Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:HHI about 900k per year (market performance matters). We are saving maybe 400k per year? We spent a ton this year on renovations, a car, new furniture, and my husband has gotten into buying wine. Next year we plan to buckle down and save 600k.

Huh? How would you save 600k on 900k gross? At the bare minimum, you’re talking 25% taxes and that’s 675k.

Anonymous wrote:HHI about 900k per year (market performance matters). We are saving maybe 400k per year? We spent a ton this year on renovations, a car, new furniture, and my husband has gotten into buying wine. Next year we plan to buckle down and save 600k.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:HHI: about 600k this year. It varies with the market.

401ks + match: $52k
HSA: $7200
529s: $8k
Brokerage/CDs: $110k although the market is so down that we're honestly not up that much since last year.

Total is about $180k saved, which is 30%. That's a good percentage but I really feel like at this income we should be doing better. We spent way too much on vacations this year. Trying to make up for lost covid time I guess.

This is our exact breakdown - 600HHI, saved $184K. We saved only 30% primarily because we blew a ton of money on vacation to make up for lost time, and bc both DH and I have country out of state/country. The 30-40K on vacations should be invested but we don't spend much elsewhere (no private schools; mortgage $3.5K; no luxury cars; etc). My goal is 33% but 2023 is looking to be another big vacation year. Guess you only live once.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m not really sure. We each max out retirement and get maybe 20k in employer matches? So that’s 60k a year. We make around 425/450. Mid 30s, two young kids. Between preschool, day camps, childcare, mortgage, home maintenance/furnishing, groceries, two car payments, outsourcing what we need to, and inflation- probably not saving much more than retirement and some brokerage. We saved a lot before our kids were born and have much of it in investments. HCOL area, but not DC. We live a comfortable but not lavish life. My husband is closer to our finances though so I may be off.

Two car payments??!

Yes. Two car payments. We have two cars like many suburban dual working households with multiple kids.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m not really sure. We each max out retirement and get maybe 20k in employer matches? So that’s 60k a year. We make around 425/450. Mid 30s, two young kids. Between preschool, day camps, childcare, mortgage, home maintenance/furnishing, groceries, two car payments, outsourcing what we need to, and inflation- probably not saving much more than retirement and some brokerage. We saved a lot before our kids were born and have much of it in investments. HCOL area, but not DC. We live a comfortable but not lavish life. My husband is closer to our finances though so I may be off.

Two car payments??!

Anonymous wrote:I’m not really sure. We each max out retirement and get maybe 20k in employer matches? So that’s 60k a year. We make around 425/450. Mid 30s, two young kids. Between preschool, day camps, childcare, mortgage, home maintenance/furnishing, groceries, two car payments, outsourcing what we need to, and inflation- probably not saving much more than retirement and some brokerage. We saved a lot before our kids were born and have much of it in investments. HCOL area, but not DC. We live a comfortable but not lavish life. My husband is closer to our finances though so I may be off.

Anonymous wrote:HHI: about 600k this year. It varies with the market.

401ks + match: $52k
HSA: $7200
529s: $8k
Brokerage/CDs: $110k although the market is so down that we're honestly not up that much since last year.

Total is about $180k saved, which is 30%. That's a good percentage but I really feel like at this income we should be doing better. We spent way too much on vacations this year. Trying to make up for lost covid time I guess.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We make 92K. We saved 15K each in our Roths, added 8K to our HSA and 6K to my husband's 401K (the company only adds $1K total). So 44K total this year.

We don't have a mortgage and only have one kid in the house. We also already have their 529 funded which is why we can save so much.

We've always been frugal on a relatively low income. We will save less next year because our DC is going to a private HS.

I appreciated hearing from you. I'm inspired by households who have managed to fully fund a 529 and no longer have a mortgage.

How much is a fully funded 529 these days?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These numbers other than HSA/retirement are pretax right? Or am I not saving nearly enough?

This board skews to the personal finance nerds IMO. I think if you are saving 20% of gross you should be good. You many not get there early in a career though.

Saving 20% gross is too little. Start with at least 30%, then move to 50% slowly.

Wtf, 50% of my gross? And then another 40% goes toward taxes, so I'm living on 10%??

Why do you pay 40% for tax? Pay a good CPA to help you be tax efficient. No one should pay more than 20% for tax in reality.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We make 92K. We saved 15K each in our Roths, added 8K to our HSA and 6K to my husband's 401K (the company only adds $1K total). So 44K total this year.

We don't have a mortgage and only have one kid in the house. We also already have their 529 funded which is why we can save so much.

We've always been frugal on a relatively low income. We will save less next year because our DC is going to a private HS.

I appreciated hearing from you. I'm inspired by households who have managed to fully fund a 529 and no longer have a mortgage.