Just curious, I know that we all live in different areas of the country/world but what do you think is necessary? We chose $10k. That would be roughly 2 months salary (for both of us).
We're at that point now, and are going to start building our maternity leave fund since my job doesn't offer any.
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We keep enough in savings to cover 3 months' expenses, and I intend to build that over time to 6-12 months. That's what our investment adviser recommended (and then beyond that, invest).
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We keep enough to cover 6 months of living!
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For me $5,000 is the absolute minimum to have in a savings account. I like to have a little more in there.
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We keep enough to cover 1 year of expenses at a minimum.
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We shoot for 8-12 months living expenses in our emergency fund plus a decent amount in our savings fund.
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We keep a minimum of 1 year of living expenses in a savings account, and a minimum of about $3k in a savings account just for house related expenses, so in case something happens and we need to grab cash to make a house repair, we don't have to dip into our regular savings.
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Our financial planner told us to always hold onto an emergency fund of at least $15k. I don't really know what he based that number on, but I think we could get by for about 3 months on that if push came to shove. I've also heard that once you own a home you want to have even more extra cash on hand for any emergency expenses.
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they say you should have enough to cover at least 6 months of living expenses.
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I'd feel comfortable saving 4-5 months of living expenses. Any more than that would be REALLY nice though.
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i think a solid $50k is good.
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Just like a savings account connected to your checking account? 10k.
All "savings" accounts combined (401k, ROTH, Savings, mutual funds, stocks...) ultimately about 3 mill+. We're talking retirement there.
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Around $10K would be 3 months expenses for us, which is what we'd like to have. Right now we don't have much savings, and it definitely feels tenuous. We're working toward paying off our consumer debt before we start saving seriously though.
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I agree about $10k is about 3 months for us. I would like to get that number a bit higher now with the baby and a house but we still have some small low interest debt to pay off and my husband trying to go to school/start a new career.
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We are like @tequiero21. We try to keep that as a minimum just in our regular savings account.
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We also are working toward the 10k. We are really close then we are going to start paying off student loans, which we don't have to do yet since we're both still in school. But it will be one less thing to worry about later! Then a house!
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We were just talking about this...we'd like at least 6 months of living expenses, but DH would REALLY like up to a year's worth, just in case.
ETA that we do not keep this money in a savings account, per se...most of it is invested in something or other. -
I'd ideally like to have enough for 6 mos but it seems like at least for me, not sure about DH, I have an emergency fund for 4 months at this point.
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Ha, I wish we had $50k in there!! We really should have started saving better earlier but we were putting money elsewhere - like 401k's and IRA's. We have much more than that in those, but we can't touch them obviously. For now, we have 4 months expenses covered. That includes continuing to put the car payment away even though we're not paying on it anymore. We are continually adding to it each month and not using any money from it unless we have a catastrophic emergency and need to. Births of babies are not catastrophic emergencies. They are planned.
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I guess now, when I look back on it, as far as living expense only, we'd have 4 months saved up. I was looking at income and not expenses.
Wow..... $50k. I'm not sure we'll ever have that in a savings account. I guess if we had that much I'd rather put part of it in our 401k, pay off our mortgage, etc.
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I have short term and long term goals about our savings account. In the short term, I want to have enough in there to cover my FMLA leave when I eventually go on maternity leave (not pregnant yet) AND enough to pay for a full year of daycare, or at least close to that amount. Our long term goals 5+ years down the road is to have enough to pay for 6 months of living expenses.. and college.
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wow..this thread makes me feel a little inadequate. We have 2k in savings. DH contributes to his 401k, but at 23, there's no way we'd ever have as much in a savings as some of you guys.
we're opting to have a baby before I get started in my career (marriage and family therapist, I will have my MA in may) with all the costs that come along with licensure, working, and child care. we rent right now, because the cost of a mortgage would not allow me to stay home. because of this, we will not have a super high amount in savings.
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@sorrycharlie: It takes a while to build. Don't feel bad. I wouldn't have had squat at 23. That said, we have no set amount. I just contribute the same $$ every month and hope we don't have to tap it anytime soon.
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@Mrs. Yoyo: aw, thank you. I like looking at it too, we just had to take 700 out for a car repair and I was so sad. although it made me want to pile more in, which was a good thing!
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@sorrycharlie: I agree with Mrs. Yoyo, at 23 I'd be lucky to have had $50 in my checking
I'm 32 now so it's a little different. You'll get there!
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@Mrs.VW: I don't mean "oh, good!" to sound bad, but...OH GOOD! lol...I keep forgetting that I'm younger than everyone else so I'm all, "oh gosh we're in trouble!" but putting it in perspective helps.
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Its great to have savings, but I dont think you NEED to have thousands saved up before having a baby.
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^ Exactly! I mean, if you're willing to accept lovingly used stuff, a baby doesn't have to be pricey at all. @sorrycharlie: Do you follow the Baby Cheapskate blog? It can be helpful.
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@sorrycharlie: DH and I are 23 as well, but DH is a great saver! Plus we have a lot in student loans and we rent (so no mortgage) but we do have a decent amount in our savings, I would say that it would be at least 6 months of living expenses.
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@sorrycharlie: 23 is still young! you have a lot of time to build up to more money! when i was 23, i had negative equity! (tons of credit cards and loans with no real savings). just make sure you have a goal in mind.
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We both just turned 26 and newly married so after we paid our wedding off we got serious about saving. We both are out of school with stable, full time jobs so are pretty blessed to have a decent savings for our age and the amount of time we've been contributing to it. No debt other than DH's student loans helps. Plus renting saves us money and no car payments. Right now we have enough to live off of for 6 months but we'd love to cushion it by at least twice that much.
What helps us is that 100% of my paycheck (I'm the breadwinner) goes into savings and isn't touched. We live solely off of DH's salary and refuse to dip into savings unless it's an emergency. It's nice to finally see that savings amt rise!!
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We have enough to cover a years worth of living expenses. I am a worry wart and like to have a sizeable chunk in savings, although we periodically drain it (in the past, it was the wedding, and then buying our first condo), and then have to slowly build it up.
It's almost time to find another new home since our condo is starting to feel cramped and so I know the savings is going to get tapped out again (and then I start to internally panic, haha!)
I feel sheepish to admit this, but we don't know anything about investing so we have no stocks or portfolios (besides an IRA and 401K)... plus I am very risk adverse
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Before we bought our house, we had a ton of in our savings. But that all went into our downpayment so now our savings has greatly dwindled. It'll take time to build it up again and sometimes I feel like we have no money! But my husband always reassures me that our money is in our house so not to worry. It sure was nice when we had a huge chunk of money in our savings account. I never worried about money once. But now it's all I think about. =\
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Ideally I'd say $50,000. We live in an expensive city. Also, we rent (not own) so I feel that we should have more in savings since we don't have a mortgage to pay or house things to fix.
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This thread makes me sick to my srtomach. I'm 28, dh is 33 and after everything we're broke. Both of us have been through a divorce and that is expensive!! When I was 22 and in my 1st marriage we had $20k in savings, we bought a house in his name (which he let go into foreclosure to try and hurt me, another story for another time). My husband has been laid off since October and we've drained our account (he's the money maker, not me). Fortunately my car will be paid off in a couple months and we can put that away in savings!
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@sweetchic: I'm also risk adverse!
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We have enough to cover 6 months of both of us lost our jobs. We have about 6K of that in liquid, easily accessible savings for emergencies. I don't like that 6K getting any lower than 5K.
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@ktgee04: I would love to put my salary in savings and live off of my DH's salary! That's ultimately my goal, but he needs to increase his income by at least 50% for us to realistically do that...
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We're saving up so I can quit my day job and be a FT photographer. Our goal for that is $30K. We have separate downpayment, new car, 401K, IRAs, etc. I'm impressed with the amount that a lot of you have saved already! We're about 1/2 way to my goal! It's great that DH supports me in this so we can continue to save!
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Well, we don't have a lot of money in our savings account (connected to our checking) but like some other PP's we have lots of money invested and in our 401k.
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