This page has a step by step savings rate calculator, which will help you easily compute your savings rate to compare to your own benchmarks, to future savings goals, and to the results of others. By following the steps in the calculator, you'll have a normalized rate for both a strict savings rate - that […]
This article will detail how to calculate your savings rate and emulate our method of calculating our own. We will show you savings calculations using a strict method which only includes the accumulation of assets, as well as the more typical method which also includes paydowns of debt. All our methods are after tax, also […]
A common financial topic begging for answers is whether to pay down debt or invest. Over much of the internet, it is encouraged to pay down your high interest debt before investing in a Roth IRA or putting money into a 401(k) above the employer match. The difficulty has always been in defining what, exactly, […]
No, you shouldn't ignore inflation in stock returns. Well, actually - when you go to pay taxes on a sold investment... you need to ignore inflation when calculating your capital gains. However, when you're evaluating your investment performance, you better pay attention to how you performed against inflation - considering that simply buying Treasury Inflation […]
We'll get to the point early: increased savings is good for the economy. The most likely forms your increased savings will take won't hurt the economy and will probably help it. You probably don't have to worry that your savings will spike the broader economy. What is Savings? Savings is simply spending less than the […]
This article looks at wealth drawdowns for American retirees. We examine net worth data for heads of households with age ranges 65-69, 70-74, 75-79, 80-84, and 85+. Seeing the average net worths of different retiree age groups gives you an idea for fund drawdown. Ideally, it also suggests a path for your own wealth drawdowns. […]
Editor: we updated this data for 2016 SCF data. Continuing our little series on American Net Worth secrets revealed by the Federal Reserve's 2013 Survey of Consumer Finances, I figured we'd zoom into a little segment of the population where more than a few politicians have made their careers: retirees. Okay, that's a big segment. […]
"I am a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it." - Thomas Jefferson Back in 2011, we wrote a controversial article with a not-that-startling conclusion: breaking respondents to the 2010 CPS down by income brackets, we found that higher earners averaged many more hours of […]
Savings articles tend to be among the most popular articles here on DQYDJ (as in our most popular savings article - our Savings Rate Calculator for determining when you can retire), but we often concentrate on our own savings rate... or at most the savings rate of America. When we saw a link to an […]
(Read parts one and two in the emergency funds series) In the first two articles, I covered: How important it is to be cash flow positive How to cover very small shortfalls with credit How to cover truly large expenses with different forms of insurance. The most important large unplanned expenses that could potentially be […]