(no subject)

[eor]

derien and I sometimes lament that we aren't really getting anywhere financially. I think living in an apartment gives you that feeling no matter what else is going on in life. But the other day I had a bit of a revelation.

I was reading an article about US consumer spending. The rate of increase in consumer spending slowed in the last month (consumer spending never actually goes down!). I was curious to see if the savings rate had gone into the positive. A quick check of the government statistics revealed that the US savings rate is still negative and has been negative each month of the last year. The way that figure is calculated is gross income minus taxes minus consumer spending equals savings, kind of backing into savings, but the other numbers they can get easily.

I guess Americans have learned they're spending habits from their government, because for over a year they've been deficit spending to beat the band.

So, I asked myself, what is our little household's savings rate? We feel like we're not really getting ahead, but how do we compare with other Americans or the 10% "good" savings rate. I made a quick and dirty calculation, not the same as the government's: (401k contributions, reductions in debt, increases in savings) / gross pay to get a percentage. My quick and dirty calculation yielded 19% plus change. Uh, wow. We haven't exactly been cinching up the belts and eating gruel. It's kind of neat to think we're indulgent and good.