How much do you put away?

[chinaco]

We are close to the AMT in earnings. I am careful when taking cap gains. (note... I do not do market timing) I ususally only take gains (still working) to diversify and/or rebalance the portfolio.

A few years ago we needed to rebalance the portfolio. We had alot of stock that had appreciated. We wanted to diversify the holdings. If I sold it all in one year, we would have been hit heavily with taxes due to AMT. I spread the stock sales over 4 years. Plus, the sale occurred after the market dump in 2000. The stock was down and (since it was a solid company would/did come back). It was a large cap DJIA company. I moved the money to the S&P 500 index.

[dmpi]

Quote:

Originally Posted by chinaco We are close to the AMT in earnings. I am careful when taking cap gains. (note... I do not do market timing) I ususally only take gains (still working) to diversify and/or rebalance the portfolio. A few years ago we needed to rebalance the portfolio. We had alot of stock that had appreciated. We wanted to diversify the holdings. If I sold it all in one year, we would have been hit heavily with taxes due to AMT. I spread the stock sales over 4 years. Plus, the sale occurred after the market dump in 2000. The stock was down and (since it was a solid company would/did come back). It was a large cap DJIA company. I moved the money to the S&P 500 index.

I do my taxes by hand (actually by calculator) and the AMT tax is one of the most confusing parts of the tax code. I'm sitting on some capital gains and I can't figure out if its better to take a hit in one giant lump sum or spread it out over a couple of years. The logic of taking it in one giant hit is, AMT tax can only erase you deductions and after that it can't hurt you. Our deductions consist of just the standard deduction & 2 exemptions, so if I can do a big enough hit the amount I lose by not deducting will only be a small percentage.
Anyway, IMHO the tax code is way too complex!

[Deetso]

A response to the OP, from the 20 something crowd: right now I put away only about 8% and pay out 18% (student loans and a car loan). sigh... im quite a long ways away- but Im doing better than everyone else i know in my position.

[rw86347]

yesterday I added it up. This year I plan to pay off a total of $35K in debt (mostly house), and put $23k in savings.

RW

[Darryl]

Spending like a drunken sailor compared to this group

Save a little less than 25% of base pay and 33% of my bonuses.

[jasond]

Make about 80K
Save 15% with 5% matching.

Ten years to go.

Jason

[bright eyed]

Just over 20% of gross salary

working on the net side savings

[elbryn]

DW and I make about 90k gross together with an average age of 29.
7560 in 401k with company match
8880 in equivalent state retirement system
company puts another 1920 into a retirement medical account
Roth Iras (2) - 8000
i qualify for both 457 and 403b plans, only contribute 3000 in a 457. would like to raise that to 9000 with the raise i just got but need to convince DW still
total savings are 29360 or hopefully 35360
gross percentage is from 32.6% to 40.4%.. in our case, the employee match gives us nearly 8%

we are currently at 135k in our retirement accounts, everything extra goes into the hsbc account until the end of this month for the 6% promo, plan to send everything to vanguard afterwards for a bucket tiered taxable account. 1 year in money market, another year in a 50/50 fund, everything else in TSM or the like. hopefully over the next ten years this grows enough to pay the house off.. course this is all possible because there are no kids right now. in a few years we try to have them and the savings will drop dramatically as my wife stops working for awhile and expenses go up..

our goal in 30 years: 4M

[JustCurious]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ranch111 Alot more than 90% of Americans. Way more than anyone I know.

People that you know tell you how much they put away? In my experience, people don't talk about such things, and I don't know how much any of my friends or family member's save.

[W2R]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Azanon Scout.... continue to be blown away by these claiming 40-60% of gross saved just for retirement. I still havent decided if i believe them yet, because i dont know what's better for their behalf; believe it and think they're crazy, or not believe it and just think its human nature to lie. I make this statement light-hearted and not intended to offend. Despite this i'll continue to think of my puny 22-25% of gross as massive, because it is compared to my peers.

It is. That doesn't mean that the others here are lying. Of course some of them might be! But others may just happen to be in different circumstances from you.

Someone with no family to support, and a paid off home, and no debts, is going to be able to save a lot more than someone with a lot of obligations.

I am NOT a young dreamer (being 58 years old), so I hadn't posted yet. But a young dreamer could conceivably be in my situation. I live off of roughly 23% of my net pay, or 15% of my gross pay. It's easy because I have everything I really need, have no debts, no mortgage, and nobody to support, and last Christmas I was unexpectedly promoted and got one of those 15% raises that were discussed in another thread. But right now, I see no sense in spending it because I am used to a level of LBYM that I can sustain on the smaller income that I will have after ER.

[jIMOh]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jasond Make about 80K Save 15% with 5% matching. Ten years to go. Jason

this raises a good question.

When you state savings and savings rates, do you include your match? I do not. This is directed at other posters.

[rw86347]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Want2retire It is. That doesn't mean that the others here are lying. Of course some of them might be! But others may just happen to be in different circumstances from you. Someone with no family to support, and a paid off home, and no debts, is going to be able to save a lot more than someone with a lot of obligations. I am NOT a young dreamer (being 58 years old), so I hadn't posted yet. But a young dreamer could conceivably be in my situation. I live off of roughly 23% of my net pay, or 15% of my gross pay. It's easy because I have everything I really need, have no debts, no mortgage, and nobody to support, and last Christmas I was unexpectedly promoted and got one of those 15% raises that were discussed in another thread. But right now, I see no sense in spending it because I am used to a level of LBYM that I can sustain on the smaller income that I will have after ER.

Cost of Living:
I carefully think about and track my cost of living. I include every toy I buy, every vacation I take, and the bills I must pay if I loose my job. Today I live on $33k (27% of my net). Does that mean I save 70% ... No! I pay taxes, and make accelerated house payments.

Savings:
I save $23k per year including my match (18% of my net)

Debt:
I This year I paid $46k. $13k of this $46k was included in cost of living, because it is not optional. As soon at my house is paid for my Cost of Living will drop by $13k. (38% of net)

vapor spending:
This number bothers me to no end. I spend $33k on misc stuff (SS, medicare, insurance... bla bla bla) I hate this catigory!!

[Barnstormer]

Spend: 33.2% of Gross
Taxes: 18.5%
Save: 48.3%

Those are the 2006 numbers