average savings

[mosaic]

just curious what level of savings young dreamers are at. What percentage of after tax income is put away for long term investment purposes. cheers...

 

[Scrooge]

I don't know if there is an average. Everybody's income and expenses are different. I live on <15-20% of my gross income, the rest is savings and income/SS taxes, but then I don't have a mortgage or a family to support.

 

[Sarah in SC]

50% of gross income for us.
DINKS w/ mortgage >$50,000 balance.

Sarah

 

[claire]

50% of income DINK, but mortgage of £140,00 (probably about $249.20 current exchange rates)

Dont know about anyone else but its hard saving that much.

 

[peggy]

DH & I are saving 30-35% of our gross income (I use the gross figure because a good chunk is pre-tax savings, though the size of that chunk has dwindled over the years).

 

[justin]

50-60% of gross income, depending on how you define "savings". Dual income, 2 kids (DI2K).

 

[GTBuzz]

I have saved 46.20% of my YTD gross income. That includes 401k, Roth and taxable accounts.

 

[laurence]

Way down with DW home, less than 10% of gross between the two of us.

Trying to get back up to 33% by next year. Also, we are in a 20 year mortgage vice 30 year to assist our ER goal.

 

[obryanjf]

All on a before tax basis we do:

6% in 401K + 9% (co contribution) + 9% aftax acct = 24% when I include the co Contribution. Wife + 3 kids, no mortgage, no pension any more.

job

 

[chrisdut]

I save about 50% of after tax income (roughly 33% of gross income).

 

[ats5g]

Somewhere b/w 12-15% in 401(k)'s of pre-tax income, plus pension plans, so it's probably higher. My latest "total compensation" statement says that my employer's cost to fund my pension last year was around 12% of my pre-tax income.

- Alec

 

[FlowGirl]

Single income, kid on the way - 25% of gross saved for retirement. About the same amount going towards short term savings goals (cars, future house downpayment, trips, etc.)

 

[Marshac]

7% gross into a cruddy non-matched 401k. In addition to this, I save 33% of my net income. I got a 3.3% COLA this year, although I spent it- on a waverunner. Guess i'll just have to keep my personal rate of inflation below 3.3%

 

[PsyopRanger]

I am currently around 25% going to ROTH and TSP. This will go up to 35% next year. DW is working on Masters so she will be out of the loop for a few years.

I also invest $50 into my kid's Roth monthly

 

[macdaddy]

SO and I are at 50% of take home income. 24k per year into roth accounts and the rest directly into the stock market. no kids and we are both easy to please so no real budget breakers. gas is the biggest expense.

 

[PsyopRanger]

24k per year into roth accounts

How are you doing this with the $4K max contribution on a Roth?

Or is this a SEP or Roth 401(k)?

 

[brewer12345]

Varies considerably. I chuck the max into an SEP-IRA (unmatched). The rest of our savings is chiefly whatever remains of my bonus after paying taxes and skimming a few thousand for spending. Last year bonus was about 1/3 of my comp. Could be higher or lower this year. We are SITCOMs (Single Income, Two Children, Oppressive Mortgage).

 

[Marshac]

We are SITCOMs (Single Income, Two Children, Oppressive Mortgage).

 

[macdaddy]

How are you doing this with the $4K max contribution on a Roth?

Or is this a SEP or Roth 401(k)?

14k into the new roth option 403(b). SO works for a public school district and qualifies for the 403(b). The roth option is brand new and her school district's benefits office only started allowing it last week.

2 public school teachers or otherwise 403(b) eligible employees would be able to put away 4k into roth iras and 14k into roth option 403(b)s each, for total roth contributions of 36k per year. and in texas (no state tax), their total tax burden would be less than 10%. talk about a sweet deal!!!

 

[shorttimer]

no debt including mortgage. It was a great day when we paid that off I'll tell you. Only buy what we can pay for in cash, including cars and Vacations.

empty nesters and give no financial support to kids except occasional gifts when we want. Do help the aging in-laws by bringing frivolous items like food everytime we visit.
Note: don't try to survive mainly on social security and live into your late 80's and have health problems.

over 50% of gross in savings this year so far.

 

[PsyopRanger]

14k into the new roth option 403(b).  SO works for a public school district and qualifies for the 403(b).  The roth option is brand new and her school district's benefits office only started allowing it last week.

2 public school teachers or otherwise 403(b) eligible employees would be able to put away 4k into roth iras and 14k into roth option 403(b)s each, for total roth contributions of 36k per year.  and in texas (no state tax), their total tax burden would be less than 10%.  talk about a sweet deal!!!

Nice

I wonder when the TSP will give us the Roth Option?

 

[saluki9]

In the past couple years my income has gone up considerably while my wife has stopped working to go into nursing school. Because we don't have kids yet we have been able to live in our nice little condo with a reasonable 200K mortgage and opressive taxes. We have been saving around 40% of my gross.

Now we're on the house hunt and talking seriously about kids. To get a single family home of a livable size around here we're going to have to take on a 400-500K mortgage

The thought of having to rely totally on my bonus for savings (bonus = around 50% of comp) is causing me to loose sleep

 

[Bimmerbill]

Geez, some of you guys are great savers.
I'm hitting 16% pretax with 5% match. 1 income, new baby at home.

 

[mosaic]

for me not having children allows me the luxury( ha ha) of being able to stash about 50 percent. I realize this wont be the case down the road of life. Lucky to have being disciplined enough to start saving around 20 .

 

[kaudrey]

I have been saving about 30% of my gross income. My DBF just moved in with me, and he is going to pay a set amount toward the mortgage/bills - I will save all of this, which will be equal to another 6% of my income.

He saves about 20% of his income.