Savings
Savings Rate Tracker
See what share of your pay you're actually saving, counting your 401(k) and match, and what a little more each month would move it to.
Where you land
- 5%passed
- 10%passed
- 15%you're here
- 20%+$230/mo more
What this means
Counting your 401(k) and match, you're saving 15.1% of what you earn, $8,400 a year. On take-home alone it's 6%, and the gap between the two is the saving that happens before your paycheck lands. Each year of saving at this pace covers about 2.1 months of what you spend now.
The next marker is 20%. Moving $230 more a month would get you there. An extra $100 a month would put you at 17.2%.
The ladder is a set of round markers, not a grade. The number that matters most is that the rate is above zero and you know what it is. Raises are the easiest time to nudge it up, before the new pay gets spent.
These are estimates to help you think, not personalized legal, tax, or investment advice, and not a promise of any result.
This calculator turns your monthly numbers into one figure: the share of your pay you're saving. Enter your take-home pay and what you move to savings or investments, and add your 401(k) contribution and any employer match if you have them. It shows your rate on take-home, your all-in rate, what you save in a year, and how many months of spending that year of saving covers.
Why it matters: a dollar amount on its own doesn't tell you much. $300 a month is a lot on one paycheck and a little on another. A rate travels with you through raises and job changes, and it's the number to check when you want to know if you're moving forward.
How to use it
Start with what lands
Enter your monthly take-home pay: what actually hits your account after taxes and payroll deductions. If you're paid every two weeks, multiply one check by 26 and divide by 12.
Add what you save, from every source
Put what you move to savings or investments out of take-home in one field. If you have a 401(k), enter your own contribution and the employer match separately. Those come out before your paycheck lands, so they don't show up in take-home at all.
Read the ladder, then try a what-if
The ladder shows where your rate lands against a few round markers and what it would take to reach the next one. Put a number in the extra-savings field to see where it moves you.
Behind the numbers
Two rates, and why both count
The take-home rate is what you move out of each paycheck. The all-in rate adds your pre-tax 401(k) and the match to both sides: to what you save and to what you earn. If most of your saving happens through work, the take-home rate can look low while the all-in rate tells the real story.
Months of spending, not just dollars
Dividing a year of saving by what you spend in a month turns the rate into time: how much of your life one year of saving can pay for. It's the same measure an emergency fund uses, and it moves from both sides. Saving more raises it, and so does spending less.
Raises are the easiest lever
Moving part of a raise to savings before it reaches your checking account is the move that hurts least, because you never got used to spending it. Even a slice of each raise lifts the rate over a few years.
The math behind it
Take-home rate: what you save from take-home ÷ take-home. All-in rate: (take-home saving + your 401(k) + match) ÷ (take-home + your 401(k) + match). Months of spending saved per year: everything saved in a year ÷ what you spend in a month, where spending is take-home minus what you save from it.
Worked example
Take-home of $4,000 a month with $400 moved to savings is a 10% take-home rate. Add a $300 401(k) contribution and a $150 match and the all-in rate is $850 ÷ $4,450, about 19.1%, or $10,200 a year. Spending is $3,600 a month, so a year of saving covers about 2.8 months of it. Reaching 20% all in would take about $40 more a month.
One percent is one hundredth
To find what one more percentage point costs, move the decimal two places on your monthly income. On $4,000 a month, each point is $40. On $5,500, it's $55. That's the monthly price of every step up the ladder.
Common questions
What counts as savings?
Money moved somewhere you don't spend from: a savings account, a brokerage account, an IRA, your 401(k), and the employer match. Paying down debt helps your net worth but isn't counted here, and money sitting in checking isn't either, since it tends to get spent.
Should I count my employer match?
In the all-in rate, yes. It's part of what you're paid, and it's saved for you. The calculator adds it to both what you save and what you earn, so it doesn't inflate the rate unfairly. The take-home rate leaves it out, so you can see both.
What's a good savings rate?
There isn't one right number, and the ladder isn't a grade. Many people use 15% for retirement, counting the match, as a rough marker. What matters more is that the rate is above zero, that you know it, and that it moves up over time.
Why is this based on take-home and not gross pay?
Take-home is the number you actually see and decide with. The all-in rate gets close to a gross-pay view by adding back your 401(k) and match, but it still leaves out taxes and other payroll deductions, so it's a little higher than a rate on true gross pay would be.
Go deeper
The calculator gives you a number. The Banking & Savings Brick teaches you what to do with it, in plain English. And if you’re not sure where to start, the free BrickScore Assessment checks your whole foundation in about 5 minutes.
first the number, then the move