How much of paycheck do you actually save?

So I'm in a fairly expensive city and I aim to save 60% of my paycheck. I track savings in excel and try to stay on target, but have fallen back a few times and had to over-save to stay on track.

Don't buy a Ferrari after your first year

I bank one paycheck a month and the other goes towards rent / food / gas. (Usually have a little bit leftover for other stuff). I've also started cooking at home / making overnight cold-brew which helped cut down on daily $10-15 lunches + $5 coffee.

I live in a low COL city, but I also don't make IB money either so it probably comes close to netting out.

I save over 70% of my income. I live in a tiny flat which cost less half that of your standard LA one bedroom. I can cook well so barely any food expense. Aside from my watches, I barely spend any money. I satisfy my urge to buy stuff by buying stock and bond, an extremely effective way to curb my spending habits.

I get paid sporadically so I try to save as much as possible and live quite frugally given my net every year. Probably invest 80% of what I make.

Since you are asking about amount saved from your paycheck, I'm assuming you mean post-taxes and for my purposes I won't add back my 401(k) contributions...

• 27% - Apartment
• 23% - Discretionary (Food, Entertainment, all normal daily expenses)
• 7% - Vacation/Travel
• 43% - Post-Tax Savings

Hopefully as I make more that Apartment % will come down to more like 15-20% and Post-Tax Savings will get about 50%. Pretty happy that right now ~half is all my necessary living and then ~half is vacation + savings!

I live somewhere dirt cheap (Cleveland) compared to the majority of WSO, but get paid Wall Street base (but not the same bonus). I saved about 60% of my income, which went to my 401k, IRA, and general brokerage accounts. I can save so much because rent is cheap, $700, and I don't own a car, which saves me another $300-400 a month. I spend about $500 a month on food, which mainly is buying groceries at a relatively pricey (but healthy) store, and the occasional eating out. I actually tend to not sweat the small things, like a coffee here, drinks there, decently priced sporting events, but really focus on keeping those large costs (rent, car, food) reasonable. "Penny wise, pound foolish" is a saying for reason.

So many people justify spending a lot of money on watches, because they retain their value, even though they're not an income-generating asset. Did you know you can buy a high quality fake one from China for $100, no one will know it's real, and it also tells time?

This is pretty obvious, but it’s nice to think about your savings to spend ratio as “earning” retirement years. So if you save 66% of your paycheck, this means you spent 33%, for a 2:1 ratio of savings to spend. Since it only costs you whatever 33% of your salary is to live for a year, you’ve earned yourself two years of not work. Obviously this doesn’t account for investment growth or COL changes, but it’s a nice rule of thumb regardless.

I’m at a 1:1 ratio right now and hope to keep my living expenses constant as my salary (hopefully) increases. My dream is saving 75%... imagine having nearly 10 years’ worth of living expenses after working for only 3...