How much of your paycheck do you save?

[Shazam]

About $4700, along with my wife's pension payment and SPP, both which are maxed out.

[yads]

If we're talking about long term savings about 15% of our pre tax income goes into that. We also save about 5% in short term savings, but really we usually spend that money at some point during the year, either going on a trip, making a major purchase or putting money on the mortgage.

[Flames Fan, Ph.D.]

Luckily a smaller and smaller % of my pay as the years progress.

Since you're in the US, it's probably more meaningful to note that I max out my 403b (401K for education people), max out an IRA, and I max out a 457b. I put the leftovers in a Fidelity account that serves as my bank/brokerage account. I probably accumulate about 1K into that every month so that I can play around with stocks and options.

[DrJ]

I have no paycheck other than the stock market.

I always re-invest.

[FLAMESRULE]

~13%/month (after tax)...autowithdrawal. Works out to a minimum of $12K/year, but with bonuses, options, etc it gets pushed closer to $20K. We alsh take out a schwack of cash that we save during the year for smaller purchases / small holidays.

[WilsonFourTwo]

Single fella with a mortgage, etc......lots of cash going outwards.

I save 50% of my discretionary cash, no more and no less. I can't explain just how simple this method is and how well it has worked out.

[JustAnotherGuy]

The only 'savings' I have is the mortgage on my house. I will downsize in about 3 years and be mortgage free and then I will have tons of monthly savings.

[V]

Single income, 4 kids.

I'll be happy if I don't go bankrupt in the next 5 years.

[Phanuthier]

Originally Posted by The Goon

With the spelling, I'm guessing an American submitted this thread.

I probably save about 20% of my paycheque right now. Having a kid really threw us for a loop financially and we're just starting to get back to normal.

Yeah, my spelling sucks. Whatever.

Surprisingly, I actually spend more on food then rent. I've really been trying to bulk up and put on weight for various activities I want to do.

Followup question (I should have asked initially) but what of savings do people split between stocks and mutual funds? After 401k/ESPP/IRA, I was 100% invested in stocks (no bonds, CD's, etc) but I've been too preoccupied with other things in life since I finished school that I haven't had a lot of time, and I'm starting to hand over my investments to a financial advisor... I'm trying to also figure out what a good split is between me managing my own stocks, and a financial advisor picking my mutual funds. I'm thinking 50/50 to start... but I dunno what a good way of figuring this out is.

[Buff]

Probably not enough.

[DownhillGoat]

Originally Posted by Phanuthier

I'm trying to also figure out what a good split is between me managing my own stocks, and a financial advisor picking my mutual funds.

Just out of curiosity, why have the advisor only pick your funds? Why not go completely advisor managed or completely self-managed. Personally I'd rather have an advisor picking my stocks than my funds.

Anyway, as far as the split, here's what I do:

At work if I throw in 10% of my cheque into a savings account they match X%.

My 10% I do 50/50 funds and stocks.
Work X% gets divided 75 funds/25 stocks.

I guess it really boils down to what you're doing with the savings. If you're looking to make cash by paying attention to the markets and jumping in and out, go stocks. If you're looking for a long term couch potato type investment I'd go funds.

As far as your initial question, for the last year on average I've been saving around 40-50% of my cheques for short term goals in a TFSA or high-interest savings account (home renos, trips, etc.). That's probably going to drop as I'd rather pay down my mortgage as soon as possible. 10% goes into long term savings, 11% (part of which is from my employer) goes strictly to retirement savings.

[bubbsy]

12% to rrsp
18% to mortgage/tax/condo fees
25% paying down debt (student and credit cards post marriage) this completes in 2-3 months thank God!!!
25% on food and bills

where the remaining 20% is what the wife and i are trying to figure out. I signed up for mint.ca a while back, but too much gets left "uncategorized" and editting that is too tedious, especially if you want to average out trends over several months or the year, as well as not being able to remember what all cash withdrawls are used for. we've decided that come sep1, we will do the old paper and pen approach on all transactions equating to over 5 bux to get a real understanding of our household budget in place.

[Phanuthier]

Originally Posted by kunkstyle

Just out of curiosity, why have the advisor only pick your funds? Why not go completely advisor managed or completely self-managed. Personally I'd rather have an advisor picking my stocks than my funds.

I understand stocks and I'm pretty confident about decisions I make. I just have an adviser because (1) I'm becoming busy in life, that I haven't had time to follow all my holdings, let alone find other opportunities I want to invest in, and (2) I don't understand MF's and since my 401k is forced to be in MF's I want someone else telling me what to invest in.

[Robotic]

14% into RRSP and 28% into my savings for a down deposit.

[3 Justin 3]

Right now I owe the bank money for a loan, I owe my buddy some money, I owe my dad money, I owe my mom money, I owe money on my credit card. So I am saving 0%.

Hopefully I get out of debt hell by Christmas.

[worth]

I just looked at my spreadsheet, I save approximately 29% of my paycheck per month after tax.

[Deegee]

I save about 15% of after tax income.

Would love to save more, but I support my wife and son on my income alone. She`s waiting for kids to run a daycare and we plan to put 50% of her net wage on the Mortgage for additional savings and the rest will be put into a liquid savings for vacations and stuff like that, which we currently don`t do very often.

[Flames Fan, Ph.D.]

Originally Posted by Phanuthier

I understand stocks and I'm pretty confident about decisions I make. I just have an adviser because (1) I'm becoming busy in life, that I haven't had time to follow all my holdings, let alone find other opportunities I want to invest in, and (2) I don't understand MF's and since my 401k is forced to be in MF's I want someone else telling me what to invest in.

I'd stay away from an advisor.

401ks are rather easy to allocate and don't require frequent tinkering imo. I allocate 20% for a bond fund (i've been heavier for a while since rates are dropping and won't rise for a while) and then the remaining to a dividend paying large cap fund, an energy fund, a corporate / convertible bond fund, a healthcare fund, and a small / mid-cap fund. If I have guessed your age range correctly (27-30), then you can bias a little less to bonds if you'd like.

For the most part it's no point to invest in too many funds since their holdings overlap. Find a couple of sectors that will be beneficiaries of increasing demographics (for me, that's healthcare and energy) and then the rest can be in profitable / dividend paying funds. You'll do well in the long run.

I think the money spent on an advisor would just be wasted. They're going to take an annual cut and possibly a cut per re-allocation / transaction... all wasted expenses imo. The benefits of starting your savings early far outweighs any advantage an advisor may provide.

[Torture]

3% to a TFSA and I'll be bumping that up to 5% within a couple pay periods. Anything left after all the discretionary spending (Read: Beer) goes to my student loan. Soon as I'm done with the student loan I'll bump up my contributions.
Even at 3-5% I'm well ahead of the game...time and compounding interest are very much on my side.

I've still got about 6 months to go before I'm eligible for a company match..despite the fact that I work with other people's pensions and savings every day

Choosing funds is fairly straight forward especially if you're doing it with a group plan as there won't be a million options. Just make sure that you diversify the asset classes, regions, industries, etc. If you're young generally you can handle more risk so go with more equities, as you get older move to less risky assets such as bonds.
Look for lower management fees as those eat up a good chunk of your earnings and there's debate as to whether it's even worth it to be in an actively managed fund.

where the remaining 20% is what the wife and i are trying to figure out. I signed up for mint.ca a while back, but too much gets left "uncategorized" and editting that is too tedious, especially if you want to average out trends over several months or the year, as well as not being able to remember what all cash withdrawls are used for. we've decided that come sep1, we will do the old paper and pen approach on all transactions equating to over 5 bux to get a real understanding of our household budget in place.

I kind of agree...I was a little disappointed with Mint. I still use it as it's an easy way to get the whole picture and an idea of what you're spending but it has a difficult time with some things...

[THE SCUD]

Originally Posted by Torture

3% to a TFSA and I'll be bumping that up to 5% within a couple pay periods. Anything left after all the discretionary spending (Read: Beer) goes to my student loan. Soon as I'm done with the student loan I'll bump up my contributions.
Even at 3-5% I'm well ahead of the game...time and compounding interest are very much on my side.

I've still got about 6 months to go before I'm eligible for a company match..despite the fact that I work with other people's pensions and savings every day

Choosing funds is fairly straight forward especially if you're doing it with a group plan as there won't be a million options. Just make sure that you diversify the asset classes, regions, industries, etc. If you're young generally you can handle more risk so go with more equities, as you get older move to less risky assets such as bonds.
Look for lower management fees as those eat up a good chunk of your earnings and there's debate as to whether it's even worth it to be in an actively managed fund.

Very good advice - I suggest unmanaged EFT's with the lowest MER or whatever some call it now. EFTs that invest in the indices beat 97% of the funds and the lower MER is amazing.