So, this blog is likely to get a lot more 'life' related, rather than 'workout' related...stay with me!
Serious question: How much of your net income do you contribute to your savings account each month? Percentage wise, not dollar amount.
(NOT your retirement accounts!)
A mere survey of the masses for curiosity's sake because if my co-worker that tells me 20% is the norm then I am behind the curve...or the gun.
Pssst. I volunteered at the marathon I was registered to run yesterday. Amazing and awesome. If you've never volunteered for a 26.2...what are you waiting for???
7 comments:
I am behind the curve, and so are probably 7.5 billion + of the 8 billion people or whatever benchmark the world is coming to in a couple days.
Marathons are boring. That is why I don't volunteer. :)
A lot of people who save, save to spend, gathering just enough for a big purchase. Thanks for volunteering.
20% holy smokes... I'm way behind! :)
Okay, so I am going to buck the trend here...
I would say at least 20, but probably more like 30-35. But hear me out-
Before I met my husband, I was earing a good living, single, apartment dwelling but living paycheck to paycheck with no hope of paying off my 137k in student loans (my only debt at that time - andyeah, thats 137 thousand). Enter future husband, who had recently pulled himself out of 60k debt and into debt freedom - and thus my fiscal turnaround.
In 18-20 months, we paid off my student loans, which enabled us to start building our retirement funds, saving accounts, etc. Pretty much every penny we scrounged to pay off the student loan is now being poured into the other accounts (and yes, paying off the loan, even one that huge, is possible - but it does take a lot of sacrifice and you have to make it a priority).
But the first thing we had to do was budget everything out - it was astounding to see how much I was spending each month without really knowing it - and having nothing to show for it. My husband set up our budgeting spreadsheet through Mint.com (it keeps track of all moneies coming in, and you set up how you want it spread out, and it keeps track of your "worth"), and we keep track of pretty much everything that gets spent. If there is something that we want outisde of our agreed-upon goals (goal being our house down payment, but "want" being new iPhones), we talk it out and make a decision based on whether or not it makes sense (another example - I've been begging for a newtribike, but it doesn't make any sense when I have a working one now, and that 2-3k can instead go into our "house furnature" account which we also have so we don't have put our new house furnature on credit). But the key is really in the budget - and once you develop one, you can start to set goals around it.
Anyway, that's a super long answer to your question, but the plan has worked for us. Now, I am sure some of this might change slighly once the child is born (we are currently kid free but preggo), such that we will have to divert some to a college saving plan, and we are also working on life insurance plans, but we will then just have to adjust stuff in another area (like maybe less eating out, which is a co-vice of ours).
We also have used the Dave Ramsey program to deal with the debt and planning. He wrote "Total Money Makeover" and a couple other books - buy he's really laid out the plan we tend to follow (and my husband also religiously listens to his podcast).
Point is: It's NEVER too late to start, and it is possible - we are living proof. We live in a time in which people don't pay attention to this stuff, live off more than what they bring in, and then just assume that debt is a way of life. It's not, or at least it doesn't have to be.
and Megan doesn't live in Palestine, or Africa, or Greece for that matter... Look at all with realistic eyes...
Anne Frank would have been good at all that stuff, but didn't have the opportunity... If only she saved her pennies...
I am confused - it sounds like Steve is making fun/critisizing me for taking otherwise-meager incomes, logically budgeting our finances, and working hard to payoff our debt. Not sure what Anne Frank has to do with any of that.
And no, I don't live in the those other areas - but unlike some of those other places (including Greece) I also don't depend on anyone but myself to bail me out from my own poor financial decisions - regardless of how much it sucks to pay off my own debt. No matter how much it might suck to - gasp! - save money, it sucks even worse to sit back and let people (politicians) control my financial future. I live in the US, where our financial crisis is jsut as bad (some might argue worse) as Greece. And there is plenty of evidence that we are also a country that lives far beyond our means - that the average household doesn't maintain a budget, or even talk honestly with each other about the state of their financial affairs. That my husband and I chose not to be part of that pamjority is somehow "unreaslistic," I don't understand.
For the record, my husband and I both make meager incomes, despite the fact that my husband works up to 95 hours a week and I am a salaried/contracted (read: not union) government employee who has never even so much as received a cost-of-living raise in the several years at my current job. Yet, we manage to save and plan for the future. Does it mean that we have to postpone some of things that other people have, like vacations, new cars, etc? Sure. But our goals are bigger, and no vacation is a substitute for financial freedom. sorry if that is something to mock.
Perhaps I am misunderstanding your comments, Steve - it's possible, they are sort of vague. But I beleive that it's about choice. Some people make excuses about why its not possible, and some people just put their heads down and do it.
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