Your avg yearly savings over the course of your career

[MikeWillRetire]

24K household, 29 years.

 

[Lucantes]

Average of $114K/yr household for 26 years (includes all assets)

 

[GenghisKhan]

about:
30% various taxes
50% saved
20% live on

I will not go to exact numbers

I'm in a similar situation. I have saved on average between 55 and 60% of gross earnings. The tax man then takes far more than I live on.

 

[Tyrobi]

$56k/year for 9 years so far.

 

[Gunny]

I didn't save much when I was 20 years on active duty (Marines) as I was enlisted with a family. But it gave me decent health care that will last into retirement. Once I started post service job I maxed out TSP (401k) and Roth IRAs for both DW and myself, and added to additional cash reserves. So for the past fourteen years I've averaged 30k per year not counting employer match.


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[pletal]

So I had this silly idea that I wanted to see how much I saved on avg every year since I started working (after college). I didn't want to over complicate it so I just divided my current savings+investments by the number of years (16) since my first real job. I came to $22k per year.

Of course, for the first 8 years of my career I thought as long as I fully funded my 401k I was 'all set' for 'a retirement'. The next few years I started saving in maximum overdrive until the big D happened which took more than a few things out of my life; some good and some bad

Great question. Wife's been working 38 years, I've been working 31 years. Divide our savings and investments in half and we have saved(each of us) equals 72k per year. That is using you method. Compound interest and time really work!

 

[jerome len]

compound savings and sale of commercial real estate really bumps my number........well over 100k per year for over 30 years......now I have to start spending it!!!!!!!

And, it really makes sense to buy commercial RE when you're young, use rent to make payments and property expenses then sell for capital gains when you're older. You can take a small pile of money, not benefit in spending for years than hit a home run when it's time to retire......my advice for the young folks on the forum. It works!

 

[LongTerm]

24 years at $102k per year total net worth including house.


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[growing_older]

First decade out of school, there were a few negative savings years. A few years before my employer had any 401k, when savings was no more than 2000. A few years with 401k HCE restrictions when I didn't get over 6000 saved. The last two decades, pretty steadily maxing out the 401k employee contribution. Average over all this time, about $15,000 per year, but very skewed to later years.

 

[In-control]

My whole life 50% of my Income. A simple rule that I have lived by and has served me well.

 

[PatrickA5]

$58K over 35 years (two of us). Last 10 years $161K/year. We had a negative net worth until we were in our late 30's.

 

[tmm99]

I saved $0 when I was younger, and then only enough for 401K matching and then enough to max out the 401K. Only in the last 13 years or so I've been saving much more. ($45K to $60K total/year I think).

 

[NYEXPAT]

I retired at 33 (almost 28 years ago) and have managed to spend 100% of our cash flow every year since and some of my principal as well.

 

[kaudrey]

Savings+investments only = $47K per year over 23 years. Doesn't include equity in several RE properties; but includes the negative affect of my divorce many years ago (happily remarried now).

 

[Midpack]

Works out to about $85K/yr for us, but the metric isn't a proxy for savings - in many cases (ours included) it's more capital appreciation & dividends compounding than "savings"...

 

[papadad111]

At approx age 21 had $0 worth and 24 years of work under my belt...
Now net worth >$3M pretax ... So you can do the math. Approx $10K USD per month (simple average, non linear of course)- that's grand total of what I put in, what investments and house have gained etc. Of course, that does NOT include what uncle sam will get his grubby hands on as that money comes out....sadly....

I do remember my first real milestone -- seeing 10K usd tucked away into a stock account and thinking that was nice "rainy day insurance" ... kept socking it away and here we are.

 

[scrabbler1]

Not counting any 401k matching funds or 401k earnings (just my 401k contributions), and not counting the windfall from cashing out my company stock when I ERed in late 2008, I averaged about $42k in annual wage income from 1985-2008 and averaged $21k in savings and reinvested earnings from my taxable account's investments.

If I do as many others have done since I posted this, I can simply take my total portfolio ($1.3M) and divide it by the number of years it took me to get there. That is, from the year I began working full-time (1985). So, $1.3M / 29 is $44,800. That would include company match, company stock, and earnings on everything.

 

[target2019]

A different view of how much saved (plus investment returns) compared to how much earned.

 

[rodi]

About 90k/year for the household. Most of that is compounding since it started to snowball a lot at the end.

But if you look at what I was diverting from my gross pay into things that increase my net worth: 401k, 529 funds, mortgage paydown, etc... We were diverting about 50-60% of our gross pay into savings/debt reduction for the last several years. Part of that is in part to the lightbulb going off that if your spending budget is small, you need a smaller nest egg to retire on... so our nest egg grew faster while we spent less.

 

[Major Tom]

Not sure how useful doing this calculation would be, as my net worth doesn't just consist of money saved from my salary, but also profits from several houses sold and an inheritance.

I could do the math but the result wouldn't tell me, or anyone else, anything useful.

 

[NW-Bound]

When I divide our net worth by the sum of my working years and my wife's, we came out OK, but not as well as a few people here. Darn, perhaps I did not save enough or was not good investor, or both.

Well, we raised and put two children through college loan-free and without public assistance or scholarship - they are gainfully employed in professional jobs now, thank you - so that might explain our weaker showing.

 

[Meadbh]

Not sure how useful doing this calculation would be, as my net worth doesn't just consist of money saved from my salary, but also profits from several houses sold and an inheritance.

I could do the math but the result wouldn't tell me, or anyone else, anything useful.

I agree. A more useful calculation (assuming all the data were available) would be to tabulate all positive cash flows from employment sources over the years and to calculate the NPV (discounted for inflation). Too bad I don't still have my pay checks from 1980!

 

[meekie]

Mine is definitely a good amount of growth, especially in a few choice years. I'm at 83k a year over 18 years. I wish I had a breakdown of $ in vs growth, that would be really cool to see.

Wow. Just realized that's more than my salary. DH's is still more, but that's pretty awesome.

 

[RobLJ]

About 38k annual for me (includes employer match over 24 years) and probably 35k for DW, who was handicapped by the employer match and Dynegy's blow up in the Enron debacle. Actual savings rate ranged from 15% to about 25% after the boys finished college. It's probably 60-65% of actual annual average salary.

I'm on track to early semi-retire next year at 57 while younger DW works a few years longer, although at a less taxing job. I'll work parttime online for 40% of income. Retirement health insurance helps a lot. Good luck.

 

[jollystomper]

A little over $49K for our household, including 401K match.