Do You Save More than 10% of Your Salary?

Do you save more than 10% of your salary? If so, you're in the minority. Here's a fast fact I found in the June issue of Money magazine:

Less than one in three Americans puts away at least 10% of income according to the American Savings Education Council.

Between my 401k (not counting the employer match), 529 savings, Coverdell accounts, SEP IRA, and taxable accounts, we save about 20% of our income each year.

How about you? How much do you save of your income?

Comments

[AL]

I currently put 5% into my 401k (7.5% including company match), 5% into my Roth IRA, and an additional $250 per month into an emergency fund...adds up to about 17.5% of my gross salary. When I have "leftover money" throughout the year, I tend to split it between my Roth IRA and my emergency fund, so I bet my total annual saving is about 20%. My goal is to increase that to 25% for next year. Additionally, I get an annual bonus that is almost entirely poured into a separate investment account, but I don't factor that into my total saving because it is discretionary and tends to vary from year to year.

[Thomas]

I knew all the freaks would come out for this post. :-)

2008: 43% of gross / 52% of net
2007: 50% of gross / 60% of net

2008 has been a little tougher since we have needed to add a weekday apartment as well as the mortgage for my wife who works in a nearby town.

[Thomas]

Of course, there are no kids in my numbers above. :-)

[Kenny]

Currently in our 40's and have zero debt and 2 teenage kids. There are a lot of % answers for 401(k) which makes things relative (depending on income). So, I will answer it correctly! We max out our 401(k) with pre-tax incomes with relevant % from our incomes. In addition, due to our ages, we are at pretty high income levels.

We have no home, car, 529, credit-card or any other payments/debts today. In fact, I am into opening bank and credit card account that pay me $100 in 6 weeks (just for opening accounts). There is a web site that gives you the list of all of these offers - Search for it. We have all of those future expenses fully funded/pre-paid already, and our kids will be leveraging the 529s since we are not going to get a dime from the FAFSA filing (maybe we will be lucky with some scholarships). We save more than $75K in post-tax savings every year from our incomes towards investments in the BRIC countries, ETF Trading funds, QQQQ, and soon an aggressive Janus fund. Of course, DCA works best with the cash flow each month.

I recommend to all reading my post to 'NEVER spend $0.05 of Future Income' for today. Spend today's income for today, and future income into the future. More importantly believe in the Go Green program at a 'personal level' and utilize every single product that you have until 'the product does not want to serve you'. This is true 'carbon credits that will be credited to you own personal self' as opposed to disposing products before their total life is up.

Finally, Save-Save-Save and Enjoy Collecting for Uplifting the Next Generation in every way.

Of course, I am learning good lessons by reading the above also, but I am happy to say that I feel good after reading the above postings.

Thank for you letting me share my 1.5cents, and hope can take something from my posting.

Kenny

[WBT]

69% of net, no 401k match. 23 and renting.

[carol]

Including my employer match, I'm saving about 24% of my gross income. That's savings and investments, and it's a struggle, but I pay now or pay later. I want to make sure that I can have a comfortable retirement, so I think that it's worth the sacrifice.

[Moneymonk]

I save 30% of my income, live off the remaining 70%