Just genuinely curious how I'm doing regarding savings as I consider business school. I've done well in the markets by sheer luck of picking some winning stocks in 2020, but sports gambling has definitely cut into my net worth more than I'm proud to admit lol. For reference, I'm about to turn 27 and have ~160k in retirement savings (IRA and 401K) and $70k in brokerage and savings accounts. I haven't had any big life expenses yet at this point (ring, car, house, etc) and am considering business school so just curious to hear where others are at regarding savings.
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There was a very large thread about savings a few months back
25 years old, have ~300k across brokerage, retirement, coinvest, and cash.
Congrats. Mind me asking for more backgound?
Above street pay at bank, average pay in PE, but mainly just aggressive investing in what’s been a good run for growthier / tech stocks.
Did you get really lucky with stocks? Or were you able to save most of that from your comp in the industry?
Atm $600
okay stop SBing this. Seeing it again makes me feel bad cuz now I have $100
Have you tired starting an only fans?
.
~18k in Roth IRA, ~10k in RH, ~14.5 in checking account. Have about 8k in student loans.
Any reason for not paying those loans off?
Still in school. They are subsidized loans so the government pays the interest until 6 months after I graduate. Plan on paying them off next December unless the interest rate stays at 0%. 8k isn’t a ton, my parents wanted to make sure I was invested in my education.
First year with about 110k in cash / brokerage / IRA and 20k in illiquid (Rolex I got as a gift and a speedmaster I just bought)
Wow. Take my sb. Good work
What the hell a Rolex as a gift? I need richer friends
Got a big scholarship and was always a watch guy. dad bought me a black sub for 20% off (Local AD is a family friend) in 2016. Watch is now valued at ~2x what he paid. I worked 3 jobs throughout college (that I regret) but made decent money. This doesn’t include my stub which is about 15k post tax but I saved a ton of money since I’m still living at home
Which speedmaster did you get? The discontinued or the new? Hesalite?
New Sapphire
29 yrs old. 125 across retirement and brokerage, 25 cash. Used my own savings to pay for about 1/3rd of b school. Ring and wedding didn't help! Worked in AM prior to school.
Deciding whether or not to use this bonus to pay off outstanding loan or just keep the monthly payments coming. Next year's bonus hopefully will be used as down-payment.
lmao how you 29 and only got $125.
lmao how u on this forum and not know he means Gs
24, $55K for retirement and $80K liquid
I am about 75K behind you but missed a few bonuses
45€ Bank 30€ Cash 42€ BTC
25 y.o.
RIP
As in thousands? If not, RIP indeed.
20, 120k
22, $140k liquid and $5k retirement
update: 23, $200k liquid 10k retirement
graduated with 40k no debt, been saving up since i started in Aug, got a 25k stub a month ago, and dumped half my money in bitcoin at 10-15k
why so little in your retirement?
6 months into my first year and my BB matches just 6% so that's how much i have in
Around your age having just turned 27 after 2.5 years in banking and 2 years in private credit. ~$400k with $170k in 401k/IRA and $230k in brokerage.
What is comp like on the private credit side? Did you come from IB?
congrats
31: $1.5M net worth between PA / house / 401ks, roth, 529,etc. This is a combined figure w/ my wife since all of our finances are combined
Invested heavily in large cap tech over the past 5-6 years
Can I ask how you’re 31 with an analyst position? Just curious about your story... Thought most banks don’t hire analysts over 25.
I’m a Director. Never got around to updating that / don’t care
Is that true? Why would age be a factor?
Lol maybe time to update your profile “Analyst 1 in IB-M&A”….
congrats
Thanks everyone - appreciate the insights
I'll give a banana for the joshallenmvp profile name
Been getting lucky with trading recently, ~95k in investments and 10k in loans graduating this semester.
Damn those covered calls paying off?
29: $1.2M
Been in banking for ~7 years since graduation and now a 1st year VP at an EB. Had an exceptional (and somewhat lucky) last 12 months where savings increased by $500K (3/5 from timing the market for investments [not bitcoin or Tesla or anything, just buying S&P at basically the low and other tech stocks] and 2/5 from this year's bonus)
Nice. How much of your $1.2M is invested?
Essentially all of it - spend a lot of time (which I enjoy) thinking of ways to put money to work and obviously the last few years especially has been a great investing environment.
To the other question, same as the previous responder - have to hold for 30 days, no options, no shorting, etc. Also generally can't invest in names in the sector I cover
You can trade individual stocks at your EB?
Can do it at my EB with a 30 day hold period
Just a reminder to not feel discouraged when reading this thread. I'm a second-year analyst and I'm still paying off my student debt and I have about 20k in savings. It's likely that the first year analysts in this thread claiming to have over 100k saved probably came from a family that was well off financially. Not that there's anything wrong with that...but it's important to consider since they likely did not have to worry about any college tuition expenses or funding summer housing payments through part-time jobs throughout the school year. I mean one of the analysts above got a Rolex as a gift...my parents would punch me in the face if I ever considered buying a watch that cost more than $150 (I'm still grinding for that submariner tho lmao). Again, there's nothing wrong with coming from a well off background, but it's important to keep in mind when comparing numbers in terms of savings achieved early in one's career.
Thank you for this. Getting chronic anxiety reading this and thinking about how I won't have a positive net worth until the end of this year...
Yeah just calm down. If you are in a finance field (IB/HF/PE) you are extremely fortunate and your compensation is in the top (small number)% of households. Just be responsible but have a life. I had $80k of student loans coming out of school, took me a while to pay it off, many people won’t save substantial amounts right off the bat. It takes time.
Delete
Man, if you don't understand the investment side of buying a Rolex I honestly doubt you'll ever succeed in your career
In a forum full of stupid comments, this takes the cake. Pretty sure that is a better signal of not succeeding in the industry.
Yep good advice. The quantum of savings early on will pale in comparison to your year 5-10 savings and beyond in high finance. However that is only if you use your first few years to 1) develop good savings and spending habits and 2) understand your risk tolerance level and find good, sensible long-term investments to grow your net worth.
I posted a big number above but started similar to most grads with 30K of debt and no savings and a credit card balance. After year 1 I had savings of $15K (and some debt), after year 2 $50K (no debt), year 3 $150K, year 4 $300K and up to year 8 over $1M now.
Thank you for sharing this progression, and huge respect to you for being able to grow your net worth consistently and more aggressively after ~3 years of college. I’m definitely hoping to follow your steps - come from a poor background and net worth of ~$35k ($35k cash, car that I will sell soon for $10k, but $10k student loans) as a current first year analyst (age 23.5). Work from home has been very good for me financially. Unfortunately (but happily) have to help parents pay rent due to us never having enough to own a home growing up, so there should be a major expense in the future when I buy them a house, but hoping I can get to the $1mm spot by age 32.
Only thing is that I do sometimes feel trapped that I HAVE to stay in finance and chase after the highest paying jobs (with worst work life balance) in order to both help my parents and reach my personal goals. Moved to a top EB/BB a couple months ago just so I can have better exits to buyout firms even though I hate working with sponsor buysides...
Same here. But honestly this is what keeps me grinding - I‘ll happily do it for more years to come to see my relatives all set well
wow fuck me, i saw a lot of relatively young people have a shit ton saved up...you guys have tips like investing or is part of it COVID and not paying rent cause your living back home with parents
I'm one of the above posts but I also agree with analyst2 that it'll be a pretty skewed group of folks answering (already on a forum skewing towards top % earners, and those even on the higher end of that group are the ones wanting to post on this question). Mostly dumb luck for me doing risky stuff tbh with finally having money from internships/jobs piling up during this crash and incredible market recovery. If you were consistently dumping money into the markets last year anywhere you'd most likely be up quite a bit already.
I graduated college with about 7k from fidelity account my dad made me contribute to starting in high school. For me I've pretty much figured out I can live off of 1/2 my paychecks, thankfully in IB in a low COL city so don't have to worry about expenses of NY. But automatic withdrawals into retirement accounts of 10-20% and then throwing a few hundred bucks into savings accounts as soon as paycheck hits forces me to live off whatever is left over (essentially the salary of my big 4 friends), you might be surprised how quickly this can build up over a year. Now obviously there are more factors that can change this (debt, rent, etc) but reading all these numbers from 23 year olds with over 100k in savings sounds incredibly daunting and makes you feel way behind, but those guys are insane outliers. Start small and commit to a plan (simple as "spend less than what you bring in") and don't worry about trying to hit it big on investment gambles until you have a strong base beneath you, and the wealth will grow.
As an incoming analyst, this is really helpful. I am trying to figure out how to best distribute my income when I start work. Do you see a lot of AN1 putting more towards personal accounts or towards IRAs/401ks?
I think 100K is pretty reasonable savings to walk away from your analyst stint with (deduct any Student loans from this number). Hell Im in Pub fin and I should be able to hit that with solid bonuses.
Personal Timeline:
Year 0: -7K (Student loans)
Year 1 (Actual): 15K - (bonus not included)
Year 2(Projected): 50K - (year 1 bonus (10K), Plus maxing out Retirement accounts)
Year 3 (Projected): 100K( year 2 bonus (15K), Plus maxing out retirement accounts, Plus some market returns)
hopefully, becoming an associate and savings rate greatly increasing after year 3.
Correct me if my math is wrong. and yes I am probably very underpaid.
Edit: change Careers making much more now
23 in May. Have ~12k in retirement accounts, dollar cost averaging 25% of each paycheck, ~30k in cash, ( i know sounds dumb in this market, but the piece of mind having ~1 years worth of expenses is important to me, need to get a HY account though). Come august plan to dumb entire bonus and then some into index funds. Hoping to be around 100k by the end of the year if all goes well.
27 - $465k in retirement + PA + cash
26
currently in an M7 MBA
have a hair over 60k in cash + IRA, 80k in debt for year 1. will have 160k total debt coming out of school, but going from 90k job to BB IB associate so 250-300k coming out
Do you think it will be worth it?
Yeah I do. Its expensive but definitely enabled me to drastically upshift my career.
26; 2.5 yrs of banking (2 bonuses that were well-below market).
Received a full scholarship for school and did not start with any debt.
As others have said there has to be a balance, there was a kid in my class that saved aggressively (think never ate a meal that wasn't expensed, owned 1 suit and 3 shirts, lived in the worst section of town, etc.) He had saved over $100K after first bonus. He ended up burnt out and works in a $70K position now that works better hours but has no opps for advancement.
Another kid in my class would go to the club every week pre-COVID. Talked to him recently and he said he's amazed how much money he's saved during WFH. Apparently, he just hit $60K in savings (we've both made $350K+...)
As for myself, I'm at $180K before coming up on my 3rd bonus this summer. For getting paid what I've gotten paid (which is a decent amount below street) I consider it fairly decent, will be near $250K after 3 years off of just analyst comp. If you're able to live within your means you can save enough money to sort of make the lifestyle sacrifice worth it.
$100K 401(k)
$30K IRA
$20K Brokerage
$30K Crypto
.
33: 2.5 million. I’ve done banking my entire career and am one of the higher paying banks. I also invested very aggressively.
Feel fortunate but still feel like I need a lot more. Vicious cycle
what position are you in right now? director?
Yep
$2.5mm by 33 is really impressive. Out of curiosity, why do you feel like you need more / is it due to upcoming life events, fear of market volatility, comparison with others or some other items?
Driven by a few reasons:
- My growing disinterest in banking. I've been doing it since I was an analyst so I'm feeling a little burnt out. I've been thinking a lot about FIRE but in order to maintain the lifestyle I want I would need more investable capital. I'm using this job as a way to fund those efforts.
- Comparison is the thief of joy. As you become wealthier, you find your self in circles with people just as wealthy or considerably more wealthy than you. It can have the unfortunate (sometimes subconscious) effect of making you want more -- so you may never be satisfied. I've seen it happen to others.
Ultimately, it boils down to the fact that I want the ability to maintain a similar lifestyle without actually sacrificing my time haha. In order to do that, I need a lot more money.
Super impressive. What have you invested in?
Super heavy tech equity exposure, crypto currency and some residential properties
25. About 150k spread across retirement, crypto, and brokerage/cash. Almost entirely from living very frugally (I don't work in banking or even finance, yet so don't have a 'great' income) and getting lucky with how the markets have been over the past couple years. As others noted, I was fortunate to not have any student loans.
24
$65k in Brokerage | $75k in 401k / IRA | $10k in Cash | $5k in Pokemon Cards
Gonna have to liquidate that Pokémon cards. Top of the market
19 years old, 19k between savings and checkings, 7.5k in robinhood and 200 in webull. Currently working unpaid internship.
cash is trash
Yes, I know but not too sure what to invest in the market right now. Not too optimistic with future outcomes.
23: 80k in brokerage/cash/401k, 2019 car
25, $475k across 401k, brokerage, savings
Jesus how did you save so much? How much did you have before you started working?
I think I had $5-10k or so.
I try to live somewhat modestly, but its mostly just compounding in SPX along with getting paid very well. I work at a large HF, but probably get paid similar to MF PE like APO. Comp scales pretty well YoY.
26. $20k in cash/securities. About $50-$60k in equity in apartment.
Still waiting to crack annual comp of $100k, so feeling okay
4.2MM
2020-21 market has been very good to me..
Curious about how you got there. Looking to learn how to save this much.
Took some pretty outsized risks in the markets last year and this year. Was able to compound returns pretty rapidly by making concentrated investments in stocks that ultimately panned out.
1st year analyst - 140K
30K in real estate (down payment)
30K in bank
80K in retirement/brokerage
Did you have a 100% save rate your first year or did you have a good chunk of change saved prior to starting your stint.
I had savings prior to working. I was lucky that my parents were able to pay for my college, so I had no debt. During my internships, I saved pretty much everything, since I was underage and thus barely had any intern friends to hang out with (LOL). Right now, I'm saving almost everything, and the market has also been fairly kind.
WTF did I do wrong. I graduated with no debt due to scholarship, but only have 30k in savings as a 1st year analyst 6 months into the job.
That seems pretty good.
That's what I thought until I saw all these 23/24 year olds with 100k+
30k in 6 months is great. If you don't mind me asking, was that all from salary or did you have stuff saved pre-work.
Had some savings from internships then the 15k signing bonus when I started definitely helped.
2mm Doge
To the Moooooonnn
21 - Incoming SA. $5k in crypto. $2k brokerage. $2k retarded options account. $5k Savings. I’m broke
We all are.
got about 20k saved as a fresh in college just thru portfolio and job earnings, but who gives a shit. Username = ELITE
Honestly pretty good. I blew through my savings during school. A little bit of bad spending but mostly life just get more expensive.
much appreciated. was taught frugal habits by the parents (NOT high-financiers) and I couldn't be more thankful.
27.5 y.o. ~$170k nw with ~ $80k net cash/marketables, ~90k Roth 401k/IRA.
Honestly this is great and right where I hope to be too.
25 yr old analyst--about 400k across various brokerages and cash. About 250k of this was the result of two very lucrative investments (not GME) I made over the last year, so I wouldn't consider this to be a normal amount, just very very very lucky. Went into 2020 with about 80k total savings.
Mind sharing what those investments were and size?
The biggest one was a ~20k investment in a stock called Microvision. Went in at just under a buck, sold at a little over $9. Big gains for sure. The stock actually dipped down right after it hit nine but looks like it bounced up to $14 this week. Maybe I shoulda held lol. My $20k in PENN has also done quite well over the last year.
Almost 25 years old. ~$250k net worth - $175k in retirement accounts, $40k in cryptos, rest in cash
How did you save so much?
I'm honestly not sure myself since my comp is consistently below market. I'd say combination of low rent + not a big spender + living with parents for ~1 year during COVID. I'm not frugal by any means, I have no problem spending money but I just don't drop $ on cars, watches, tables, etc.
27 - 2nd year analyst in a product group, going A2A this summer
~$510k net worth
Damn Congrats. Seems like a lot of hard work was put in.
Im 20 in college. I have 22,000 saved
7,000 bitcoin
10,000 s and p
4,000 random tech stocks
1,000 cash
Honestly this is a great position to be in. I am guessing you haven't had to many internships yet. So your NW will probably greatly increase.
30 y/o SWE. 450k TC, 900k NW
24 y/o. Transitioning to finance and a developed economy.
Sitting on $12.5k cash after having spent a considerable chunk on my family of five for COVID-19 treatment.
No student debt, yet. This thread is turning out to be thought-provoking.
27 y/o MBA student starting as IB associate this summer.
-B-school loans - $110k
-Savings - $40k
-Roth - $12k
Time to start rebuilding.
Should be able to rebuild pretty fast.
Random question, If you're bank does not match 401K contributions is it still worth it to max that out or should you look to other saving strategies?
It's definitely personal preference/need (like do you have any big expenses in the near term like a down payment or wedding ring that require liquid savings). But I've usually done 10-15% in my 401K (company did 5% match) and then put additional savings in my IRA and brokerage. Everybody is different and some would say to max out 401K because that way you don't even have to think about it and it is just taken out of your paycheck. But I enjoy having more savings that I can invest on my own in my own accounts. Bare minimum you should always contribute to your 401K up to company match.
Thanks for the insight! My bank does absolutely no matching so it's an interesting position.
I'm old. 37 - 3 kids, Canada, MBA, CFA, running my own company now, ~35 people.
Net worth $6.5M, $500K in cash, rest in fairly liquid stock.
Own a house with $250K on the mortgage, renting it out.
Renting the house that I'm in right now.
What type of company? and what did you do prior?
pics
Its a tech company. Prior I worked as an Associate for a small cap fund. Built my network from there.
24 y/o - CD associate with some less desirable M/O roles out of school
- $80k brokerage
- $35k roth
- $10k cash
- $5k watch I don't really consider this "net worth" as it was something jointly picked by myself and my dad for a big life event and I'd never sell.
Savings accelerated a bit lately (though nothing crazy since I was relatively frugal before COVID). Anticipating another 6 months at home which should help add another 30-40k in compounded savings. Goal is to hit 250k total in the next 2 yrs.
One of the benefits, in hindsight, of being underage throughout almost the entirety of college (and not having a fake), is that you never end up spending 50 bucks at a bar and then 30 bucks on chicken wings right after. I would say of course that I probably didn't get to hang out with friends as much as I could, but I learned a couple good spending habits.
21- junior in college. Had under $3k until I got an IB gig for my sophomore summer. Now pre-junior SA, hoping to graduate with 50k+.
10k checking, 19k brokerage, 2k crypto
Depending on where your internship is/remote I would look closer to 25K saved. Unless you are working during the school year too.
No college debt, scholarships covers most other expenses. I have 31k total right now, live extremely below my means, and work a pretty nice part time job during the school year that is going almost entirely into my savings. Given that I'll make 20k this summer (likely remote and will live at home for free) and am keeping my part time job until I graduate, I should have no problem getting to 50k (?)
Just turned 29 - $260k TC and $475k NW (all CAD). About $200k in retirement accounts and the rest in brokerage / cash.
Comp is on the "low" side (has probably gone up 15%-20% annually so started much lower) but a good lifestyle tradeoff (MM DL). Paid off ~$30k in student loans a long time ago. I'm happy, only concern is eventually buying real estate in the crazy market up here.
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