Where Are Your Savings?

[Staceyy]

We consider the following to be our savings:

We have a change jar where we put all accumulated change, we use this for incidentals or smaller purchases such as the laptop I bought last year. When full, the jar holds about $500.

Dh's emplyer offers a medical reimbursement plan. We put $2500 a year into it.

We have a 401k which we contribute to.

We stockpile food, toiletries, paper goods, otc meds and firewood.

We do not have a cash emergency fund.

[feminist~mama]

I have a 401k, but never think about it in terms of "savings" for some reason- likely because I feel like I can't touch it for another 30~ish years...

The rest of our savings are in the bank.

[SunRise]

A mutual fund. (long term savings)

A house (hopefully that will turn out to be an investment. Bought it for a great low price in an ideal neighbourhood. I am renovating the bathroom and kitchen and some smaller things.)

An e-savings account. (I suppose an emergency savings account, but really I just build here and then disperse it to longer savings)

A Jar for loose change.

A house account (savings for house things and renos)

[sarah1122]

We have:

$1000 in a savings account at our local bank
Additional savings in a high yield savings account at a large corporate bank
Real Estate (a piece of undeveloped land) in addition to our primary home

[Sarah W]

We have:

A brokerage account
An ING account
A savings account
A rental property
A glass jar

[sunnysandiegan]

We have:

credit union (many local branches of nationwide CU)
ING (electronic accounts)
Capital One Bank (electronic account through Costco, great program!)

brokerage accounts (several with different companies; I worked in securities for years and most of these are still at NAV, which means there are no fees) - retirement and other - mutual funds, stocks, bonds, money markets, etc.

HSA (electronic account)

Our home

Secret stash of cash

Edible garden

Mild pantry and freezer stocking (1-3 months' worth)

Moderate household items stocking (3-12 months' worth of certain items)

Good community relations and active sharing groups (including CSA, playgroup, neighbor shares, etc)

[lunarlady]

We view our savings as the money in the savings account and our PayPal account. We have other places where there is money, like our retirement accounts, but we don't count those. We also have other assets (like our land and our stuff) but we don't count that either. I have a piggy bank where I get to keep all the coins and sometimes bills I find checking the pockets of the family laundry, and I guess that is a savings, but I don't count that either. Different defintions I guess.

[phathui5]

What if your car breaks down? Not having access to real money tells me you don't have savings.

[velochic]

Well, TBH, I don't really consider what you listed as savings, either. Maybe the change jar.

We have different investments and different savings. Things like dd's 529, retirement, taxable investments, a farm that's cash rented... all those are investments for a long time in the future (well, not that long for us, as dh is considering retiring at 65, which will be 10 years from now) and with the farm, we may never sell it to get a lump sum from that, so that's almost like having nothing, because we couldn't "tap" it if we were desperate. Kind of like my brother's baseball card collection... worth something, but not liquid.

We do the medical savings plan, but I don't consider that savings or investment. It's money you're going to spend, anyway... just saving some tax dollars.

Then we do have savings... money that is easily accessible that we can have in our hands in a heartbeat (or thereabouts). We have savings for us for a car, a stove, dd's orthodontia coming up in a few years, a new play structure, annual vacation/visit family abroad, and our basement family room makeover. Most of those are all separate accounts, too. Only the stove fund is where it needs to be to buy a new one. The rest, we are still saving for. Then we have an emergency fund in a MM account, which is about 1 yr. of expenses bare-bones or 6 mos. as we live now. I keep some cash, <$2000. We have another "savings account", but it's in a mutual fund, so inaccessible IMO. Then we also have a couple of savings accounts for dd. One at Vanguard and one in the credit union. These are both UGMAs. We save our coins for dd and that goes into her bank, then on to the credit union account.

We also have the stocked pantry (about 6mos now - more after the garden is put up), toiletries, etc. and we heat with wood mostly. We have enough wood for this coming winter, but haven't had next winter's delivered yet (we don't cut our own). I don't really consider any of those thing to be savings... just being prudent.

I think at least an emergency fund would also be prudent.

[Staceyy]

Originally Posted by phathui5

What if your car breaks down? Not having access to real money tells me you don't have savings.

My dh who was close to retirement age, is permanently disabled, we now have full access to his 401k which contains 6 figures. His disability was just recently approved (this week). Previously we could have borrowed from the 401k. He is still on his employer's payroll (short term disability) until next month when his long term disability begins.

We also own our home but don't consider this savings.

[zebra15]

I have a 'savings' account with 1k in it 'emergency' savings
I have a larger saving account
I have a small retirement account
DS has an educational account

I have a 'change' jar that goes to coinstar 4x a year for Borders giftcards - this isnt something that i really count on as $$ though

All the accts are held at one institution that I feel comfortable doing business with.

Hopefully when my employment situation changes I can get back to my usual brokerage investing. I depleted that account over the years and I'm itching to get back to it.

[becoming]

We have been saving for a down payment on a house for a couple of years now & have been using a separate checking account to put these savings in. We're closing on the house in 27 days & got it for $20,000 less than the listing price; it was built just 5 years ago and is in a very desirable neighborhood with a lake view, so I hope it will turn out to be a good investment for us.

We also have a 401K, but we've borrowed pretty much everything out of it at this point. We're only 27, though, and DH is putting in something like 14% of his paycheck into 401K, so we should be good for retirement, I hope.