Hello, As you can tell by my post count, I am new to the forums. I stumbled across MMM via reddit and have read several of the blog entries on MMM in addition to browsing the forums. At first, the thought of saving 50%+ of my income seemed nearly impossible, but then it hit me, between my car payment, student loan payments, and 401k contributions, I am saving/paying close to 50% of my take home.
Currently, I take home ~$3200 a month after 9% 401k contributions (employer has a very generous match), health, and dental. I also have the benefit of residing in one of the lowest cost of living areas in the US.
I currently budget $960/mo to my student loans, which is well above the minimum payments. At the current rate of payment, I will be done with this debt in a little under 4 years.
Unfortunately, I do have ~$11,200 left on a car loan at 2.9%. Current resale value is $13,500.I plan on keeping the car for as long as it reliably operates, hopefully at least ten years. The vehicle gets upwards of 40 mpg on the highway, so it is pretty frugal in that regard. I do have the loan paid six months in advance. I did this by paying extra on the loan the first year of ownership.
I have no other debts. I have about $10,000 in an emergency fund in addition to having the car paid six months in advance. In my current budget, I am sending approximately $1,700/mo to my 401k, car payment, and student loans. When my two existing loans are paid off, I could divert almost all of that money to investments and be very close to putting back 50% (I added my 401k contribution back into my take home for purposes of this calculation). I know I can't count on saving the full $342/mo on car payments due increased maintenance as my vehicle ages.
Am I missing anything here? I live a really comfortable life on the money I currently spend outside of the three categories I have already discussed. I know that life throws a lot of curveballs that I can't account for, so I know that easy street isn't a guaranteed part of my future. I could lose my job, get sick/severely injured, or have other unexpected events occur. But, assuming no catastrophes, I see a lot of wasteful areas of my current budget that I could cut back in to increase my savings rate even further.
The math on this seems almost too good to be true.