Right out of college question!

[MickE22]

I will be graduating in December, I have accepted a job that pays roughly $100,000/yr. I am able to live with a very small/zero rent for at least a year. I am graduating with no college debt, so no loans to pay back. I will only have living expenses, car, insurance, etc. My question is about how much I should be saving. Obviously the more you save, the better. I understand that but I want to know what a realistic % of income should go into the bank where I could still live happily and still do some fun things while I am young and don't have to pay for a home yet! I fully understand the importance of saving and I know I should do my best to save all that I can but I want to know a recommended % of income that I should save as a newly graduated person entering the business world!

[GizmoTX]

Congratulations! Save at least 50%. Max a 401k & HSA if offered, & fully fund a Roth IRA.

[tardis]

For context, I graduated 2 years ago.  I slept for a few months, did a working holiday year in NZ then came back to Canada to start "real life" $19k richer when a position for my ideal job opened up.  When you are a saver, you have more options and when opportunities fall into your lap you have the reserves to follow them.  More money=more possible options.

Some basic math to put things into perspective.  If you pay $30k in tax and live off of ~$15k (what I am living on for a pretty "normal" life currently), your FI number is $375k and would take 6.82 years to reach, not including any investment returns/losses.  You can do anything at that point.  You have 60 more years to live and to fill with something.  Maybe it's your career, maybe not.  Are you happy with that timeline and the lifestyle now/then?  We can't answer that for you, and you probably can't fully right now either.  Things will change and as long as you keep reassessing once in a while it'll be fine.

[EfficientEngineer]

I'll be in a similar situation to you next year.  So I'm curious to see what everyone else says.

My plan is to save 2/3 of my paycheck which should put me at FI in ~8-10 years with modest market returns and no pay raises.  The biggest thing I would have to say is avoid lifestyle inflation like the plague.  If you can bank a large portion of your paycheck for the first couple of years, the compound interest on that alone will put you light years ahead of average people. 

Use your savings to create opportunities for future you!

[SwordGuy]

First of all, congrats on such a sweet situation to be in!

I'm sure there was a lot of hard work and thought that went into making that happen.

The answer to your question, "How much should I save?" is really simple: "As much as you can, provided you still enjoy your life whilst you do so."

Given you have such low expenses the first year, I would aim for 80% of take home pay.  Back away from that lofty goal if you have to.   An extra $30,000 invested as young as you are will really pay you dividends. :)