What Percentage of Your Take Home do You Save? - Page 2

greedy4chips · #21 (**permalink**) 10-01-2006, 08:22 PM

We are around 33% saved each month, but only for the last 4 months so that is a little high. Do you count principal portion of your mortgage, since technically it is money you should get back if you ever sell, just like an investment in my opinion.

doodles44 · #22 (**permalink**) 10-04-2006, 08:04 PM

Thanks everyone for your responses! I think I am going to continue at 15% for awhile now (taken out of my paycheck first) and then add in whatever else I can find/come across.

Greedy4chips, I do not have a mortgage. I pay rent to my bf, which goes to his cc payments. (another issue entirely :-))

amberfocus · #23 (**permalink**) 10-04-2006, 10:06 PM

20% of pre-tax income goes into the 403(b).

After taxes... Including the maxing out of my Roth IRA, I'm saving slightly over 50% currently.

Wow, now that I've calculated that out, it's a lot more than I expected.

I guess my expenses are low (just rent, utilities, student loans, and food). I can't imagine it'll stay like this for long.

All that I'm saving is going into various earmarked funds, though--car, house, emergency, and medical funds. Does it count as 'saving' if it's going to be spent at some point?

Or is it simply proactive budgeting?

~mimi

pyotr · #24 (**permalink**) 10-04-2006, 11:29 PM

We are saving 30.5% of our gross (pre-tax) income between 1/1/06 and now according to my Quicken reports.
This comes out to 56% of our after-tax net income (our "take-home pay").

This is worse than we've been doing over the past few years, and we are also making a lot more income nowadays.

jmjj215 · #25 (**permalink**) 10-05-2006, 08:27 AM

I'm not yet sure exactly what my take-home will be, but we're shooting for 15% of pre-tax this year, and we'll up it one percentage point each year until we hit 20% -- then we'll re-evaluate.

debtdude · #26 (**permalink**) 10-06-2006, 10:28 AM

At this point in my life (two kids and a wife going back for her masters degree), money is tight. Extra money goes towards our credit cards with the knowledge that in less than a year, that debt will be paid off.

What percent is it? Probably 15-20% - [edit] that's how much we are putting towards the debt instead of into savings.

Ima saver · #27 (**permalink**) 10-06-2006, 10:30 AM

Paying off debt should usually come before accumulation of savings.

bjl584 · #28 (**permalink**) 10-09-2006, 08:14 AM

I am currently around 18.5%. I have a raise and a bonus coming up soon, so I'm going to bump that up a little. It depends how much my raise is as to how much I bump it up. My goal is to get it over 20%.

abowers · #29 (**permalink**) 10-10-2006, 09:46 AM

On my part time work/ full time graduate student income I am putting 10-15% in my ING savings account.

The rest of my income pays my rent, my car payment, phone bill, groceries.

Anything left over goes to paying off my credit card debt -- which I've been paying down over the past 8 months and is now consolidated -- my only CC debt is now on a 0% interest card until July 2007, and I'm on target for paying it off before then!

disneysteve · #30 (**permalink**) 10-10-2006, 09:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ima saver

Paying off debt should usually come before accumulation of savings.

This really depends on the type of debt and the interst rate, and what type of savings you are talking about.

Let's say I have student loans at 4%. It doesn't make sense to put extra money toward those when I could be investing in my company's 401K plan and getting a 50% match on my money.

bjl584 · #31 (**permalink**) 10-10-2006, 10:21 AM

[quote=disneysteve]This really depends on the type of debt and the interst rate, and what type of savings you are talking about.

Ah, people go round and round over this argument. Yes, strictly financially speaking it makes more sense to pay less on your debts if you're getting a better return with your money someplace else. Constructive debt is ok. However, there are certain pyhcological aspects to debt. There is defenitely an appealing notion to being totally debt free. Being debt free also frees up more of your money for other purchases and investments. It gives you more liquidity. Cash is still king in a lot of cases. It allows one to negotiate and bargain much better than someone without cash.
It just depends how you look at it and what one's priorities are. Either approach is ok as long as you have a handle on things and are achieving your own personal financial goals.

disneysteve · #32 (**permalink**) 10-10-2006, 10:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bjl584

Ah, people go round and round over this argument. Yes, strictly financially speaking it makes more sense to pay less on your debts if you're getting a better return with your money someplace else. Constructive debt is ok. However, there are certain pyhcological aspects to debt. There is defenitely an appealing notion to being totally debt free.

Absolutely true. No argument here. In fact, I paid off my student loans 13 years ahead of schedule! Even though they were low interest and I could have done better elsewhere, I hated having them. It wasn't a wise financial decision but it was the right decision for me. Had I stuck to the payment schedule, I would still have been paying my student loans when my daughter was in college. There was no way I was doing that!

bjl584 · #33 (**permalink**) 10-10-2006, 11:12 AM

yep. That's kind of the way I am. I don't like having debt. It just doesn't "feel" right, if that makes any sense. I know that I could probably get a better return if I put my money someplace else, but I usually focus on the debt first. Maybe not the best fianancial decision, but it works for me. I've been doing ok.

tinapbeana · #34 (**permalink**) 10-10-2006, 11:28 AM

wow, this was actually a great exercise for me... i'll have to post details in the blog.

assuming i'm only making minimum payments on debt, and keeping the grocery and allowances for DH and me the same, i am able to save 25% of the take home plus save 7.14% for non monthly bills & christmas for a total of 32.14%. our allowances are another 21.42% (combined), which means we only use 46.44% of net income for our current bills

considering i've decided to use the 60-10-10-10-10 goal for my savings, i actually appear to be ahead of schedule.

like i said, i feel the urge to blog on this

lrjohnson · #35 (**permalink**) 10-10-2006, 06:10 PM

I'm saving over half my net right now, but I can see that that's pretty high. It's not that I have a big income, it's that I spend not so much.

jmjj215 · #36 (**permalink**) 10-10-2006, 08:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tinapbeana

wow, this was actually a great exercise for me... i'll have to post details in the blog.

assuming i'm only making minimum payments on debt, and keeping the grocery and allowances for DH and me the same, i am able to save 25% of the take home plus save 7.14% for non monthly bills & christmas for a total of 32.14%. our allowances are another 21.42% (combined), which means we only use 46.44% of net income for our current bills

considering i've decided to use the 60-10-10-10-10 goal for my savings, i actually appear to be ahead of schedule.

like i said, i feel the urge to blog on this

What's the 60-10-10-10-10 goal? Haven't heard of that one before.

tinapbeana · #37 (**permalink**) 10-11-2006, 05:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jmjj215

What's the 60-10-10-10-10 goal? Haven't heard of that one before.

I read this online at the beginning of the year and slowly started to implement it: it's what helped me have enough in the bank to put an admittedly small down-payment on my house.

The theory is
Live on 60% of what you make.
Save 10% for retirement
Save 10% for long term savings (i.e. buying a new car, new roof on the house, EF? etc)
Save 10% for short term savings (i.e. yearly stuff: holidays, irregular bills)
Use 10% for monthly fun money

Adding the actual 'savings' portions results in saving 30% of your income

disneysteve · #38 (**permalink**) 10-11-2006, 06:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tinapbeana

our allowances are another 21.42% (combined)

What do allowances get spent on? How does that differ from the 10% monthly fun money?

tinapbeana · #39 (**permalink**) 10-11-2006, 07:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by disneysteve

What do allowances get spent on? How does that differ from the 10% monthly fun money?

We each use the allowance as we see fit, and they are partially fun money. In my case, allowance is also gas money (DH is lucky in that he has a company car w/ a company gas card). For DH, he plays amatuer league pool and pays for that w/ allowance. Also, since he has a 'thing' against leftovers, he buys lunch during the week. And (sorry!) we both smoke, so tobacco comes out of our allowances (didn't seem right to have the house pay for it).

As you might guess, I like to stash my allowance and see how much of it I save for a 'me' splurge. It's Wed, I have $73 left, and allowance day is Friday.

I agree that our allowance percentage is way off the 10% fun money goal, and that's a big opportunity I have to trim and pay off more debt. At the same time, I feel really good that my living expenses and our allowances still only add up to 67.86% of the total, leaving more than 30% for short-term, long-term, and retirement savings.

disneysteve · #40 (**permalink**) 10-11-2006, 07:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tinapbeana

I agree that our allowance percentage is way off the 10% fun money goal, and that's a big opportunity I have to trim and pay off more debt. At the same time, I feel really good that my living expenses and our allowances still only add up to 67.86% of the total, leaving more than 30% for short-term, long-term, and retirement savings.

Oh, I wasn't criticizing. I was just curious how that money got allocated. I think it sounds like you guys are doing very well.