How many percentage of our salaries or income should we really try to save?

I am a Certified Financial Planner and if you ask me how much you should save..i would first ask you wether you have started planning for your retirement... Starting early is the key. Generally we say INCOME - Expenditure = SAVINGS But according to me INCOME - SAVINGS = Expenditure... thats the way to go about it... try to save more and spend less and invest your savings wisely that will give you returns over and above Inflation and your Tax bracket... Think about it...

Good day Chiyosan, Indeed we should really know the importance of saving. Though I am not so sure how much the percentage is. However, when we save we should consider some factors as to what and where this savings will go after. Like for instance, we are saving for our retirement, so that when we grow old, we can still have an allowance allotted to medicines. Another thing, we do the saving maybe for our upcoming investments like owning a new house to avoid paying higher rent, if you are just renting. Well, to top it all, perhaps, there is really an ideal percentage as to how much we really need to save, but, as for me, as long as you are aware what and where your savings will go, then from this, you can set the amount as to how much you will going to save every month. Whether you will base your savings on percentage basis or on the calculation after you have do your purchases and bill payments.

I am from India. Habit of saving is our culture and tradition. Percentage of saving depends on stage of age. A unmarried person must be save 50% of their earning, after marriage it may be 33% and after birth of child it may be 25%. When children are growing exp will be increased. At that time it must be 10%

The ideal savings is always 30%. That if we include our saving for retirement and investment. In our country, we have this thing we call EPF (Employee Provision Funds). Our salary deducted for 11% and put in this fund and the employer will add another 12% which make it total of 23%. This money can only be withdraw in full when we reach 55 years old. So I can say that our saving for retirement have been secure here. Now we mostly consider of making our own saving for the rainy days. 11% deducted to EPF, another 10% to tax which leave it only 79% of salary. So most of the times if we didn't really budget our spending we have nothing to save at all.

How much do you really need to spend. Save the rest. The rest are wants. Once in a while, it is alright to treat yourself to some wants, but do it sparingly. If what you need to spend is more that what you earn, you really need to evaluate if your job is the right job to sustain your lifestyle. If you have worked long enough, you might agree with me that we have most of the things we need, unless we need to replace them due to wear and tear. Save the rest.

The term money is big problem for every one. Our life style is depend on our income. But we have to be cautious about the future because future is uncertain. By considering future we have to save money. But present situation like high price, standard of living are tends to reduce our saving mentality. According to me if one get $100/month and he has to live as he gets $75 - $80/ month. Why I told you this is because not only future but also our atitude towards our life to live luxuriously wil be less. We have to use this saved amount for further investment and live accordingly. As income increase our life style must increase but not propotionately. It will help you from danger

I dont have enough to save. We spend all we have just in keeping the necessities paid and sometimes thats not even enough. But we dont have any credit cards and just save for things that we need or special things for the house. I am really not looking forward to Christmas!!! I used to be very upset about the lack of money but not so much anymore because we have what we need and I am content with just being alive and healthy and part of my family.

It's imperative to have a budget and stick to it. The basic idea for making a budget is Do we save for the future or live for the moment? If you can do both then you are OK but for many it seems really stupid to constantly struggle and have no quality of life. Therefore, you have to get a better job or an extra job to afford what you want over and above what you need. Failing this, you have to cut out from your budget everything you don't actually need. You will be living very simply, not going out, rarely buying new clothes or shoes, no holidays, no fast foods, careful food shopping and so on. Just make sure there is something to look forward to with the savings you are making in your budget. You might be able to afford a holiday after all.

I guess we are all different when it comes to saving, but I have had the saving habit since being a child and have always put away as much as I can afford each week. I often decide what I want, and work out how much each week I would have to save, and save that amount. But I work it out thoroughly first, and always allow a bit of money in case of an emergency. _Derek

I think it depends on the income.If the income is less we can manage to save only ten percent.If we have a higher income we can even save fifty percent of our salary.If things are getting pricey, we can reduce our savings to forty percent.We cannot really predict the future as we don't know what will happen. I am very flexible with my savings.If my expenditure goes more than expected then i will start to use my savings in a wise way so that i do not empty my savings account.Nowadays because of inflation and recession there is a price hike in all the products.We should use money wisely these days.

in a budgetary requirement as per accounting, 10% should go to our bank to save for the rainy days. but personally, i really have a hard time doing that. what i did was to have a force savings. a certain amount is deducted from my salary monthly and it will go to my savings. i could only withdraw it after 5 years, but if i don't want to withdraw it, i could always have it renewed. it is so hard to save nowadays,especially that the prices of commodities are getting higher everyday. but it is also very important to save for the future.

Hi chiyosan. What I know is 20%. We should save at least 20% of our salary first before expenses (Income - Savings = Expenses, not Income - Expenses = Savings). Actually, 20% is very small so it should not be that difficult to set it aside. I've tried this and this is actually what I've been doing ever since. It makes me comfortable about spending my money because I know that I've already set aside the savings. Yes, things nowadays are a bit pricey but if you must notice, only those luxury items are the ones that are too expensive. Commodities may have increased but if we come to think of it, it's still fits the budget. I'm talking about a minimum wage earner here. But not touching all of the savings is also not a good idea, especially if your savings has become quite big. It's not advisable to just let it sit in the bank and earn a puny 1% interest per annum. It is best to invest it somewhere in bonds and/or stocks where the interest rate is higher than the inflation rate. Or in other business types. The key here is to SPEND our money WISELY and not indulge on things we don't really need. I've seen a video in YouTube before which totally helped me in managing my finances. It's titled "What the rich people buy on payday" or something like that. It compared the spending habits of the poor (lower class), middle class, and rich (higher class) people. In a nutshell, it said that the poor buy "stuff" on paydays. That is why when you enter a poor person's house, you'd see a lot of stuff -- too much wall decors, figurines, furnishings, etc. While the middle class people spend a lot on vacation houses/lots and the like which they don't really use often. And that rich people spend it on investments so that they become richer. Anyway, I guess what I'm trying to say is that it's not only through savings that we can pave our way through financial crisis. Simply put, spending our money wisely is really the key. Have a good day!

Nice question friend 10% is good because everybody cant save 20 to 30 percent because their expenses are more. I can save only 10% because in our culture more festivals are there and in many festivals lots of purchasing is necessary. In our house nobody are Govt. servant so future investment is not much more I think saving is necessary for future life because no body knows what will happen in future. May be Dr. bill will be more.

Hello chiyoson your discussion is good at least the person can think to save the money those not save any money still for future like me.. I not saved any money or salaries. Because my husbands income is not more and I have 2 daughter and you know education is so costly so it is impossible for me..

Ive heard different things about how much to save. That word 'save' sounds almost like a forgien word to me. First of all you have to be making enough money to cover all your expenses and have what is known as 'extra money' to be able to 'save'. Ive never been able to do that my entire life. In fact the few times i was able to 'save', crap would happen to take the 'savings' away. Good luck to you with that 'savings'.

I will share with you the thoughts of Jim Rohn, he was a teacher to thousands on all sorts of business and life related things. He said, if a person makes, $100, then he should give 10 dollars away to charity, church, whatever. And then they should give $10 to passive investments, which means into Mutual funds, rrsps, stocks, bonds, etc, give your money to someone else so they can make it grow, and then she should use $10 dollars for active investments, buying and selling and so forth, and then spend the last 70$ on their needs and wants. He went on to say, that maybe you can't afford to do that right now, maybe you are in such financial dire straights that that would be impossible, so maybe you have to start with 1 1 & 1, and spend the 97, but start now, and soon it will grow. When it grows increase your savings and investments and charity, until you are at 10 10 10 and 70, and when you are comfortable their why not give more. I thought it was a good idea, and one other thought, this one from Robert Kiyosaki, though I have heard it many other places as well...Poor people, spend their money and save what is left, and rich people save their money and spend what is left. I like those thoughts, sincerely and With Appreciation.

It is simply a matter of how rich do you want to be later? The more you save, the more wealthy you'll end up later on in life. I save as much as I possibly can. There have been a few months where I saved 50% of my income.

I fully accept your view that it is difficult to save in the present day.I feel one should set aside 10 or 20% of your salary.Let me add at the outset that in these days of difficulty in securing a job or getting a suitable salary it is a difficult task.We should compulsorily set aside a certain amount each month and start investing either in stocks,mutual funds or debt instruments.When this amount is sizable,we can buy a house.We can in the present day invest in gold or silver each month provided the conditions are favorable.I feel one ought not to touch the principal no matter what if we are to get a good amount at the end.One should manage his finances by spending only on what we feel are necessary cutting out wasteful expenditure.

I think you should have at least 20% of your income save in a savings account. The remaining 80% is enough to sustain our needs. Wants should just come afterwards if your self-sustainable. I know its hard to do it my way but it really works. All needs should be addressed first then after that if I can still manage to buy some of my wants then that's the time that I will buy some. Sometimes, I touch my savings when an emergency comes up but I make it a point to return what I have used. That way I will develop a sense of responsibility.

i really would want to save at least 10% of my salary but the thing is that i get hungry most of the time and so what i save if just about a meager 2%! i am trying very very hard to make my savings bigger and now i am not going to the mall anymore so that i can save. i also try to do mylot longer so that i wont go out and spend money.