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For most of the first year of My Personal Finance Journey's existence, we were running a poll on the left sidebar of the site. This poll was seeking an answer to the question below:

What percentage of your salary do you contribute to your 401K retirement account each month?


In the course of the year that the poll was running, we received a total of 97 votes, with the answer distributions as shown in the pie chart below:


As you can see in the chart, the majority of people on My Personal Finance Journey save approximately 5-10% of their income for retirement each month. This is very good! Great job readers!

Second place was saving 10-15% of your income, and third place was saving 5% or less.

How Does This Compare With The Rest of The United States?


So, we were able to see that the majority of MPFJ readers save 5-10% of their incomes for retirement. Having established this, we then wanted to see how these numbers compare to the rest of the country.

In a study by the Employee Benefit Research Institute of 401K plan usage in the USA, the results below were found:

• On average 401K participants saved 6.8% of their salary on a before-tax basis. 
• So, it looks like our results above were fairly representative!
• The typical American household, headed by a 43-year-old, has retirement savings of $18,750.
• Yikes - this is a little on the low side!
• The typical pre-retiree household (age 55 and up) has a retirement savings of $60,000.
• Also yikes! I don't think this will be enough money for them to live on. 
• Save some Social Security benefits for my generation! Don't use it all up! :)

Thanks so much to everyone for participating in the poll. Now that this one has been wrapped up, the next poll (up now!) will be asking about savings accounts interest rates you all are earning.

In today's age, interest rates on savings accounts are going lower and lower, and I think doing a poll such as this would be a good way to make sure we'll all getting the most competitive interest rate possible!

For example, DollarSavingsDirect.com is currently offering a 1.00% APY interest rate on their FDIC insured savings accounts. On the other hand, Bank of America is offering 0.05% APY. WOW!!!! That is barely anything!

Let's all make sure we're not on the wrong side of that coin!!

How about you all? Were the results above indicative of how much you save in your 401K account? 


Share your experiences by commenting below!


Also - please share what sort of interest rate you're currently receiving by voting in the poll on the left sidebar of the site.