In Today's Times: Do You Save?

I guess we are lucky. After my divorce I worked to get my income to where I support my home. So pretty much all that Troy makes goes into savings.

I would think $1,000 is a good amount. I was raised a good rule of thumb is six months of income is the minimum you should ever have in savings.

Other than 401(k)...zip, zilch and nada! Except like SLM...change in the piggy banks and that gets raided all the time.

Leftover money? Haha! We're lucky if we make all our bills and have enough to see a movie! That's tough times for ya!

V.:

Each part of the country has different costs of living.
Each person has a different "take" on money.

We are a cash only family. We live off one salary - my husband's - and if I choose to work - my money is "fluff".

We have money going into IRAs, 401ks and stocks as well as our savings account.

If you have a $1K left over each month - that needs to be utilized in some way - be it investing in stocks and bonds or some other vehicle that can give you a return down the road.

We have plenty left over. Right now we are surviving on our savings account as my husband lost his job on 11 July, along with 40 other people without any severance, and since we are cash only family with a savings account - we have not HAD to change our lifestyle...we have, but we don't HAVE to. Bills (electric, gas, internet, cell, mortgage) are still being paid and we are still alive....God has been very kind to us. thank God we don't have credit card bills!!!

Well just what you put away for that (3500 plus the kids) well we don't even make 3500 a month so for your lifestyle that is probably good. Our family of five on one income we put nothing away right now other then 401K but that is nothing really. But we are not going into reverse...So I think we are doing fine.

Why would you even have to ask the question..."is this good?" Your probably more fortunate then half the people in the US. duh..............

There are NO leftovers...there is NO savings...your savings alone are our entire take home paycheck.

We saved a heck of a lot of money when we both worked and had no kids...so we have an emergency fund and a savings account...but sense I have been a stay at home mom...money has only gone out, but not back into the account.

We scrape by paycheck to paycheck and pray a lot. I am looking forward to my last child starting school next year so I can go back to work and then we can start saving again. It doesn't make sense for me to work now because full time daycare and after school care would eat almost all my pay. But if we only had after school care...wow, we could have 401Ks again and college funds. Oh and if my job paid for my medical insurance...cha-ching that would free up over $800 a month.

The thing that really rubs my husband is that we are both well educated...both have Master's degrees. And his pay has already capped out...it won't be going much higher...unless he makes partner, and well that isn't gonna happen anytime soon. Plus he actually keeps making less each year than the year before, because no cost of living increases and they keep cutting benefits. No bonuses, no paying for licensing fees, no car allowance, no membership dues...all things they promised and stopped paying in the last two years.

Count your blessings girl!! You are very very fortunate!!

Wow, you guys are indeed fortunate to be doing so well! My family considers it a good month if we manage to pay for everything without increasing our credit card debt! Right now we have 0 savings and pray every month that we are able to cover all our expenses. Congratulations, you guys should be really proud of yourselves! :)

We save 10% to 15% per month of our taxable income.

Its getting more difficult. But we have tried to save 10% since we got married. It took us about 5 years before we could actually do that.

Good luck to you and yours.

We both contribute the max every month to our 401Ks and we have two savings accounts we put money into directly from each paycheck. Two grandparents have 529s for our kids, so that is for college, but we're going to start next month with 529s from us because I think we're using private school from 4th grade on, and you can use that money for private tuition. Starting in 2012, we're going to put aside the exact monthly payment of the private tuition each month even though we're not doing it yet. Just remember -even a little savings is better than none!

Yes we save money monthly. (401K, college fund, stock purchases, & etc.)

This is not by chance or coincidence.

The thing is, USUALLY you can find a way to live on less than you make and you can factor savings into your budget. Mostly people who cannot save something are unwilling to cut lifestyle. (Of course there are the working poor, health crises, etc. exceptions.)

In times of REAL struggle, it is wise to suspend 401K contributions until you have more wiggle room, and get the income up a bit.

So the "amount" is not what is important, it IS important that you save--something--anything.
Good luck!

When we made money we used to save a lot, not quite as much as you, your total savings was about our whole monthly salary (my husband and myself combined). Now we make just enough to cover bills. I hate it, because I am a big saver. So yes, you are doing great, but you also make a lot more money than most people.

We are trying to build our emergency savings according to the guidelines of Suze Orman, who suggests putting away a minimum of 6 months of expenses. So, it is really highly dependent upon what your monthly needs are. For us, $1000/mo wouldn't even cover my hubby's med school loans, much less my loans, our mortgage, car payments, insurance, tuition, food, household expenses.

Yes, we do save. Each paycheck we allocate a percentage towards retirement, savings, investments and college accounts. We pay all of our bills monthly and do not carry a balance on our credit card. To the best of our ability... we try to predict large expenses and put cash away for those well in advance.

This year:
- baby furniture (yay)
- son's big-boy dresser (sniff)
- extended paternity leave for my husband
- 2 trips to FL

We don't go to movies (really not worth $50) and we don't go out to eat very often. We don't deprive ourselves, though. Our "splurges" tend to be for experiences- just bought tickets to Max & Ruby LIVE! rather than "things".

Every place is different, but when you look at your savings ask yourself whether or not you would be okay for 3 months if your husband walked through to door tonight unemployed. If so- great. Keep going the way you are going. If not, time to cut back and put more away!

I only wish. The only money I save is quarters and dollars and occasionally 5s. Every few weeks when something is about to be shut off or we have to buy groceries and I won't be paid for days, I take it out and spend it. Yesterday, I had to help my daughter with gas. Last year I had a big repair bill on the van and it was all I could do to scrape up about 100 per month to pay that down and just when I got to 400 dollars owed I had another 880 repair. Now it's 1200 and I can only make the minimum payment for now.

I don't worry about the future. There are people in way worse off straights than I am. I give and give and give some more. I'll let God take care of my future while I use his money to take care of my family AND others now.

We usually max out my husbands 401k as well as a Roth IRA. Since I stopped working I can't contribute to mine as I have no "earned" income. but once all kids are in school I will be going back to work and the plan is to save my entire paycheck. We also have a 6 month emergency account. We have one car payment, the other is paid for and our morgage. That is our only debt so it is easy for us to put aside money. We have a savings account for our son and put any money he gets for bdays and Christmas in it as well as money from the sale of calves so he has quite a nice start on a college plan. We don't have a lot of play money but putting aside money is priority since this economy is so unstable. I think you guys are on a great position and it is smart to put aside any amout since you never know what the future holds.

Wow. You're doing better than we are. Better than the vast majority of folks I'd imagine.
We only save 100 a month for college and only have 300-400 floating around at any given moment.
Right now my big goal is to save enough to replace our AC when (not if, when) it finally goes. (It's original to our 15 year old house).
Seriously, you are doing great.

We have just recently ( not a whole year yet) been in the position to save money. We were seriously struggling , since the economic crisis hit. Then we had to play catch up, when our income became higher. I could've quit my PT job but kept at it for awhile longer, because we were behind. The upkeep on our house really took a hit & we our having to balance much needed improvements along with saving. I think whatever you can do with the economy the way it is, that's a bonus . If 1000$ is what you can do that' great. Our goal is also to save 6 mos worth of expenses but we're not there yet.

It sounds like you are doing great. My only question is do you have an "emergency fund" ? All the investment advisors recommend that you have an equivalent of 3 to 6 months income invested in very liquid investments in case something awful happens ( like job loss, major medical expenses, death,etc.). For you, that might just mean tweaking your current investments into something more liquid for the emergency fund. Then you have retirement account and college accounts covered; and since you're lucky enough to have $ left at the end of the month, I would start saving for other goals like a new car, great vacation, new home, whatever your priorities are.

I remember the days of "leftover money" My husband was unemployed for a year and a half so my savings is gone and it seems strange but since he has gotten his job it seems we have less money than we did before- I am still scraping by it is killing me, I am not good a poor I will tell you that

I know your question did not mean to offend anyone, but you are much better off than the majority of households. The fact that you have ANY money to put away is better than most.

I have $100 per month going into an ESA for my daughter, and try to save $400 each month for taxes (I'm self employed). We have no retirement accounts and no other investments. We enjoy the occasional meal out, and buying new things here and there but tend to be check to check most of the time.

Good for you for having the luxury of saving so much each month! I think most of us our jealous of your situation and wish we had the cushions you do.

The typical formula is to save 10% per year of your income - so if income is $40,000 - you put away $4,000. The shrewd investor considers that 10% as another bill and whatever is leftover goes to the fun fund :) Your 401k counts as part of that 10%.

My husband and I have been putting 20% away per year for the past 10 years on average for saving/retirement. The sooner you start, the less you have to put in! Bravo for your question.

I wish I had that much to save. We usually save 10%. Thats all we can do.

Wow, you all just stressed me out. I thought by putting anything into my retirement right now, while my kids are little and I'm paying for preschool and not working fulltime, I was doing well. :)
We're saving whatever we can for our first down payment on a house.

I would like to save more every pay check.We have a savings that goes way up then back down again for expenses we don't use his paycheck with for ex. I needed a bigger car so we were able to buy a used car with cash no need for debt for 3 yrs to hang over our heads.We don't like to live in debt all bills get paid monthly somethimes there is left over sometimess not it just depends on what came up for that month since we don't have a mortgage or car payments his credit card he will use for points but that is for home repairs or car expenses maybe to buy something off the internet overall we are debt free I would love to see my cell phone bill,internet & dish disappear that would save a chunk of money.I married a money saver he will only buy food & fishing items clothing only if he has rags to wear then he will buy what is only needed.
I do have to say that income has decreased for us not only since we are going on a family of 6 but since 2009 the recession he lost a few jobs he had to get jobs that had no benefits or that were temp. that he could work to bring in income & now his line of work that he is aren't paying what they used to the benefits he has now are great.I'am a sahm so me finding FT work isn't going to happen I have nobody who will be willing to care for my children free of charge heck I wouldn't either & day care is out of the question it costs to much a week for 1 child let alone 3 that would need FT care.I do my best to budget on food & clothing when the moeny is there I will stock up on more things that are needed.
We live within our means nothing fancy or extravagant just because we have a credit cards it has to be paid back,if we don't have it we won't buy it,if we want it we will save for it

The way I do my budget is like this, basically: list every expense you have. Mark the ones that are the same every time (mortgage, car payment, insurance bills, etc) with a star (*). I make a little mark (~) for those expenses that are more fluid: phone bill may change, gasoline, food, etc. If you look back at the last 3 months of expenses, you can take an average and have an idea what you "have to" make right now.
I put aside the first 10% to tithes. The next 10% for savings. We put money aside for our retirement, college, and cash savings right out of the paycheck before we get it. Then go through all the * bills: is there anything you can do to change those? (Refinance, change companies, plans, or packages?) Write the ideas down and then go through all ~ bills: is there anything you can do to change those? (Coupons? Changing your routine so that you do your errand running on one or two days instead of running the roads all week, to save gas? Wash laundry or dishes on a different setting or different hours? etc, etc, etc--there's lots of ways to cut things here and there). Go through that checklist bit by bit and see how you can change the expenses every month just by tweaking your lifestyle or habits a bit. As you end up with more money leftover, do other things: build up a 6 month savings (what your monthly budget is, times 6), pay off all debt, we have a charitable gift fund for various projects we support, vacation funds, etc. Just because you have money doesn't mean it "needs" to be spent. We always have "projects" we're saving for, on top of normal savings and expenses. How much is acceptable totally has to do with where you live, your personal situation, your age, and how you live. My personal advice (just as a mom) is to not go with how much you should save necessarily, but how much do you NEED to pay the appropriate expenses. That is your budget. Then if you can stick to a conservative budget, you can figure out what to do as you save money. (But again: our health, life, dental insurances, our payment to our retirement account, our payment to the college fund comes out of the paycheck before we receive a check. Those are priorities in our household. The savings you can play with would be the "extra" money that you don't spend). Figure out what your priorities are, together. That way if you can't cover everything, you can see what's at the bottom of the list and the first things to get knocked out, at least temporarily. Get first things first. Good luck!

"leftover" money? What is that??? LOL

From your numbers you are doing WAY better than we are. We are doing good to pay all of our bills & not go crazy! And the sad thing is I know we are still doing better than others.

"Leftover" money goes to paying my husband's old debts, or to paying extra on our car payments. Things always come up & we don't really have much extra. My current job is the longest job I have ever held and I've been here for 2 years. It became my longest job after 366 days LOL My husband hasn't held a job other than the National Guard for more than a few months. We have flip flopped back & forth between who has the good job to support us while the other is looking for a job! Right now I'm the steady one, and I believe I am safe in my job now. Hopefully things will be brighter for my husband's career soon.

My budget is pay the month's bills and pretend you don't have "leftover" because we'll end up needing it for something in the next month or 2... ugh lol

Sounds like you have a nice problem. I'd seek a financial planner.