How much are you able to save in dollars a month?

catsareniice1 · December 2014

How much are you able to save in dollars a month after all expenses and miscellaneous items?

What is a good amount to save in DOLLARS monthly? I know it's 10% of your salary but what is a safe amount to save monthly? I have no idea and want to make sure I'm on the right path.

JoanE2012 · December 2014

Location and cost of living drive salaries and expenses. I think it's better to ask the percentage rather than dollars.....otherwise you won't get a fair comparison. I save approximately 65% of my salary between retirement and general savings. DH saves about 15%, but will usually add more if our expenses are lower that month. Obviously he pays most of the bills.

CuriousKiddosMama · December 2014

For us it's about 20% into retirement, $250 for DS college and the rest really depends. Right now we are saving for a patio expansion on the house so anything not going to the normal bills in the budget goes to that. I would guess we save another 10-15% on any given month.

Wulfgar · December 2014

We have been pretty bad this year with savings. I have 8% of my income going into retirement. MW has roughly 6% going into hers. Then we have $100 going into our "housing" account a month and $25 going into DS college account.

For us though, we are focusing on paying off debt and doing necessary home repairs so that is taking up most of our spare money.

Each family has their own unique circumstances and comfort levels that will dictate how much they can save.

hoffse · December 2014

Yeah I agree that looking at it from the perspective of dollars doesn't really make sense. Salaries, cost of living, djfferent family circumstances (ie : medical, kids etc.) mean there is no one hard or fast rule to this.

H and I switched from regular 401(k)s to Roth 401(k)s at the beginning of this year, which cost us a lot more out of pocket, but the ultimate tax savings are worth it to us. We are able to save a little over 15% of our gross income in Roth accounts. It's a bit painful because we don't get a tax write-off for it, but it's nice to know that we never have to pay taxes on it again! My employer matches another 7% of my income and H's employer matches another 3%. 4% of mine is fully vested - the remaining 3% is on a 3-year vesting schedule for me and the 3% from H's employer is on a 4-year vesting schedule. We anticipate sticking around at these jobs until that money vests (or longer), but of course you can't count it until it's yours.

We also save about 20% of our take-home in savings accounts for other things. 2015 and 2016 we are saving for various home improvements, 2017 will be a car for me, and then we'll see after that.

als1982 · December 2014

Agree with the above posters. You need to measure your best based on your situation, not any one else's.

For me/us, we now put right at 15% of our income away through a combination of employer sponsored accounts and ROTHs. We're also putting anywhere between $1,000 and $500 a month in savings. But we're a married couple with good incomes living in a LCOL area.

When I first started out in my early/mid-twenties, I put $175 away a month. Then when I bought a house, I was only able to save $75 a month. (In addition to about $350/month going into my 403b.)

My advice would be for you to calculate how much a month you can personally save based on your situation (try and cut out junk - like cable, eating lunches out, etc.) and then implement a "set-it and forget it" approach, meaning it's automatically withdrawn on a certain day of the month, every month. Pretty soon you'll likely begin for forget that you had that money available before!

lifeonthehill · December 2014

Calculate how much you can possibly save and set a $$ goal for each month. Every situation is unique.

H and I live at a private boarding school and get housing and food paid for almost year round. That is a huge chunk of expenses paid for. This means we are able to save at least $2k a month for whatever our current goal is. Emergency fund, Baby fund, new car fund, college for me, etc. We only spend about 5K on our lives each year. We have a very unique situation.

KatieCutie05 · December 2014

Well I really think even percentage wise is very dependant upon your expenses , debt, family size, childcare needs, future plans etc. Normally we save zero because all that goes to extra debt payments but right now its getting saved. Plus a couple without kids generally can save a lot more then one with kids... Even of the same age and income. Daycare alone will cost us 15% of our income. Don't use any one else's number but your own.

Someone who carefully plans and accounts for every dollar and can only save less then 5% right now may be a lot smarter with their money... Then the couple who consistently saves 20% for the rest of their life. The first couple may even have more money in 20 years.

andkatiesays · December 2014

I agree that it is completely dependent on your income and goals. Our goal is financial independence by 40. So we save a lot!

For us, we are putting 25% pre-tax into my 401k. (I'd love to max it out but my employer limits contributions to 25%- boo!) Our tax refund (due to refundable credits- not overpaying) usually end up almost fully funding our roth IRAs. After that we end up saving about 60% of our take home pay every month- 20% into save to spend categories like vacation, car, home improvements; and then the other 40% is going towards a new house down payment. Once the down payment is fully funded we will shift those savings to taxable investments.

Xstatic3333 · December 2014

It's really, really situationally dependent. Most experts agree, however, that you should work towards having 3-6 months expenses saved in an emergency fund in case of job loss or medical/financial emergency. We put $400/month towards this currently. Since we have SL debt and live in a MCOL area, this number will be higher for us than a couple in a LCOL area with no debt, but lower than for a family of 5 in a HCOL area. KWIM? We also put $450 plus my H's 9% pension contribution into retirement accounts, and $1-200 into a travel fund. Finally, I put $120 a month into a "revolving" savings for car tax, quarterlies, and homeowners insurance. We are not as good at savings most on the board, and have some pricy hobbies and habits.

If you have no e-fund yet, I'd build up $1-2000 as fast as you can while living simply. Then, I'd set up comfortable retirement and e-fund contributions that balance your other priorities and obligations. Feel free to post your budget for specific advice!

bmo88 · December 2014

Combined, we save about $700 into a general/emergency savings account each month and then we save $1,000 between the two of us into retirement savings.

We are no longer saving up money toward a house (just purchased this past June), so our savings is for emergency funds and occasional vacations. We put an extra $1,000 toward our debt obligations each month (in addition to the minimums) so that we can pay it off more quickly. So, we could save more money, but are choosing to pay off debt faster.

vlagrl29 · December 2014

It really depends on how much extra cash we have and that is different for us every month. Bare minimum we save per month is $100.

Erikan73 · December 2014

This is going to be a bad answer, but not much of anything. When we have extra money I use it to pay down our credit card debt. It doesn't make sense to put money in the bank to save money when we're being charged interest (yes we have a small e-fund)

brij2006 · December 2014

We're in "debt payoff" mode. So we don't save anything each month, and everything extra goes toward the smallest debt. However, our income fluctuates since H has a lot of overtime and I receive bonuses and monthly commissions. So without those 2 extras, we save around $1,000/month (goes toward debt). Of course, months where H works 50+ hours and I get a big commission check or bonus, then it makes a difference on what we put aside.

formerlyGDaisy09 · December 2014

My H's income varies widely month to month ($2K/month to almost $5K/month...depending on the season) so we build our budget around the lowest end of that income so we are never (barring any emergency) out spending our income. months that he earns near the bottom of that range we hardly put anything away, maybe $200...which is about what I make at my second job each month...and I often don't have that income in the summer, so if things fall just right (if H makes his minimum in the summer) we might have a month when we put nothing away.

months when he makes more we're putting much more away, in the $2K range (generally we'll spend a little more the months he is making more for purchases we put-off in leaner months...his busy season is also around the holidays...and we try to anticipate things like wedding gifts)

I have an excel calculator that breaks up what we're saving amongst various accounts. we first focused on getting a $1000 e-fund...all our money went there until that was in place, we are working more slowly to build-up to a 3-6 month e-fund, our percentages change depending on what our focus is. right now the breakdown is 10% efund, 70% basement renovation (obviously our focus right now), 15% vacation, 5% appliances/electronics. we keep line items in our budget for car repairs/future down payment, heating fuel, and our quarterly bills...that money also gets transferred to a savings account, we do much better if the balance in our checking account doesn't get up too high.

we've both got our total contribution to our retiremtent accounts up to 10% including employer match, we're planning to up that to 15% next open enrollment and potentially use some of our tax return to contrubute to ROTHs. this board definitely convinced me of the importance of contributing to our retirement, we've had to do a balancing act to make sure that we're not falling short during lean months.

mana8503 · December 2014

Currently, we save about 12% between emergency fund and my retirement. I also like have $xxxx in checking after mortgage. If we're way over this I'll move more over to savings. Usually that's in the summer during H's busy season. I also put my extra paychecks (twice a year) into savings.

We need to open a retirement up for H and do 5% of his income with 5% matching from his work. That will puts us around 20%

strickland8052 · December 2014

I agree that it makes more sense to discuss this in percentage of income, but I'll put dollars. This is for DH and I combined, and it does not include the 5% that we each put into 401k pre-taxes.

$400 for retirement
Everything else goes to general savings. This ranges from $700 - $1100, depending on the month.
Next year, I am also going to start putting away $275 into a health savings account.

All of this combined equals about 34% to 44% of our take home pay.

dragonstarjk · December 2014

These amounts are not counting the pre-tax 401K contributions we make:

$100/month to my HSA

$120/month to my Roth IRA

$100/month to vacation savings

$100/month to home improvement savings

$100/month to gift/misc. savings

Occasionally there will be a little bit extra in a pay period and I will put that amount in our home improvement savings.

Edited to say--I have never taken the time to figure out what percentage this is. I just do amounts that feel comfortable, and whenever we get pay raises I reevaluate the amounts.

cbee817 · December 2014

10% of income to 401K, 3% for DH's 403B, $11,000/year to Roth IRA accounts, $10,000/year to 529 plans for girls, at least $1,000/month to savings account (the Roth and 529 withdrawls come from that savings account).

Our fed and state tax returns, DH's health insurance waiver, and our $1,000 wellness incentive through my work goes to our vacation savings account every year so we'll have that established when we're ready to travel with the girls.

We'll up my 401K contributions once I get my yearly raise in April and DH's 403B in September when DD#1 is out of day care and our bill isn't so enormous. The girls 529 plan contributions will continue for only 7 years ($35,000 each)- after that, we'll let the fund take over and it should be enough to cover 4 years at a state school with them staying at home (guess it's our cheapest case scenario).

How much are you able to save in dollars a month?

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