What is your age and how much $ do you have saved (and where) ?

[juneping]

wow...now i am ashamed.
i am 38....have about 5500 cc debt.
have about 1500 in saving.
i do min 401K since the market is not well anyway....i think it's around 6000.

[qwerty822]

Originally Posted by Dinky Fizzy

We make a combined gross income of $90,000 per year and end up saving $4000 in cash per month (roughly $48,000 per year).

Wow - that is impressive. You guys are saving like 60-70% of your take-home income!!!

[LeeMiller]

Originally Posted by Dinky Fizzy

I am 32 and my wife is 28. Together, we have a total of $233,000 saved in cash. We have zero debt. Of this, $53,000 is in our Roth IRAs and the remaining $180,000 is in a DollarSavingsDirect account earning 2% annually. We make a combined gross income of $90,000 per year and end up saving $4000 in cash per month (roughly $48,000 per year).

How do you do that? No taxes paid? Lol, I don't know math seems off.

[LeeMiller]

I'm not going to post mine, but I think people should always remember it is never too late to save!! And don't be so hard on yourselves, money isn't everything. Just try to make enough and save enough so that you feel secure. Think of all the people who made themselves miserable to save and then lost 30-40% in the stock market. I'm not saying spend like crazy, but I'm a big believer in moderation. Believe me my relative you died with $$$ was a miserable human being.

[kroquet]

Originally Posted by LeeMiller

How do you do that? No taxes paid? Lol, I don't know math seems off.

I was just wondering the same thing. Tax free income???

[canadianstudies]

DH and I are both 24, we have about 7k in retirement accounts, a 12k emergency fund, about 2k in long term savings, and about 9k in 'soon to be spent' savings (eg car, vacation, school, stuff like that). No debt other than our mortgage.

[True Religion]

Originally Posted by Dinky Fizzy

I am 32 and my wife is 28. Together, we have a total of $233,000 saved in cash. We have zero debt. Of this, $53,000 is in our Roth IRAs and the remaining $180,000 is in a DollarSavingsDirect account earning 2% annually. We make a combined gross income of $90,000 per year and end up saving $4000 in cash per month (roughly $48,000 per year).

I was going to point out you can do better than 2% APY because ING was giving me 3% before... but I just checked and it looks like they've gone down to 1.5% :(

Anyway, to kind of contribute: I feel strange giving out exact numbers, but I'm 22 and since I graduated from college 2 years ago and started working, I've set up an automatic transfer of $350 every week into savings. You can do the math and get in the ballpark. No IRA or 401k yet, but I decided on starting a Roth IRA this year.

Money after life expenses goes into my checking account. I've been decently responsible (no debt of any kind, old car, live at home - I pay rent but it's a lot less than if I move out), but I could budget A LOT better. I'm very good at splurging on stuff like weekend vacations, snowboarding trips, bags/shopping trips, dinners/nights out, ect. I feel like my checking account "leftover money" is just free for spending, but I could easily up the amount of my weekly savings transfer...

So thanks thread... I'm upping my weekly $350 to $400. I won't miss the money too much but that will help me save more.

[goashleygo]

18, living with parents. I have roughly 9k in a CD and 1k in a checking account. I put about half of what I earn into the CD so I'm not tempted to spend it, the other half goes to shopping I'm trying to save everything I can now so I'll be financially stable when I move out after getting my bachelors in three years.

[shy*violet]

Originally Posted by chiquen81

If anyone has any tips for people in their 20s(since i know there are a lot of lades in their 30s or 40s on here) I'd love it.

I think a good tip is to have at least a 6-9 month emergency fund. I basically count all of my ESSENTIAL expenses (rent/bills/food/gas) and not the extra stuff like clothes/bags/etc. And as you get older and your essential expenses get higher, make sure that your emergency fund grows for that too.

For me, the key to an emergency savings account is something you CAN'T SEE. So I put my emergency savings into a seperate bank that I don't log into regularly. I also have some in CDs since the APY is a little bit higher.

I think it's also important to have 0 debt. Mainly credit cards. Most student loans have super low interest so it's probably best to pay those off last. I think it's a good idea to put whatever extra money you have at the end of the year into your student loans because you don't really want to have that loan hanging over your head for a whole decade, right?

I also have a "Christmas Account" which is just a regular bank savings account. Every paycheck I put away about $75 into that account to use for holiday travel and holiday gifts. That way, when the holidays start to roll around, I'm not freaking out that I suddenly need $300 for a plane ticket, and a bunch of gifts for family/friends.

[robertsn6534]

wow I'm so impressed by how much all you ladies are saving! I have to confess, I used to be the worst saver ever but I think the recession was a big wake up call for me so I've started to save (or try to) save at least 30-40% of my income.

I'm 22, live with parents, work full time and have 10K in term deposits, and 3K in my regular savings account. In the past 4 years, I've spent more than 50K on ...I have no idea! Every year when I do my tax return, I wonder to myself wheeeere all this money went. Few thousand on clothes, maybe another couple of K on food but then that still leaves more than 40K on nothing...I like how some of you are using spreadsheets to tract your spenditure I think this is very smart, especially since your bank account statements don't always show exactly what you've bought. I have now stopped random splurges and only purchase big during holidays or special occasions, e.g. Xmas/Bday/Anniversary. I am hoping that by the time I am 25, I will have saved up at least 100K in investments or cash in bank.

[Veelyn]

19, and no savings ATM. But that will change by next year. As soon as this debt is paid off, I am going to start saving, saving, saving! This thread is inspirational.

[bedhead]

Originally Posted by shy*violet

For me, the key to an emergency savings account is something you CAN'T SEE. So I put my emergency savings into a seperate bank that I don't log into regularly. I also have some in CDs since the APY is a little bit higher.

This is a really good strategy. I have a bank account that I use regularly for deposits, ATM withdrawals, bill paying, etc. and one at a different bank that doesn't have any branches anywhere near me. That one gets all of my direct deposits, and I automatically transfer most of it to savings. I hardly ever log in to look at it, but when I do I'm always really happy with the savings balance, and it was really pretty effortless with all the automatic transfers.

I'm 34, married, and we have no credit card debt and own our condo and car outright. We are both freelancers, which is a change from last year when I was working full-time for an employer, so our savings strategy has changed a bit. When I was working full-time, I put 20% of my salary into my 401k, 8% of which was matched by my employer and instantly vested, so my 401k grew really fast. I made sure my investment was pretty diversified, so my balance only went down about 25% when the market turned, while many of my friends lost closer to 40%. It's slowly creeping back up, but that's another account that I don't look at often, just quarterly to check on the little nest egg.

We also have about 9 months' expenses in cash savings, as well as a fairly decent amount in a brokerage account (not comfortable giving out exact dollar amounts, but it's a good cushion). Since we're both freelancers now, we have to set aside a third of our income for taxes, but we get to write more stuff off for tax purposes now, which is great. After we set the tax money aside, we pay the bills and put the rest in savings, but we do allow ourselves the luxuries of travel and the occasional new bag or pair of shoes. We still stick all the money in savings, buy everything on a mileage-earning credit card, then pay the credit card bill off every month - might as well earn a little bit of interest (tiny though it may be) if we can!

[goodmornin]

Originally Posted by robertsn6534

wow I'm so impressed by how much all you ladies are saving! I have to confess, I used to be the worst saver ever but I think the recession was a big wake up call for me so I've started to save (or try to) save at least 30-40% of my income. I'm 22, live with parents, work full time and have 10K in term deposits, and 3K in my regular savings account. In the past 4 years, I've spent more than 50K on ...I have no idea! Every year when I do my tax return, I wonder to myself wheeeere all this money went. Few thousand on clothes, maybe another couple of K on food but then that still leaves more than 40K on nothing...I like how some of you are using spreadsheets to tract your spenditure I think this is very smart, especially since your bank account statements don't always show exactly what you've bought. I have now stopped random splurges and only purchase big during holidays or special occasions, e.g. Xmas/Bday/Anniversary. I am hoping that by the time I am 25, I will have saved up at least 100K in investments or cash in bank.

i wiiissshhhh i'll have $100k when i'm 25. Knowing me, unless I get a fantastic bonus, that will never happen. Good thing you're living at home!

[NIUiceprincess]

I'm 27 and Hubby is turning 28. We have $12k in savings, hoping to grow that to $15k by end of this year. I have about $21k in my 401(k), I'm not exactly sure how much hubby has in his since he just started last year (he is considered a part timer and the company just recently allowed part timers to participate), and he has about $5k in his IRA.

[Lec8504]

Originally Posted by LeeMiller

How do you do that? No taxes paid? Lol, I don't know math seems off.

lol i'm wondering about that too....

combine total income for two people is 90k, which let's say make it 45k per person. to save $4k in cash, or $2k in cash per person...doesn't make sense...unless you are not paying tax and don't have bills heheh