What percentage of your income do you save?

This topic came up on another forum I read and I was curious what the results would be here.

Here was the question posted:

I was curious to see if some Hivers would like to share what percentage of their gross income (salary, bonus, commissions) they save towards cash, retirement, and/or investments. I don't need to know how much you make, but I'm more interested in the percentage of your gross income (pretax) that you you save. Please don't include matches on your 401(k) or any profit sharing from your company. Only count the amount you contribute.
Therefore, if your annual salary with bonus is $95,000 a year, and you save $9,500 annually, that's 10%.

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I put 10% pre-tax into my 401k, and save "leftover" money at the end of each month in a high-yield online savings account. The amount varies each month depending on my spending habits.

We each put about 7% into defered comp accounts. Like wilheld the leftover money each money gets put into a money market account. doing the math about 24% total gets put into some form of savings.

Pretax I save 5% into my 401k right now (enough to get the full match), I max out mine and the mrs. roth iras, and then I put some automatically into a mma from my paycheck. All told it's probably around 22-25%, but I'm not positive.

What is this "save" that you speak of?

"Leftover" money? you have got to be kidding me.

I'm glad you included the example of "percentage ".

I was totally baffled without it.

10% goes to 401k

IRAs maxed out annually

8 months comfortably in the bank

All remaining funds go to mortgage

I try and max out the pre-tax contributions allowed

but what I put into "savings" directly out of my check is about 16% of my salary

this includes what goes into the 401K and a money markets (rainy days account)

<and this is a good chuckle>

if you include Social Security @ $258/MONTH then its 18%

I put 6% into the 401k, since that is what my company will match.

We try to save $200 a week, which ends to to be $10k a year. Just started that at the beginning of the year. Would like to buy a house assuming I know where I am going to live by the time I turn 35.

A lot of the spare income goes toward my MBA classes. Assuming my wife becomes a professor and I take a higher paying job in about 2 years when I'll graduate, we'd like to bump that amount up. Though I'm sure several thousand of that will go to a car for me in a couple years. I'm pushing 160k, and want to hit 200k, and seeing as its a Honda it's likely. But I'll need one at some point.

We're renting longer since we don't know where we will ultimately end up, and all the years of grad school take a toll, but the plan is to go 15 year mortgage and skip the starter house.

Combined (wife and I) we put about 25% of our pre-tax gross income in to some sort of savings (retirement, rainy day, etc). We are trying to get to where the wife's paycheck goes completely to either benefits or retirement. We should be there hopefully next year, when she graduates from the latest round of college (and subsequently, we finish off her tuition and student loans). We also keep a 6 month layoff fund in another account. I'm a contractor, so that is a requirement.

I put 6% into my 401k

Wife puts 3% into her 401k

Rest is going to paying off debt. We have a small emergency fund but I'm hoping to be debt free, 6 month emergency fund, and in a house by the time i'm 30 (27 now). Also trying to pay off debt in case family time comes and wife doesn't want to go back to work.

^^^ My wife won't be working again for at least 5 more years. We live only off my income, but fortunately we got the emergency savings completed before she became a stay-at-home-mom.

From the way it looks, Mrs. ble probably won't be working anymore unless it's absolutely necessary. With the cost of daycare around here it didn't really make sense for her to keep working anyway.

With saving up for the house Im saving about 22% per paycheck, but will drop to the single digits once we close. Both my wife and I have fully funded retirement accounts (403(B)'s), so we dont contribute to that. Our "leftover" money goes towards paying down cards, cars, stu loans.

We were setup to be 100% debt free within 2 years, but we decided to buy the house. Under the new plan, we should have everything paid off in closer to 6 years (except the house). We lose a little money towards interest, but we think the intangables of this house are more than worth it.

Wife has already admitted she would go crazy if she was a stay at home mom. We've dumped a ton of cash into daycare/preschool (as much as $400/wk), but as the kids have gotten older it's gone down drastically. We only have a couple years left with that which will help get everything else paid off.

^Student loans have been gone for year at this point...Ahhhh.

If you count the extra loan payments on my MBA loans, I save about 25% of my income.

My wife "says" she can't be a SAHM, but I want to be prepared just in case.

I would rather her work but in the end I don't think it will be my choice.

Surprising the amount that people are saving here.

^several years here on that front...what a relief...regarding student loans

I'm still paying on student loans, but they are federal consolidated loans with a 2.5% interest rate or so. I'm not in much of a hurry to pay that off when I can save money at a higher interest rate.

willsee said:

My wife "says" she can't be a SAHM, but I want to be prepared just in case.
I would rather her work but in the end I don't think it will be my choice.

Surprising the amount that people are saving here.

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I went nuts after the 3 months of maternity leave...the parttime SAHM was AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I needed some work to keep me sane, but then the 4 days home to spend with minisnick was great. Best of both worlds. Wish I could still work PT.