Author Topic: Brag about your 2017 savings rate - POLL (Read 6784 times)

somers515 · « **on:** January 10, 2018, 05:35:20 AM »

My first time creating a poll so hopefully I did it right. If you have any questions about how to calculate your savings rate may I suggest:

http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2015/01/26/calculating-net-worth/

Feel free to take your best guess if you are unsure.

Cromacster · « **Reply #1 on:** January 10, 2018, 07:05:28 AM »

Wasn't the best year for me in terms of MMM (the wife continues to be spectactular though)

With a lavish vacation, some home repairs, upkeep on some old cars, and some lazy spendypants habits our savings rate was about 43%, which was down from 45% in 2016. The positive is our income and the amount we saved went up. The market returns has grown our NW a crazy amount too.

Focus for 2018 is to reduce/eliminate the lazy spendypants habits and get the savings rate back above 50%. If I cut my lazy spendypants habits in half we would have been over 50% SR. So goals that need to be achieved in 2018!

Lan Mandragoran · « **Reply #2 on:** January 10, 2018, 07:49:20 AM »

40-50 probably. Kinda hard to tell exactly as we have a rental that confuses things. Not the best, but first year of trying hard + its about 100x better than the year before lol (although in 2016 we did make a ton of career progress so not a totally lost time :P)

thesis · « **Reply #3 on:** January 10, 2018, 09:07:22 AM »

This is my first month at 30% and it feels pretty great. Not bad considering my company started me at 2% last February and I discovered the FI community in the summer. 40% would push me to the brink of sanity and would not leave anything left over to save up for car maintenance. I also try to tithe 10% to my church.

Greatest expense is rent, Colorado has an insane shortage of housing, so landlords are gouging everybody and/or trying to stave off trouble by not having the lowest rents in town. When my lease is up I'm going to try to get creative and maybe move somewhere with roommates.

I'm still pretty happy with 30%, all things considered. 60% would be ideal

2Birds1Stone · « **Reply #4 on:** January 10, 2018, 09:22:52 AM »

76%........FI here I come!

ginjaninja · « **Reply #5 on:** January 10, 2018, 10:10:47 AM »

64% this year! As much as I would love to live alone the quote "do you $800/month like living alone?" has kept me with roommates and really helped to boost this savings rate!

Zikoris · « **Reply #6 on:** January 10, 2018, 10:16:35 AM »

65%, on an ~83K combined income, and we did a ton of travel - went to Thailand, China, Portugal, Spain, France, Vegas, Mexico, and a bunch of little trips to explore more local areas.

BrandNewPapa · « **Reply #7 on:** January 10, 2018, 10:24:43 AM »

I hit 43%, my goal was 45%.

I don't include mortgage payments, 401k match, or HSA match like some people do. Add those in and the number goes way up.

SpareChange · « **Reply #8 on:** January 10, 2018, 11:10:14 AM »

76%. Most efficient year yet!

2Birds1Stone · « **Reply #9 on:** January 10, 2018, 11:24:38 AM »

Quote from: SpareChange on January 10, 2018, 11:10:14 AM

76%. Most efficient year yet!

*high five*

JSMustachian · « **Reply #10 on:** January 10, 2018, 01:24:08 PM »

We saved 56% pretax in 2017, our best year ever and first year with MMM. Our goal is 70% pretax savings rate for 2018.

dreadmoose · « **Reply #11 on:** January 10, 2018, 01:45:47 PM »

Last year was amazing for me, discovered MMM right around when I switch to a contracting role.

Let me hit 64% even with the shorter year of saving. Lots of overtime that's been cut so it may be hard to reach again.

[Edit to change from gross pay to MMM's take home pay formula]

Tainted Nate · « **Reply #12 on:** January 10, 2018, 01:46:02 PM »

34.56% not including 401k. I'm aggressively working on paying off a silly car loan. In about 6 months I should be at 40%, aggressively paying off my mortgage.

katekat · « **Reply #13 on:** January 10, 2018, 01:48:27 PM »

The first 6 months of the year we hadn't started tracking finances at all (probably saved very little), and the second half of the year we had a savings rate of just a hair's breadth under 20%. So we're probably significantly under 20% overall. That's okay, I just have to see it as lots of room to improve next year. :)

oldmannickels · « **Reply #14 on:** January 10, 2018, 02:22:04 PM »

Quote from: Malkynn on January 10, 2018, 01:56:57 PM

My spending is super skewed because we’re still in major debt repayment mode and I invested a TON in advanced training and on my new business.

On the bright side, we managed to live on ~20% of our after tax income.

Dude read the post

"Joe’s Spending

Interest portion of his $2500 mortgage payment: ($2000)
Interest on credit card and student loans: $480"

Principal payments are considered a form of saving.

CupcakeGuru · « **Reply #15 on:** January 10, 2018, 03:24:18 PM »

About 32% but we fixed a bad retaining wall, replaced rotted deck and had some concrete done. All cash flowed!

effigy98 · « **Reply #16 on:** January 10, 2018, 04:56:59 PM »

Just under 90%. Got a crazy unexpected raise. I truely think people can sense when you just do not care anymore and you get even more rewards because they think you are disgruntled. Added another side hustle this year that has done unexpectable well. All this and I worried at the start of the year the rate would have been much lower because my wife went part time to care for our new baby. I am a little burned out from doing too much work, but I know I just have a couple years left so I am going to gut it out while the money fire hose is flowing.

Firehazard · « **Reply #17 on:** January 10, 2018, 07:49:35 PM »

We started aggressively paying down our mortgage as of Jan 2017. So if I count the extra principal payments I made as savings (I would be investing the money if I wasn't sending it to the mortgage), then my savings rate was 77%. If not, then it was 55%.

Astatine · « **Reply #18 on:** January 11, 2018, 05:23:19 AM »

65% if I include superannuation contributions.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

YoungGranny · « **Reply #19 on:** January 11, 2018, 08:43:00 AM »

Ended up at 69.2%. I will make it over the hump into the 70% range in 2018! =P

badassprof · « **Reply #20 on:** January 11, 2018, 01:04:47 PM »

I'm not sure, and would be interested to hear how folks calculate.

Right now, we are saving about 57% of our take home pay. We are also maxing out our 401ks.

Astatine · « **Reply #21 on:** January 11, 2018, 04:19:21 PM »

Quote from: badassprof on January 11, 2018, 01:04:47 PM

I'm not sure, and would be interested to hear how folks calculate.

Right now, we are saving about 57% of our take home pay. We are also maxing out our 401ks.

I'm in Australia and have zero debt and zero investments apart from superannuation (I think it's our equivalent-ish of 401k etc?), so your YMMV.

I calculated mine by working out how much DH and I had earned from our jobs after tax (call this x). Then I looked at how much our savings accounts had gone up between 1 Jan and 31 Dec (call this y). (nb we haven't started investing yet for reasons specific to our circumstances) Then I did a rough calculation of how much money we had both put into super this year (call this z).

Calculation:
(y + z)/x *100 = savings percentage

It's not exact but close enough. I rounded down my savings percentage to err on the side of a conservative estimate of my savings rate.

somers515 · « **Reply #22 on:** January 11, 2018, 09:02:34 PM »

Quote from: badassprof on January 11, 2018, 01:04:47 PM

I'm not sure, and would be interested to hear how folks calculate.

Right now, we are saving about 57% of our take home pay. We are also maxing out our 401ks.

The way to calculate the savings rate for the poll is the way MMM says to calculate in the article I linked. Its all for fun so no worries but yes money you are contributing into your 401k is savings.

Off the Wheel · « **Reply #23 on:** January 11, 2018, 09:34:13 PM »

35%, which is not great but better than I expected since I only got serious about MMM in the past few months, and also spent the better part of the year supporting my husband when he went back to school. Very happy we're back to DINKs, and I got a raise. :)

Goal for 2018 is 60%+.

mspym · « **Reply #24 on:** January 12, 2018, 02:00:17 AM »

I track against the Australian FY (which goes from 1/7 -> 30/6 ) so the overall rate is 60% but it was lower in the first half of 2017 (~55%) and higher in the 2nd (65%). I just ran some projections for 2018 and based on my track record should be able to hit between 75 and 80% of my after tax income this year, depending on how frugal I feel like being. This includes a 6k allocation for travel and is in addition to maxing out my super.

somers515 · « **Reply #25 on:** January 12, 2018, 04:57:15 AM »

It's cool to read everyone's stories. The national us savings rate is in the ballpark of 5% so everyone here should feel pretty good! Those responding with 80% plus, you'll be FIRE within 2-3 years so I expect the "already FIRE" category to be higher when I do this poll again in January 2019!

Raenia · « **Reply #26 on:** January 12, 2018, 08:18:09 AM »

54% of gross for 2017. Won't be as high for 2018, sadly, between funding a wedding, taking some time to optimize for filing jointly, and my fiance having a lower income/savings rate. I'll see how close I can get it, though!

ttadae · « **Reply #27 on:** January 13, 2018, 04:59:58 PM »

Crud, I voted without reading the specifics so I put in my savings as a % of my gross of taxes. It’s higher net of taxes. Can I change my vote?

somers515 · « **Reply #28 on:** January 14, 2018, 04:43:23 AM »

Quote from: ttadae on January 13, 2018, 04:59:58 PM

Crud, I voted without reading the specifics so I put in my savings as a % of my gross of taxes. It’s higher net of taxes. Can I change my vote?

Is there a way for me as creator of the poll to do so? If you are willing to say, what percentage range did you "vote for" and what is your actual percentage?

Blackeagle · « **Reply #29 on:** January 14, 2018, 08:35:32 AM »

43% for me. Going for >50% this year.

Indexer · « **Reply #30 on:** January 14, 2018, 04:28:06 PM »

Finally broke 60%!!!! :D

60.41%

2014-2016 were all 45-55%.

SpareChange · « **Reply #31 on:** January 15, 2018, 08:35:56 AM »

Quote from: Indexer on January 14, 2018, 04:28:06 PM

Finally broke 60%!!!! :D

60.41%

2014-2016 were all 45-55%.

Awesome!!

saving_dutchman · « **Reply #32 on:** January 15, 2018, 08:51:01 AM »

39.9%. When rounding the number I'm in the 40 - 49% category... :D

StarBright · « **Reply #33 on:** January 15, 2018, 09:03:07 AM »

We were at 43% of gross but I do include 401k match and extra mortgage payments in my savings rate.

Even with saving 43% we were still able to give pretty significantly to tithing and various charities and we still have two children in childcare. Money felt SUPER tight this year and while I'm thrilled with our savings rate I'm going to loosen up the purse strings in 2018. DH is a SWAMI and wants to work until he's in his 70s so I feel like a bit of a Scrooge trying to push our savings rate any higher.

ttadae · « **Reply #34 on:** January 15, 2018, 02:02:27 PM »

Quote from: somers515 on January 14, 2018, 04:43:23 AM

Quote from: ttadae on January 13, 2018, 04:59:58 PM
Crud, I voted without reading the specifics so I put in my savings as a % of my gross of taxes. It’s higher net of taxes. Can I change my vote?

Is there a way for me as creator of the poll to do so? If you are willing to say, what percentage range did you "vote for" and what is your actual percentage?

I voted in the 30’s (true, as a % of gross income) but as a % of net I’m in the 50’s.

News:

Poll

What was your savings rate for 2017?

Author Topic: Brag about your 2017 savings rate - POLL (Read 6784 times)