The Money Mustache Community
General Discussion => Share Your Badassity => Topic started by: Roboturner on December 14, 2015, 03:16:58 PM
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Curious on how everyone did this year, I set a PR with 70%! Looking to break it next year!
SHARE YOUR S.R. BADASSITY!
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61-70. We hit our NW goal and our savings % goal but it feels like cheating. Basically, we made more money that we figured we would (it isn't set in stone). So while we have a high savings percentage we definitely saw some lifestyle creep
Hey, cheating counts! just gives you low-hanging fruit to double down efforts for the new year!
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21-30%. I haven't run the final numbers, probably around 25% though. Our first year making some lifestyle changes, so considering last years SR was basically 0% we are off to a good start for our (lower than the mustachian average) income range.
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21-30%. I haven't run the final numbers, probably around 25% though. Our first year making some lifestyle changes, so considering last years SR was basically 0% we are off to a good start for our (lower than the mustachian average) income range.
congrats! keep at it
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Are you just dividing your savings by your pretax income to get the savings rate?
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I think most folks here report their savings rate on an after-tax basis. To be completely accurate, you'd need to calculate your income by starting with your take-home pay, then adding back in any deductions for insurance, 401k contributions (including the employer match), etc. Then divide your total savings (again, including both your and your employer's 401k contributions) by the total after-tax pay to get your savings rate.
I'm coming up with around 41%. I consider that pretty good, as our household was around 12-13% prior to getting serious about saving.
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I don't get too complicated about this. I go to YNAB. Look at the figure it says for 'Income' and 'Expenses'. 100-(E/I).
I got just over 79%. But I live rent free in China. I still have colleagues who live pay check to pay check mind you...
Also, got married this year which may have lowered things, but as my partner is American Chinese, her Chinese relatives ensured our day was a net positive! (Not why I married her, honest).
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57%, single in NH, shooting for over 60% in 2016!
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I'm pretty damn pleased with 67%!!
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It's obviously not set in stone yet, but our projections have us finishing the year at a 57% rate. Lower than last year's 63%, but that was because we did some very expensive travel this year. We're happy as long as we manage to stay over 50%.
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78.52% - should hit 80% next year now the mortgage is done. Our savings rate has steadily been raising every year as our income increases yet our lifestyle remains the same (or in the cast of this year really cut back spending while feeling we have the same quality of life!).
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Wow, I'm probably around 50% this year. You all have impressed me and I will work hard to increase it next year.
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I only recently found out that everybody was doing SR out of post-tax, so I get to feel extra badass as my SR "magically" went from 48% to 66%.
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My wife and I's SR dropped from about 40% last year to right around 20% this year due to having a baby and the wife going part-time and not working for a few months. We also refied the home to 15yr and that increased our payment and took away from savings. We'll see how we fare in 2016.
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Right around 70%...and I don't even have a real job anymore. ;)
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We're at 60% of our (post-tax) income saved so far in 2015!
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47.1% of after-tax income, not including employer's contribution to my pension; including that jacks it up to 69.2%
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including that jacks it up to 69.2%
Wow
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51% and will probably end with 53%. Goal was 56%. ...But I screwed up. :)
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Can't work it out. Too complicated these days :)
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Well it's not year end just yet, so I have to do a little guesswork.
If I count the debt we paid off, as well as the principal payments on the mortgages, as a form of savings then our rate is somewhere around 70%. Of course if I don't count debt reduction that skews much lower, seeing as how we put more than half of our take home incomes this year into debt reduction
Of course we still have three more paydays coming this year, so I think I'm just going to call it at approximately 70% and try to be more specific next year.
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Interpreting "saving" as ANY saving including after tax savings/investment account deposits, 401K+match, mortgage principal payments, deposits to college funds and that generally is still in our pockets somewhere...
Net result: 36% of pre-tax income. Or just over 50% of our after tax income.
After tax cash flow safety margin and resulting "after tax savings" in pocket is too low though and a priority for 2016.
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including that jacks it up to 69.2%
Wow
Yeah, I say the same thing every time I see their contribution -- $41,000/year. Damn.
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I had thought I was at 31.9%
After i recalculated the MMM way, removing withheld taxes from the equation: 44.3% ..and that is simply taking into account retirement contributions only, not even figuring whatever went into the bank. Probably a lot closer to 50% after all said and done.
Cant complain about that
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I was in the "31-40%" camp. This year I made the biggest contribution to my RRSP account ever + got as much money as I could moved over to TFSAs. I am somewhat tempted to put in a bit more this month.
Cheers to my fellow MMMers!
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Wow I did better than I thought actually. I counted my student loan payments as savings (and I paid that all off this year!!) as well as my work pension and my own savings, and I got 47% of net pay. Hoping next year I can get to 50% or higher. I'm amazed at how high some of the rates here are, I hope I get get that badass one day.
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Haven't calculated it, but somewhere around 25%. I paid off my car and bought an expensive horse and saddle this year. Next year should hit 50% or so.
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I was EXTREMELY blessed this year.
New career + exceeding sales quota meant I made 225% of my 2014 income.
Savings rate will finish at a VERY healthy 75.5%
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I only recently found out that everybody was doing SR out of post-tax, so I get to feel extra badass as my SR "magically" went from 48% to 66%.
In my opinion there is nothing 'magical' about post-tax SR; in my mind, taxes aren't your money, and never really was, its the gubmint's
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50.25% as I just calculated but this was a HORRIBLE year for us, numerous deaths that required extensive, expensive travel and funeral expenses, car got hit twice while parked, if it was in the house and could break...it did etc, we were literally cursed this year. I am actually surprised it was this high...
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28.5% with three caveats all relating to the fact we just discovered MMM this year:
First, we only started tracking spending/savings rates in April. The true number for the year is probably lower, but I'm not going to take the time to calculate it. Doing so would probably be depressing and this number makes me feel better.
Second, this number is what I call our "Quasi-savings rate" which includes both actual savings and student loan debt repayment. I figure SL payments would be money we save if we didn't have the debt. We are ruthlessly slaughtering the debt, though, and are on pace to have it paid off by fall of 2016, at which point the income will become actual savings.
Third, I prefer to look at the improvement we made this year. In April, our quasi savings rate was 10.1%. In October we hit a 50% quasi savings rate for the first time. We are making additional changes in 2016 (e.g. to health insurance) which ought to enable us to average more than 50% quasi savings rate in 2016 (knock on wood).
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I've only been a reader of MMM for a few months. I recently signed up for Personal Capital (Thanks JLCollins!) and to my surprise.. I'm already at 400k.
In the last few months I've boosted my savings rate from a meager 25-30% to 60-70 (The Jury is still out on how well i've dialed it in)
Has anyone else been this surprised when starting out?
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I'm somewhere in the 70's. Viva Dinero!
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Started out in the 50s/60s, worked my way up in the last part of the year to the low 70s and one month of 80+. Average is currently hovering just above 69%.
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This is our first year of making a conscious effort in saving. We've always been careful about our spending, but never were very intentional about our saving. We always just saved whatever was left over at the end of the month.
I hadn't calculated our savings rate exactly until just now (thanks to this thread). I'm incredibly happy and surprised that we've hit a savings rate of 78.8% so far this year. We didn't really have a goal, we've just been trying to keep our spending as low as we're willing to go without hurting our 'quality of life.'
Thanks to everyone on this site. If it wasn't for this community I never would have hit that number (nor even thought to calculate it to find out).
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Has anyone else been this surprised when starting out?
You are definitely not alone.
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Has anyone else been this surprised when starting out?
You are definitely not alone.
Yes, it's pretty amazing what you can do when you just start paying attention. Our lifestyle didn't really change all that much, we just quit finding big-ticket items on which to spend our surplus (vacations, furniture, and major home improvement expenditures come to mind). My gross income increased by about 15% over that time, which certainly helped, but the increase only accounts for about a third of the overall savings increase.
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91% on net of tax saving rate basis including employer contribution (61% on gross basis).
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Not counting home equity or any retirement savings or matching employer contributions.....
We hit 32% SR for 2015! This was the year we found MMM. Shooting for 50% for 2016
I need to do the math to factor in the above.
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In 2015, after discovering this site, I went from saving ~60% after tax to 82.6% before tax... on the same budget.
Maxed out 403(b), 457(b) and a tIRA by the end of November, with a 3 month handicap (started in April '15).
Total tax-deferred savings went from zero to $47.2k in 9 months.
I make less than $60k.
(Here's a current screenshot of contributions from my retirement account. It doesn't include the employer contribution for December or my IRA.)
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The results are a nicely distributed bell curve
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I'd never calculated this before, 67%!! Pretty pleased with that, particularly since I'm a stay at home mum
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62% - or there abouts.
I didn't include superannuation (retirement account) because I cbf to work it out, and I can't touch it 'til I'm a million years old.
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The results are a nicely distributed bell curve
And only on these forums is it centered around 50-60%!
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I've just edged into 61%, dead chuffed with myself and inspired to make 2016 even better!
There are definetly things to cut that I don't get that much joy from, and some indulgences to make more scarce so I enjoy them more.
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We're on pace for just under 50% this year after-tax savings rate, but close to 60% if you include 401k match.
41% of gross without match, which is nice...
Kind of crazy since we live pretty luxuriously!
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We saved/invested about 70% of our income. I would not be super impressed by that though.
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I did the easiest possible calculation (increased net worth not counting appreciating assets or pension, as a percentage of take-home pay) and came out a smidge over 50% savings. A calculation based on gross income would probably motivate me to save more in tax-advantaged investments.
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58% based on gross income. 63% or so MMM's way of calculating. I am very impressed that the highest response is in the 51-60% range. I don't know anyone in my circle of friends who is anywhere close to that. "Save 10-15% every year and you're good" is the most common thinking.
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Could not click on any poll category, as none was low enough. I was negative this year, and last year too. Down to part time work, and school expenses put me at about minus $10K each year.
However, expect spending to stay the same this year and about triple income, so project to save 50%+ in 2016, God willing!
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28% for me. I also just landed a new, better paying job and paid off my student loan a week before graduating. Here's to a prosperous 2016!
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68% of net income went to mortgage and investments in 2015. Not bad for year 1 of MMM ten year plan. I suspect at this rate, the plan will get shortened since next year, 65% will be going to investments alone!
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2015 = 55.8% of Gross Pay, 23% better in 2015 as compared to 2014 because of MMM, and all you folks on this forum. Thanks everyone!
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In 2015 I was able to put away 28% of gross income or 38% of estimated after tax income. The goal for 2016 is 38% of gross / 50% after tax.
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Now that the year is officially over, we have an actual number - 56%. Lower than 2014's 65%, due to a shit load of travel spending. Time for some cheaper trips...
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The results are a nicely distributed bell curve
And only on these forums is it centered around 50-60%!
I really used to think I was a bad ass at saving for retirement until I started seeing what this group of people is accomplishing! I'm humbled. Thank you!
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I do the calculation on a cash basis based on my net pay (so I'm not adjusting for 401k contributions, mortgage principal etc). Anyway, on that basis I was at 62% for 2015, a shade less than my target.
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-19% on the year for me! But I'm a new grad, only started full time in September. Last two months have been averaging 60% not including pension deductions/matches.. doing so would put me up around 77%.
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Including debt principle reduction, excluding non-property taxes (both from income and expenses) - 54.7%. 2015 included payoff of my student loan, which I'm excited about redirecting to Vanguard. However, with my wife transitioning to SAHM for most of 2016, our % savings may decrease somewhat.
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Well - it varied widely in the first 6 months then settled in at 54% then slowly crept up to 63% and for 2016 I just might manage to break 70% for the first three months anyway - then I'll take an expensive break - aka vacation - and hopefully resume undaunted at around 72% for the remainder of the year.
Without coming to this forum for inspiration and support I doubt it would have happened - once I found MMM the impact was almost instantaneous. Wondreous results all around:)
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I compared my 2014 and 2015.
Spending: -5%
Savings: +6%
Overall savings rate for 2015 was 51%. Goal was 55%, so something to improve upon for 2016.
Keep on stashin' everyone!
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I'm very impressed with the majority in the 50-60 range too.
In reading this I just realized I could have answered the poll differently. We are at 39% if calculating from gross, but into the fifties if we don't include taxes. I'm surprised and encouraged by that! Especially since i only found MMM in April and my spouse would happily lean further toward the spendypants end of the spectrum. With new strategies for 2016, I might even get to join y'all in the badass range sometime soon.
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Tell me if I did this math right:
Gross Pay - Tax (state/fed/Medicare/OASDI) = 'After Tax Pay' (this is not net, because I still have all different kinds of insurance coming out as well). Call it ATP.
Then I added my Retirement(s) up: (TSP, TSP match, TSP loan payment, and Pension Contribution) to get 'retirement savings'. Call it RS.
Then I took my debt snowball and decided to classify it as savings, but I'm not including additional principal on things like the mortgage/cars/student loans. If I wasn't paying down debt at the moment this would be in the savings/investment category. This will be SB.
So: SR = (RS+SB) / ATP?
If so, 61.45%!
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Tell me if I did this math right:
Gross Pay - Tax (state/fed/Medicare/OASDI) = 'After Tax Pay' (this is not net, because I still have all different kinds of insurance coming out as well). Call it ATP.
Then I added my Retirement(s) up: (TSP, TSP match, TSP loan payment, and Pension Contribution) to get 'retirement savings'. Call it RS.
Then I took my debt snowball and decided to classify it as savings, but I'm not including additional principal on things like the mortgage/cars/student loans. If I wasn't paying down debt at the moment this would be in the savings/investment category. This will be SB.
So: SR = (RS+SB) / ATP?
If so, 61.45%!
I believe you would want to include all debt principle paid as "savings" as it's a net zero impact to your net worth. Expenses on the other hand, reduce your net worth. I would also include any income that was not spent (but also not sent to dedicated retirement accounts or debt repayment) as saving. So the equation would become (and generate a higher #)
SR = (RS + SB + all debt principle payments + Other non-spent income) / ATP.
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Tell me if I did this math right:
Gross Pay - Tax (state/fed/Medicare/OASDI) = 'After Tax Pay' (this is not net, because I still have all different kinds of insurance coming out as well). Call it ATP.
Then I added my Retirement(s) up: (TSP, TSP match, TSP loan payment, and Pension Contribution) to get 'retirement savings'. Call it RS.
Then I took my debt snowball and decided to classify it as savings, but I'm not including additional principal on things like the mortgage/cars/student loans. If I wasn't paying down debt at the moment this would be in the savings/investment category. This will be SB.
So: SR = (RS+SB) / ATP?
If so, 61.45%!
I believe you would want to include all debt principle paid as "savings" as it's a net zero impact to your net worth. Expenses on the other hand, reduce your net worth. I would also include any income that was not spent (but also not sent to dedicated retirement accounts or debt repayment) as saving. So the equation would become (and generate a higher #)
SR = (RS + SB + all debt principle payments + Other non-spent income) / ATP.
Oh god I forgot my wife's income. lol.
Close the poll, we need to start over.
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I'm at 78.3%. I was at 82.4% for 2014, but this year included fewer bonuses (though my spending did decrease slightly!).
I am using the after-tax income as the divisor for after-tax income less non-tax expenses. If I had debt, the principal repayments (scheduled or paid in advance) would be excluded from non-tax expenses. I am not including investment dividends and/or other returns in my income.
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Now that I did the final tallying, the final savings rate was much lower than expected.
My personal expenditures went down, but due to new job with lower pay, and due to multiple big one-time expenditures, the final rate was only ~30%. (Oops, I didn't consider taxes. I considered total gross, rather than take home pay. Will update the figure once I do the taxes.)
The positive are 1) maxed 457b offered at the old job, 2) retirement accounts value increased by $34k (most of it due to contributions), 3) borrowed $9k from bank at 2% and loaned the same to a relative at 24% APR.
The negatives are a major change in the forex rate drastically reducing the value of my assets outside USA.
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My goal was to hit a 50% Savings Rate.... I actually feel like there is a TON of wasteful spending and so I'm still down on myself. But anyway it was close but barely succeeded.
50.4% Savings Rate
54.0% with Student Loan Principal
56.1% with Student Loan Principal and HSA Savings.
Overall we did pretty well but we also had unlimited OT for most of the year. There was also a disgusting amount of unexpected spending to grab some Amex offers before the end of the year with ~$1,000. 2016 will be much more challenging with uncertain job security but I'm still shooting for 50% or higher not counting student loans or HSA. I suppose I should count student loan principal. But I don't want to count HSA savings as I consider that money will all be spent on healthcare at one point in the future. More importantly, as a super stretch goal, I would like to reach "save one income" but that would require huge sacrifices and changes that I think may be too overwhelming at once.
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We are at about 65% but I am not pleases about it at all. I want to hit 75% sometime this soon but I'm about a year or two away from this.
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Just squeaked in at 61% - I had a long stretch of being unemployed before finding MMM, so I'd already started to dial down my lifestyle, but finding MMM this year accelerated my savings rate way past what I'd been able to do on my own.
The cool thing about MMM is that it's it's truly able to create substantial wealth via frugality and savings rates. And even with a 61% savings rate (way higher than anyone I know in real life), my life is pretty freaking awesome.
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I started my FIRE journey last year and this graph sums up 2015 for me...
(http://i.imgur.com/gXQW8zp.png)
My savings rate was about 25% last year. All the money in the 13k went to either investments, roth ira, or my emergency savings fund...Looking to make much needed improvements this year.
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Tell me if I did this math right:
Gross Pay - Tax (state/fed/Medicare/OASDI) = 'After Tax Pay' (this is not net, because I still have all different kinds of insurance coming out as well). Call it ATP.
Then I added my Retirement(s) up: (TSP, TSP match, TSP loan payment, and Pension Contribution) to get 'retirement savings'. Call it RS.
Then I took my debt snowball and decided to classify it as savings, but I'm not including additional principal on things like the mortgage/cars/student loans. If I wasn't paying down debt at the moment this would be in the savings/investment category. This will be SB.
So: SR = (RS+SB) / ATP?
If so, 61.45%!
If you include your TSP match in your RS term, you also need to include it in the ATP divisor.
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16%, if I include the money I'm putting aside for a house deposit it goes up to 40%. At the end of the year I shifted my focus towards retirement savings rather than house savings, so my SR for 2016 should look a little better.
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Tell me if I did this math right:
Gross Pay - Tax (state/fed/Medicare/OASDI) = 'After Tax Pay' (this is not net, because I still have all different kinds of insurance coming out as well). Call it ATP.
Then I added my Retirement(s) up: (TSP, TSP match, TSP loan payment, and Pension Contribution) to get 'retirement savings'. Call it RS.
Then I took my debt snowball and decided to classify it as savings, but I'm not including additional principal on things like the mortgage/cars/student loans. If I wasn't paying down debt at the moment this would be in the savings/investment category. This will be SB.
So: SR = (RS+SB) / ATP?
If so, 61.45%!
If you include your TSP match in your RS term, you also need to include it in the ATP divisor.
Ugh, down goes the rate again.
After reviewing the wife's paystub it was down to 38%
edit: 35% with the match added back into income.
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Just squeaked in at 61% - I had a long stretch of being unemployed before finding MMM, so I'd already started to dial down my lifestyle, but finding MMM this year accelerated my savings rate way past what I'd been able to do on my own.
The cool thing about MMM is that it's it's truly able to create substantial wealth via frugality and savings rates. And even with a 61% savings rate (way higher than anyone I know in real life), my life is pretty freaking awesome.
[Only semi on topic...] Yes, mustachians' lives are pretty awesome. Take it away, Christopher Walken! (4:30, but the entire sketch is great.)
https://video.yahoo.com/census-taker-000000855.html (https://video.yahoo.com/census-taker-000000855.html)
I started my FIRE journey last year and this graph sums up 2015 for me...
(http://i.imgur.com/gXQW8zp.png)
My savings rate was about 25% last year. All the money in the 13k went to either investments, roth ira, or my emergency savings fund...Looking to make much needed improvements this year.
I have to ask...over half of your spending is in "Uncategorized" and "Others"? Narrowing those down might help you find the holes.
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65.5%, it helps when both the wife and I work too much and don't take nearly enough vacation. Looking to fix that this year and find more balance while still stashing.
Pretty proud of what we have done and the fact that we have something to show for all of the hard work, but approaching burnout with work is never fun.
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I think I'm confusing myself again. Pretend you make $100k and you do an automatic 15% contribution to a tax deferred retirement account. So that's $15k/yr.
In MMM terms you're paying taxes and whatnot on that $100k so you're really making $75k (simplified math subtracting state/fed tax, SS, Medicare). $15k/$75k = 20%.
So by saving 15% on your gross you're actually at a 20% savings rate?
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I think I'm confusing myself again. Pretend you make $100k and you do an automatic 15% contribution to a tax deferred retirement account. So that's $15k/yr.
In MMM terms you're paying taxes and whatnot on that $100k so you're really making $75k (simplified math subtracting state/fed tax, SS, Medicare). $15k/$75k = 20%.
So by saving 15% on your gross you're actually at a 20% savings rate?
Yes
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On just [saving]/[salaries - federal taxes] = ~67%
On [saving]/[salaries - federal taxes + 401K matches + employee stock benefit + father-in-law's gifts] = ~75%
Wahoo!
... But we can do better. Housing expense is most bloated ($17K this year, excluding mortgage principle), but we are planning to build an addition this year, move into it, and rent out our main house so someone else can cover the big fat payment. Food also bloated, but less room for improvement there -- probably only $2K savings or so to be found.
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46%. We are average mustachians haha. 2016 is expected to be less. 35%-45% roughly (depending on raise, bonus, and side income). And that's ok.
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Made the low end of my target at 70% and would have done better except I had to replace the old rust bucket that finally died. Went used but still...
Have 80 in mind for the goal again this year.
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73% went to successful elimination of all debt and a maxed 401k. Aiming for 80% next year unless my car fubars itself.
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Just squeaked in at 61% - I had a long stretch of being unemployed before finding MMM, so I'd already started to dial down my lifestyle, but finding MMM this year accelerated my savings rate way past what I'd been able to do on my own.
Congrats! here's to a even more thrifty year ahead in 2016..
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Just ran the numbers. Using the MMM approach I get 37.1% as our current SR. Better than I thought.
The average for the year was lower because I had a college loan and 2 credit cards that I paid off during 2015.
Now the only debt I have is the mortgage. We need to get our spending under control now. I want to get over 50% for next year.
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Only about 7% here, but I feel good about it because I was borrowing money to finish grad. school and not working for half the year. I didn't start working until June. I expect it to be higher this year and to keep climbing.