact percentage is but we save close to 50%. And I still feel like it is not enough to get us out of this house before DD starts school. Ugh.