Alright, so I know that there are a thousand ways to calculate your savings rate. To include mortgage principal or not to include? Include investment gains or no? Etc. etc. and on and on. My question doesn't really pertain too much to those things as I already have a way of calculating mine. HOWEVER, what I need advice on is if the math I am using is technically correct or not. It's a switch between Gross and Net. Let me show you how I calculated January, for example:
Math:
Total NET income: $4,265.51
Total Expenses: -$2,393.28
=$1,872.23
Mortgage Principle: +$509.89
=$2,382.12
Total Net income: /$4,265.51
=55.85%
401k Deferral: +15.00%
=70.85%
Summary: So I started by subtracting my expenses from my income, then adding back in the principal portion of the mortgage that I subtracted. I do this because, while it is an expense, it is an asset that remains mine just as a stock when I purchase it. The principal acts just like a stock (once I get it paid off) in that it pays dividends forever in the form of free rent (not including property tax, of course). Afterwards, I divided my net income from the total to come up with 55.85%. Then I added in my 401k deferral percentage. That is gross savings that are not included in the NET number included above.
Question: So this is where it gets tricky. I'm adding a straight 15% gross savings to the 55.85% calculation of my net savings. I look at it as... whatever the number is, whether it be $200 before tax of $150 after tax, it is still 15% gross or net, therefore, it can just be added on top to account for my 401k savings that I don't see in my net savings rate. I want to include my 401k savings in my savings rate as it IS savings, but I'm not sure if I did the math correctly or not. Is this the right way of adding that in? Or is there another way that I'm not seeing?