Refman in the D&D stated not many people have six month of savings to fall back on in case of something bad. He said a poll would show this, so I am starting this poll. I used to think it would be real easy to save money, but it is not as easy as it looks after these years (I am not counting IRAs and other retirement savings here).
Since I recently got married and received a pretty decent amount of money from my Grandfather's trust, I have about 4 months worth of savings to fall back in case of emergency. We've also started a budget that sets aside funds for our joint savings account.
About a month and a half right now, but that's pretty close to being gone. My wife's maternity leave is unpaid and her vacation runs out 2 weeks before she goes back to work. On top of that, our 3-yr old's daycare comes out of her check directly. So, the way it works out is that she won't get a paycheck again until August 30.
I think I could retire if I moved out of the US, but it is depressing being unemployed. I don't know if I want to put up with this for 40 more years.
My vote will represent the lower bounds of your poll. I'm lucky that I have one week's worth of pay, let alone 6 months! But that's what I get for poor money management during my college years. Now that I have a job that I can actually (barely) afford to pay my bills I'm slowly working on that bit. Maybe once I pay something off, I'll be in better shape to save more.
I used to think it would be so easy to save money, but with a House and all the various bills I just find it not as easy as I believed when I was in college. And I try to follow the old Asian culture of saving a lot. I still do not have more than two years saved after all these years.
I lied in my poll response. I put 3-6 months because I forgot about our savings account that is separate from our Bank. So put me down for 12 months.
maybe 5-7 months. but really i'd say more, cause if something happened to my job, i could live cheap for a long while i think..
LOL I just happened to be in my online banking this morning, right before I logged on, so that number was on my mind.
2 years of savings? How in the hell have you managed that? Do you put away 80% of your paycheck or something?
Paying for my wedding, and duing massive renovations to my new home wiped my savings almost completely away. I've only got about $1,000 now plus $4,000 in my emergency mutual fund. If only my wife would learn that she needs to do more to help.
I do not have two years of savings, more like about one year. I try to live cheap, we spend my income and save my wife's income. I do not go out buy much of anything usually, We do go out about once a week for dinner.
My wife and I were in the 3-6 month area, but in the spring we were able to put my entire bonus check into savings, and this was the first year my restricted shares vested, so I cashed those and put that into savings also. It makes a huge difference...
Same with me. I have more than 2 years of savings but if I lost my job I could go frugal and probably live off of it for 5 years.
