Savings (retirement and non-retirement) percentage question

[sadlebred]

I thought of this question while reading all of the 2023 and 2024 goal posts (ok, not the same as football goal post).

What percentage of your income/household income do you save for:

1. General emergency savings

2. Retirement including 401K. Does that include a match or is the match an extra percentage from your employer?

3. Other stuff

[quesyrah]

1. Currently $0 we are fortunate that we were able to finish off our efund with my inheritance when my parents died. We have 6 months of expenses plus $5,000 because I have fears about being broke and running out of money that I just can’t shake 😂

If we have to take money out, we have a plan as to how we will replenish.

2. 10% (up from 1% for the last 8 years 😬) DH’s company matches 100% so I guess there is a total of 20% going into it? I’m not really sure how the match works

3. We have a sinking fund for an eventual replacement of DH’s car. We started it with $2K from my inheritance and we put $100 a month into it so obviously he won’t be getting a brand new fancy car lol.

[heygrey]

Retirement - My pension is 8% me/9% employer, h's pension is 2% him/10% employer. We contribute ~5% outside of that to an RRSP. So 17% average?

Emergency - We have a 6 month e-fund that just exists. We don't actively contribute to it anymore.

Education - $100/month to an RESP for DS.

General - 20-30% just depends on the month. This is for vacations, home repair/reno, big expenses, lump sum payments, etc. It also acts a first level e-fund because we won't go on holidays or make unnecessary purchases if we have an emergency.

[sadlebred]

I've mentioned some of this before....

1. About 10%--although it's been closer to 0% the last few months. Money in, expenses out.
2. 6% into my 401K with a 6% match--so 12%. This changes to a 4% match Jan. 1 (today), so 6% contribution 4% match, 1% to my ROTH. I'll increase that after I see if I get a raise.
3. About 0.5% into a car repair fund.

[sarahsays]

1. About 10% of my net pay
2. 20% of gross pay - 10% from me, 10% from the match
3. 5% of net pay into various sinking funds (travel, pets, home improvement)

[plutosmoon]

I budget for 10% of my income into savings, some months it's more, some less. 2023 was different because I spent a chunk of my savings for the house and then haven't put anything in since August because of house projects and some car principal payments, but it looks like my deposits from Jan-July were about 10% of my total gross 2023 income. 2022 I saved about 19% of my total gross income. I don't have it broken up into different buckets, I have one savings account.

Retirement has been at around 12%, I put 3% in, my employer provides 9% (6% base with no matching funds required, and 3% is matched funds). If I was at the edge of the saver's credit, I might top it off to 15%, to get my agi in range, but that hasn't happened for a few years.

I also contribute about 6% of my income to my HSA, but at the rate of our medical expenses lately, I'm not sure how much of that will actually end up saved.

[chpmnk1015]

I do 10 % into my 401k at work, 3% match.
I want to increase that 1% this year if we get raises.
Dh is own business so for him we try and do Roth Ira each year..this year due to other things we could only contribute 2k.
Before his own business he did 10% into his 401k. We want to start something else for him this year we hope.

E fund I like to have 6 months saved. Right now we have like 2k because we drained everything for an investment house. Right now we just save what we can each month until we get back to that point.

And other savings, just again trying to get back to where we were so just saving all we can

[dcn]

1. We have this funded so don’t actively add to it.

2. H maxes out his tsp. He doesn’t get a match. I think it’s 17%?

3. I have a bunch of budget lines that I budget money to each month as sinking funds - car registrations, kids savings accounts, new car down payment, house down payment fund, continuing Ed, professional licenses, gifts, charity, kid activities, etc etc. I calculated how much it is annually and then “save” that amount/12 each month so we have the money when the expense comes up. I’m not sure what % it is. Anything left
Goes Into a vacation fund, as well as tax refund.

[dcn]

Jan 1, 2024 17:21:39 GMT -5 dcn said:

1. We have this funded so don’t actively add to it.

2. H maxes out his tsp. He doesn’t get a match. I think it’s 17%? We also max ROTHs for each of us.

3. I have a bunch of budget lines that I budget money to each month as sinking funds - car registrations, kids savings accounts, new car down payment, house down payment fund, continuing Ed, professional licenses, gifts, charity, kid activities, etc etc. I calculated how much it is annually and then “save” that amount/12 each month so we have the money when the expense comes up. I’m not sure what % it is. Anything left
Goes Into a vacation fund, as well as tax refund.

[whitemerlot]

Emergency- 0 because we have 6 months expenses saved in cash

Retirement 30% (family HSA, 2 back door Roth IRA, 8% of my salary to pension, my 403b and 401k with a catch up, 4% match for my h)

After tax Investing 8%

Kids 529 plans 2% kind of just maintaining these.

ETA Did not include employer contributions to my pension, which is 8% of my salary.

[coffee]

1. General emergency savings
- We had 3 months saved since DH and I were both working, but not that I am a SAHM we plan to get to 6 months in March when DH gets his bonus.

2. Retirement including 401K. Does that include a match or is the match an extra percentage from your employer?
- 15% plus 3% match.

3. Other stuff
- $1K monthly for 3 kids college fund.
-$1,150 monthly for investment property fund
- $1,100 monthly for vacation / birthdays / Christmas - this fund is spent through the year so it’s just to spread out the large expenses.
- Every year we try to throw 10K to the 529’s with DH bonus, but we have skipped one year, and we might this year too since the bonus might not bring enough.

[flygirl]

1-we have approx 5 mo (if both of us lost our jobs) for our emergency fund so I’d like to get it to 6 at $500 a month
2-I bumped mine up to 20% this year plus a 5% match
3-we save for trips and then throw anything else at vehicle debt. Plus about 4k into a 529.

[ohgillian]

We don't have a set amount for non-retirement. For retirement it has varied over the past several years. In 2023 we saved 17% of our gross and our employers contributed another 5% (those numbers are total/ across both incomes). For 2024 we are looking more like 14% for us and 5% for our employers.

The employer # isn't really a fair representation b/c our employers are also contributing their share to our pensions system and that's not captured here. What I showed for ER here is just employer contribution to HSA/401k.

[mae0111]

1. General emergency savings - We typically have around 6 months available if needed.

2. Retirement including 401K. Does that include a match or is the match an extra percentage from your employer?
DH owns his own company and I'm self-employed. His company technically pays a match, but due to the structure of his 401K, he can also participate in profit sharing, depending on the revenue and the compensation of the other employees (and they would all participate as well). So this varies every year. I have a Solo 401K, which means that I can contribute the federal limit (no matching option) and also contribute via profit sharing up to a max of $69K for 2024. I won't even earn $69K, so I won't hit that limit... but if I picked up more hours, I could hit it at some point in the future.

3. Other stuff. We put a fixed amount into our kids' 529s every year. We also contribute to a donor advised fund. In previous years, DH would throw extra profits into our joint brokerage account, but this year I don't know if we'll do that. Tuition increased significantly, and we purchased a beach house with a rather high interest rate (6.75%). So we're trying to figure out if extra $$ will go to the mortgage, home improvements at either home, or into brokerage.

[fortnightlily]

- Emergency fund is already fully funded at 6-8 months expenses. We don't put more in it right now.
- Retirement - we both max our 401k contributions through work to the federal limits

Other stuff - We have way too much savings just sitting in cash right now. I have a 2024 goal to finally meet with a financial advisor.
- We put at least the max amount for the state deduction into kiddo's 529. Which is not enough to pay for college. Need to talk to the financial advisor.
- Other savings is loosely earmarked as funds toward house maintenance needs, vacations, and new cars when we need them, which won't be for a while. I need to move some of it more regularly to investments or other higher-interest options.

Based on Mint our overall 2023 non-retirement savings rate, i.e. net income minus net expenses was around 32%.

[Susie]

1.  We don't actively contribute to an e-fund anymore.  We're comfortable with what we have, and it just grows via interest now.  It's about a year of H's take home pay, or a part of a year of mine.

2.  We both max 401k/457b contributions.  Neither of us gets a match, but I am able to contribute an additional variable amount of profit sharing into my 401k each year, as a part owner of the firm.  I'll do that again this year.  I have no idea what % of total income it would be.

3.  We're starting to shift to saving for college for the kids more aggressively.  This year we put about $8400 into the kids' 529s.  I'm looking to continue to increase that in the coming years, especially for DD.  She's 3.5 years older than DS, but only has about $1k more than him in her 529 because the first few years of her life, money was tighter and we didn't have much to contribute.

[melmel4854]

I don't know the actual percentage for savings; I save for multiple things all the time

Retirement= 10% before employer match. I just started there and I forget what their match is, but looking at the balance of my match so far, it seems pretty good. I should look into that!

[bee20]

1) E-fund is funded so I don't actively contribute to that. I did move it to a higher interest account this year so it's slowly increasing.

2) Including employer match I saved ~60% of my gross and over 100% of my takehome. (This is possible because I max out my 401k, so the contributions count in the numerator but not the denominator. My employer only matches 4% of salary). Aside from a small set-aside for home repairs I consider everything I'm saving to be retirement, because my main financial goal is early retirement.

3) I'm debating whether I should start a car fund to go with my home repair fund or if I should just have a general buffer fund.

[fryjack2]

1. General emergency savings---None anymore. We have 8ish months of expenses in an account we haven't touched in years. We should move it to an investment account or something that is earning more than whatever its earning in Capital One.

2. Retirement including 401K. Does that include a match or is the match an extra percentage from your employer?-- H and I both contribute the max per year. He gets a generous match. I get 1% I think. I also have a pension.

3. Other stuff--- We also have 529s and a DAF that we have monthly auto contributions to. I get paid twice a month and we put one whole paycheck and then roughly half the other into a savings account that is used for travel, house projects, vacations, kids activities that require significant funds such as club sports. It fluctuates in how much is in there based on what we use it for.

I don't know the % of income and I'm too lazy to do the math. 

[lolalolalola]

1 $0
2. 12% for DH (4%+ 8% match) and 24% for me (9% and 15% match) plus $7500 each in our TFSA. This is just our base salaries - we should also be contributing based on our variable pay but we haven’t been- that’s a goal once we pay off the house.
3. We are cash flowing a lot of DD’s university, we have $60k per kids saved but it’s not enough of course. So we stopped saving and started spending.

ETA- we actually don’t have an emergency fund. Unusual for this board but it works for us. We have retirement investments we could liquidate if needed, borrow on our HELOC, etc.

[ssmjlm]

1. We just have a savings account and then money with our FA. Our FA takes a withdrawl each month and I add to it each paycheck. Back in the day I guess I called it our efund, but now it's just savings with more than enough in there. When the balance gets too much, I'll ask the FA to move more over or last year the excess went to our fence.

2. I put in 19% (5% match) and DH puts in 20% (5% match). Both will have pensions as well, DH's won't be a ton.

3. We have a small savings for sinking funds like car insurance we add to each month, a car fund for maintenance and eventual down payments, and a 529.

[mlkgls]

1. I’m not sure of the percentage but I add $100/mo to my general E-fund. It’s been depleted in the last 18mo because of costly home repairs, but is probably around 4.5mo of my salary. I feel low-grade anxiety about needing to boost my cushion though.

2. Retirement is 18% + 7.5% match, but theoretically I could increase this in 2024 due to catch contributions. I add a little to my non-employer Roth every now and then, but #1 and #3 are my main focus this year. 

3. I have close to 10 sinking funds for home repair, pool repair, healthcare, appliance replacement, summer daycare, etc. This is where the bulk of my non-retirement savings goes. 

I think I’ll always be stuck on a scarcity mindset. We didn’t have a ton of money growing up and I also spent a significant amount of time with Depression-era grandparents. If I had a nickel for every time my grandfather told me “if you can’t afford to pay cash, you can’t afford it”. 😂

[midwestmama]

Overall %, I don't know.

1. Emergency savings - We (DH and I) have about 2-3 months if we both happened to lose our jobs at the same time, and 4-6 if one of us lost our jobs. (This takes into account stopping all extras, such as streaming services and eating out.) This savings is mainly to be used in the event that one of us loses a job. I contribute $40 per paycheck to our e-fund, so a very small amount of our net pay (maybe 0.5%).

2. Retirement - I contribute 9% per pay and DH contributes 8% per pay. This does not get us to the IRS annual max. I have a 3% base employer contribution, 50% match (up to 6%, so I do get the full match of 3%), and up to 6% in profit sharing (target is 3% and usually pays around target, this year it is tracking to pay at max). One of the reasons I wanted to work for this employer is the retirement benefits. Since I started with this employer almost 4 years ago, I have almost doubled my 401k balance, which I had saved for 15 years with two previous employers. (I do make more at this company, and obviously contributing 6% of a smaller salary over a number of years doesn't add up very quickly.) DH's employer provides a 1% base employer contribution plus 50% match up to 6%, so he gets 4% total.

3. We have a few CDs, mainly as starter funds for helping our kids buy a car in a few years. We also have a money market savings account which can be used for emergent home/car repairs, vacations, other large purchases, etc. The balance of the money market is larger than our e-fund, so we also have this money, which would get us through a few additional months, in the event of a job loss. I contribute about 5% of our net pay to the money market account. We also contribute to a 529 for each kid (we have 2 kids).

[sicilygirl]

1. Our emergency fund is fully funded and we haven’t touched it, so we don’t currently add anything else to it.
2. For retirement, we max out all options available to us which includes: 401(k) and nondeductiible Traditonal IRA contributions for each of us, plus an HSA for me. My husband doesn’t have a high deductible health plan option so he doesn’t have access to an HSA. I don’t ever take money out of my HSA so I just consider it additional retirement funds. Altogether that’s about 19% of our gross income.
3. We don’t have children (and don’t plan to), and we bought a house in 2020 that we don’t have any desire to upgrade.. We both have cars in good working order, and I’m out (ethically lol) on buying investment property. We have a mortgage and a car loan but the rates are so low on both that I’m not interested in paying them off early. So our other savings goals are just short-term fun things like house projects (that aren’t needed but just wanted) and travel. We save about 16% of our income for stuff like that, but since it’s save-to-spend, does that really count?

I’m getting my Italian citizenship this year and that has honestly lifted so much weight off my shoulders about always needing to save more for retirement. We will have the option of pretty easily retiring in most European countries where our money will go a lot further than it does here. And as of right now, that is our loose long-term plan. If it weren’t for that, I would shift some of that save-to-spend money to long-term savings to augment our retirement accounts.

[sadlebred]

I never realized how many people still have a pension! My company has a small one that they solely contribute to. Even if I retire at 65, it won't be much right now. If I stay there through 65 it would be decent.

[fortnightlily]

I'm going to bump this thread because I'm going through our finances and I'm wondering how much money folks keep allocated to a car fund, house fund, and vacation fund. And do you keep all these in savings accounts & CDs or some of it in investments and just hope there aren't market downturns?

Like how far in advance of needing a new car do you want the amount to pay for one fully saved and set aside?

How much do you keep liquid for unexpected home maintenance expenses? What about home projects that you don't necessarily intend to do in the next year but maybe in the next 3-5?

Do you keep money in a vacation fund beyond what you intend to spend on your next specific vacation?

[aspentosh]

1. Emergency- we have a fully funded e-fund, so technically nothing.
2. Retirement- H contributes the max to his 401k and Roth IRA, and I contribute the max to my Roth IRA (I don't work). No idea what the percentage is.
3. We save about 30-35% of H's take home pay to travel, home projects, DD's 529, and then annual/bi-annual fees (home/car insurance, personal property taxes, that sort of thing).

[aspentosh]

Jan 21, 2024 9:47:17 GMT -5 fortnightlily said:

I'm going to bump this thread because I'm going through our finances and I'm wondering how much money folks keep allocated to a car fund, house fund, and vacation fund. And do you keep all these in savings accounts & CDs or some of it in investments and just hope there aren't market downturns? We contribute a certain $ amount each month to both house projects and travel funds. They grow indefinitely until we need them. They are currently in savings accounts, but that's because we travel 3-4x a year so I need easy to access more than growth. I could probably move our house projects to something better but am lazy, lol.

Like how far in advance of needing a new car do you want the amount to pay for one fully saved and set aside? H bought a new car Jan 2023 and we started saving about two years in advance, but that's because it was an $$$$ vehicle and we wanted to finance as little as possible. 

How much do you keep liquid for unexpected home maintenance expenses? What about home projects that you don't necessarily intend to do in the next year but maybe in the next 3-5? As I said above, all our home stuff is liquid in a savings account. We've done this for years (like when we saved $25k for our bathroom remodel) and are continuing this way.

Do you keep money in a vacation fund beyond what you intend to spend on your next specific vacation? Yes. We have way more in our travel fund than what we'll need for our spring break trip. But I am planning other trips throughout the year, so may need some money from it anyway.

[heygrey]

Jan 21, 2024 9:47:17 GMT -5 fortnightlily said:

I'm going to bump this thread because I'm going through our finances and I'm wondering how much money folks keep allocated to a car fund, house fund, and vacation fund. And do you keep all these in savings accounts & CDs or some of it in investments and just hope there aren't market downturns?

Like how far in advance of needing a new car do you want the amount to pay for one fully saved and set aside?

How much do you keep liquid for unexpected home maintenance expenses? What about home projects that you don't necessarily intend to do in the next year but maybe in the next 3-5?

Do you keep money in a vacation fund beyond what you intend to spend on your next specific vacation?

All three of these categories blend into one high interest savings account. I don't allocate the money toward anything until we have a specific expense in mind. If the account get "too high" (its a feeling based on anticipated expenses, not a specific number) then we will skim some to add to investments or dump on our mortgage.

Our goal for cars is to have a comfortable amount saved by the time a car is 10 years old. We keep our cars forever, but sometime after year 11 every car has had an estimated repair bill that exceeds the value of the car so we decide to replace rather than repair. H's car is 14 and still ticking. Right now, we could buy a used vehicle in cash or have a downpayment and finance part of a new vehicle. 

We have shockingly not had unexpected expensive home repairs, just lots of planned preventative work. Our house is 30 years old, we've owned it for 3. Everything is due to be replaced/repaired, but we try to manage it before it is an emergency. For a true emergency, I would probably put it on a credit card and give myself a month to decide if we wanted to use the cash, pull from investments, etc. 

We don't plan vacations far in advance because H's schedule doesn't allow it. Once we have a trip in mind, we figure out a budget, see how much savings we are comfortable using, and then save the difference in the few months between. None of our vacations are super expensive though, usually $3k or less. 

We make monthly contributions to retirement/education/investments, and beyond that we keep our expenses and spending as low as possible and dump the rest into this high interest account. It just exists there for these large variable expenses until we need it. I could probably be better about putting it someplace to earn more interest, but I like having liquid savings. It's the e-fund before my e-fund and I sleep better with that. 

[sadlebred]

Jan 21, 2024 9:47:17 GMT -5 fortnightlily said:

I'm going to bump this thread because I'm going through our finances and I'm wondering how much money folks keep allocated to a car fund, house fund, and vacation fund. And do you keep all these in savings accounts & CDs or some of it in investments and just hope there aren't market downturns? HYSA for sinking funds for car repairs, house (just started), and a new bike (Just started). I put a small amount each paycheck into them.

Like how far in advance of needing a new car do you want the amount to pay for one fully saved and set aside? I've been putting away part of any money I 'come into' and my bonuses into CDs for about 3 years. I'll have a decent down payment on a car-- my goal is to have about 20-25% down on a new but modest small bike hauler, I mean SUV. My 2015 has about 150,000 miles, and I figure at about 225,000 I will start thinking about a new car.  I drive my cars into the ground. At that point I'll have to decide if a $xxxx repair is worth it or replace. Reliable transportation for me is a must.

How much do you keep liquid for unexpected home maintenance expenses? What about home projects that you don't necessarily intend to do in the next year but maybe in the next 3-5? I can't afford home project. I maintain what I have generally. I have just started a house specific savings account. Other than that it comes from my emergency savings or a 0% interest CC.

Do you keep money in a vacation fund beyond what you intend to spend on your next specific vacation? Not right now. Once my health is better, I'll consider it. I, sadly, haven't traveled other than regionally since 2018.