Gyroscopic Investing

I would put a poll up but that doesn't seem to be a feature of the new forum. So what percent does everyone save of their income?

I save about 15%. I would love to save more like 20, but with 3 kids and a stay at home wife, it gets hard to maintain a nice suburban life style.

Around 70%. Two kids, stay-at-home wife, 1,300 sf suburban house, one car. Amounts to a pretty strong set of golden handcuffs.

Savings rate 25%. Maxed out age 50+ 401(k), age 55+ HSA, then more after-tax savings. House paid for, kids' college paid for, retiring no later than 3600 days from now.

About 60% (currently living on post-retirement budget 1 year before retirement)

I think I'm around 65% savings rate with me working fulltime and my wife working part-time. There's more I could cut out eventually and currently am renting an apartment so if that money could go towards equity in a home that'd be nice someday.

Including company match but not Mortgage principle, around 10% of gross; ~14% if include Mortgage Principle.

[Edit: added 'of gross'; Edit2: added % inc. Mortgage Principle - helps me feel slightly better here on the bottom of the saving range... .]

About 20% of net income, aiming at 25%.

Pointedstick wrote:Around 70%. Two kids, stay-at-home wife, 1,300 sf suburban house, one car. Amounts to a pretty strong set of golden handcuffs.

That's pretty amazing. I raised 3 kids with a stay-at-home wife and our savings rate was generally around -10%, at least in the early years.

I'm actually a frugal person by nature but the stay-at-home wife and kids were quite the opposite (especially the wife).

You must have wisely married a like-minded person.

I bounced around between 87% and 66%. All while in the bottom 90% of course.

About 50%.

I'm doing well at my job so far, but I'm reliant on government income sources that could go poof at any moment. The goal is to become financially independent in about 3-5 years, after which I can work at my own pleasure and with no pressure to keep running the academic treadmill.

My wife and I are a DINK household and we save about 60% of gross income. At a 4% SWR we are on the cusp of financial independence. The plan now is to spend the next five years building up the bulwark further and then leave the workforce and spend my remaining days fly fishing and becoming a better pianist.

curlew wrote:

Pointedstick wrote:Around 70%. Two kids, stay-at-home wife, 1,300 sf suburban house, one car. Amounts to a pretty strong set of golden handcuffs.

That's pretty amazing. I raised 3 kids with a stay-at-home wife and our savings rate was generally around -10%, at least in the early years.

I'm actually a frugal person by nature but the stay-at-home wife and kids were quite the opposite (especially the wife).

You must have wisely married a like-minded person.

Guilty as charged! She's a pretty amazing woman.

We probably averaged about 60% over our accumulation stage, starting on the low end and rising as we got older and really serious about optimizing savings rate. We peaked around 80%.

These days, the number is all over the map with no full time job and only irregular part time gigs. But because we're FIRE, that's a feature not a bug.