Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
And how do you think about those goals -- savings as a % of gross or net; or wanting to be at $x amount by a certain age; or some other way? And how old are you and how have those goals evolved over time?
For me the "easy" goal (as in "obvious" goal but not easy to accomplish) is maxing out the 401k to 18k. Outside of that, not sure how to set goals and it becomes a matter of -- whatever is in the account after bills are paid becomes savings. I suspect others have more formal savings plans and I'd be curious to hear about them.
34
Total goal is 10mm @65 years old
Currently we save roughly 40-50% of gross and are ahead of the goal
I found that creating a budget was the most important step, reviewed it monthly at first and now it's more of a quarterly look back. I decided that if I set savings goals and kept meeting them that I didn't care so much if 500.00 went to groceries and 500.00 went to extras or if it was 800 and 300 as long as the savings goals were being met
We are almost debt-free and then we will be saving about $15K for our emergency fund.
Then we'll start saving for a replacement cash car for my husband (he currently drives a 2001 Cadillac Seville with 98K miles). I'm hoping we can save $10-$15K in cash by 2018 for him.
We'll up my husband's TSP contributions and hopefully we can also fully fund IRAs for both of us next year as well.
I have more of a total networth goal than a % of savings goal. I model it out assuming a certain amount of investing each year and plan to increase it by 3-5% each year. I track my monthly expenses and my networth monthly on my blog just as a reminder that it matters.
For me the "easy" goal (as in "obvious" goal but not easy to accomplish) is maxing out the 401k to 18k.
For retirement savings I think that's a pretty good goal. Over a working career of 30-35 years you should be able to accumulate $1M-$2M in today's (i.e., 2016) dollars. That plus SS and a paid off house should give a pretty reasonable retirement, except perhaps in some high cost areas.
Too many life changes coming up for me to forecast. A continued "decent" retirement savings rate and staying out of debt are a couple of things I strive for, though exceptions may need to be made temporarily depending on future unknowns.
Still debating if my short term goals should include paying off all my debt by the end of August. Is my short term that volatile? Not really. Do I like to think it is? Yes. I have a 5-6 month safety net and my debts only amount to about 10.7k. These debts are 100% student loans at 3.55% or 3.15%.
More so, my medium term goal to buy a coop is within reach. I can have a downpayment in 2 years for a place here in NYC and not paying off my student loans would net me around -$650 in interest, but +10k in padding. How much this should be important to me I don't know as I'm only 24...
Long term, just save as much as possible. The 30% of my gross I pay towards my student loans or the like I'm looking to eventually invest.
34
Total goal is 10mm @65 years old
Currently we save roughly 40-50% of gross and are ahead of the goal
I found that creating a budget was the most important step, reviewed it monthly at first and now it's more of a quarterly look back. I decided that if I set savings goals and kept meeting them that I didn't care so much if 500.00 went to groceries and 500.00 went to extras or if it was 800 and 300 as long as the savings goals were being met
Pretty much the same here with regards to savings goals long term except that my wife and I are both 37 and we only save about 35-40% of gross. We automated as much of our savings as possible, which helps considerably.
We just bought a new house and had a second child so we've been settling into a new budget the last few months which has made for a few hiccups here and there in the budgeting process but it's starting to smooth out again.
I keep a lot of different accounts for different purposes though. One MM acct is solely for car purchases and major repairs/maintenance on existing cars, for instance.
We have always had financial goals since we got married. We always set a X amount of money goal each year to save to (usually a certain percentage savings rate of our gross income). We just paid off the mortage woo! But that took down our savings a bit
Goals
Save 40k in savings (current 30k) by 2017 - some of this will go in the IRA
Max IRA for 2016
Save up $5000 in business account (the business is just starting out and will definitely take time to grow)
Just started a budget, though was never big spenders it's good to keep track more. Would like to be at 50% savings rate, but that's tough with moving and starting a business.
We are both late 20s, in Ohio but moving to FL shortly.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
