What percentage of your income do you save?

[beansmama]

I realize this is similar to another post on the main page...but after checking that one out...it's not the same! Promise!

I'm trying to come up with an itemized budget for next year...yeah...seriously...like a 'what's coming out of *each* paycheck' for all of 2011. Extreme, I know...I'm bored

I'm curious how much you guys save each year? Particularly - what PERCENT of your income goes into savings?

By savings I mean LONG term savings - either emergency fund, retirement or house fund, etc. I'm not talking about your dream vacation. Please specify if the percent is based off of net income or gross income, thanks a bunch!

[Monarchgrrl]

I don't think what you're doing is extreme. I already have my 2011 budget done. Or maybe I'm extreme, too?

So for the last year we've been saving almost 100% of DW's salary so she can be a SAHM in a few months from now. So that equals about 40% of our current net take home pay.

After she quits work then we'll only be saving about 3% of my net income, but only temporarily because every year I get a large xmas bonus (about 5% of gross salary) and a large salary increase (8-10% of gross), so all the extra from that will go into savings, and will continue that way, and we'll just continue to live on my current salary.

[sunnysandiegan]

It is early for me, but I don't consider it "extreme".

I just did finances today and was glancing at that graph I have. DD was fascinated by all the pretty colors.

Of Gross Salary:
Long-term savings (retirement) - 14.9%
Mid-term savings (over 1 year; all sorts of things) - 10.7%
Short-term savings (generally within a year; vacation or home improvement or the like) - 2.3%

Before our re-fi, our total savings was over 30% (combined). Now, we are focusing on paying off the mortgage in ten years (15 yr mortgage opened recently).

[Ruthiegirl]

Oh yah! 2011 is all ready budgeted in my house too.

We save 18% of our take home pay. We are older (43 and 37) and have only now started to save a decent amount. I am working towards saving twice that amount by the end of 2011.

Ultimately, I would like to live on 1/2 of our income, but dh still needs some convincing.

[Hannah32]

We save 10% pretax for retirement and 20% of my take home pay. Try to save most of the income from second job, which doesn't pay well and is seasonal, but much of that money this year has gone to baby expenses and things we needed, so haven't kept track.

Savings are your best defense in a brutal economy.

[Rosehip]

When I was still married, and before my career change, I saved 15% of pretax income for retirement. I was able to save almost nothing additional because anything (and I mean anything) that came into our accounts was promptly spent by my ex - yes, I tried separate accounts, everything. It was stressful.

I just started my first job of my new career, and have been in school/no income for a while. I'm putting 10% of pretax into retirement. I'm not sure what additional I'll be able to save, but I definitely need to build up an emergency fund, and then save some toward kids' education. I'm thinking that I'll aim for 10% post-tax toward that. Unfortunately, my career change came with a significant pay cut as I'm now on the bottom rung. Oh well!

[HappilyEvrAfter]

45% of take home pay is dispersed between 3 different long term savings.
And then what I get back from my federal tax return goes in as well. I have my exemptions pretty high, but still manage to get some money back.

I don't think your budgeting timeframe is extreme.
If nothing catastrophic happens then I've got a set budgeted for the next 1.5 yrs. And even then nothing major (in my control) should change that 45%.

I'm a slightly older single mom so the security gland is pretty overstrung.