One question we get quite a bit is related to the fundamentals of saving: is there a magic savings rate? In the past we’ve looked at the ideal savings rate. There we suggested 20% as a minimum savings rate, with the caveat you should save more if you can. Interestingly, there are also some magical […]
savings rate
Asset Allocation in 2019
Every year, “conveniently” timed with tax season, we remember that DQYDJ is ostensibly a personal finance site. Let’s turn tax-frowns upside down with a post on asset allocation here in in April, 2019. Why bother? It comes back to skin in the game – a phrase recently repopularized by Nassim Taleb. In his book with […]
My 2017 Savings Rate
At DQYDJ, tax season has us recently rolling out our annual savings rate. The personal finance blogosphere constantly emphasizes its importance and demonstrates its impact on your ability to increase your net worth. It also helps show what you might reasonably expect to need to spend if you choose to retire. What’s My Savings Rate? […]
What Was Your Savings Rate in 2017?
We here at DQYDJ have recently been sharing some of our insights into our own personal finances – you can thank tax season for that. Recently, I covered our current asset allocation and Cameron his. Today, taxes in hand, I tallied up my savings rate for last year. In 2017, our net saving rate (dollar […]
What Was Your Savings Rate in 2016?
Don’t Quit Your Day Job… certainly mixes up the article categories, but at our heart we’re a finance web site. Personal finance or otherwise, that means most of the prose on this website boils down to dollars and cents. One of our annual traditions is to calculate and post our savings rate soon after tax-day. […]
What Was Your Savings Rate in 2015?
In this article, we continue our annual tradition of sharing our savings rate. We consider a savings rate to be one of the most important numbers you can optimize when it comes to your personal finances – all the strategies you put into play are easier with a higher rate, and you have more room […]
When Having an Emergency Fund is the Right Move – Or, At Least, Not Counterproductive
We’ve got a bit of a hangup with emergency funds on this site – we feel that the advice to immediately save 6 months of living expenses in a low-interest high liquidity savings account isn’t the best course of action for everyone trying to reduce their debt. In fact, the demand is counterproductive, in many […]
Savings Rate Calculator
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 […]
How Much Did You Save in 2014? (Part 2)
With my colleague PK writing about his 2014 savings rate, I thought that I would chime in as well. Using a loose definition of savings, where principal pay down of debt is included in the numerator, I have an after-tax savings rate of 53.42%. Without including principal paydown of debt, my strict savings rate would […]
Prize-Linked Savings
Prize Linked Savings (you may also see them called ‘Save to Win’ games) are an interesting take on savings accounts, where every deposit is ‘kept’ unlike in normal lotteries, but some proportion of interest is assigned to a lucky winner through a lottery. In that way, prize linked savings games hit our psychological love of […]