savings rate...50%- net or gross

[trialbyFIRE]

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Yup, I track my car's depreciation and it's a line item in my monthly expense report, for anyone who follows my journal, they will see an $800 drop this month (yikes!)
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Interesting... what formula do you use for car depreciation?

[Spork]

Yup, I track my car's depreciation and it's a line item in my monthly expense report, for anyone who follows my journal, they will see an $800 drop this month (yikes!)

Interesting... what formula do you use for car depreciation?

You were asking someone else, but I'll give mine.  It's meant for my own tracking, not for tax depreciation.

I take a depreciation expense once a year on Jan 1.  I take the average of Nadaguides, Edmunds and KBB for a private party sale.  I subtract that value from the previous year's value of the car and take it as a depreciation expense.  Very non-scientific.

I have one old car and a tractor that have very few sources of value.  I use an average of "sold" vehicles on ebay.  Occasionally I get a slight appreciation on the old car and I just skip the expense that year. 

[HPstache]

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

This article shows how MMM counts  savings rate.  He does not count the principle portion of the mortgage as spending.  This is just FWIW... not saying this is the way it should be necessarily.

[RangerOne]

As others have noted the details of your chosen calculation only matter for purposes of proper comparison. But in general as will attempts to strive for personal growth, external comparisons aren't particularly important except for the occasional moral boost or kick in the butt.

The most important use of these metrics is to measure your own personal growth and improvement. In that respect just pick what ever tracking methods work best for you and accurately measure your progress.

[JumpInTheFIRE]

To base it on take-home pay is absurd because everyone has different deductions from their check.  For example, I have 25% that goes to my 401k and 10% that goes to my ESPP.  I also pay for the employee portion of my medical, dental, and vision coverage.  Other people might have different deductions (HSAs, 401k loans, garnishments, union dues, etc.).  After taxes I take home way less than 50% of my check, if I was using my "take home" number my savings rate would be over 100%.  I think the only logical way to compute is either as a percentage of gross pay or a percentage of pay net of taxes only.  To just calculate from the number on your paystub doesn't give you any useful information.

[jlajr]

I gotta tell ya, when you are altering which day you go grocery shopping to manipulate a number in a cell that only you will ever see in an excel file, you know you've gone too far:)

Amen, aceyou!

That holds true for my personal life and, just as importantly, my professional life...