re: How much money should you have in the bank by age 30.

sales

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engaement ring

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Bad investment. Spend your money on whores instead.

It that take home or after taxes?

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Gotta be. That's the only thing I can figure. Even if they were making twice as much as I am, and I know they aren't, it still wouldn't completely add up.

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i have been surprised by the number of people i know who have trust funds that supplement their income.

I never had much liquid cash in my 20's. Started out at 40k/year as a ME out of college. Put enough into 401k to get the company match and used the rest to pay down debt of which I had a lot coming out of college. My family wasn't well off so I paid my own way through college with Pell grants, loans, a $1000 limit credit card, summer jobs working in construction, and Co-oping. I always bought shitty cars with cash and maintained them myself. Never had the 3 months in liquid assets that everyone says you are supposed to have. Didn't think it made much sense to have a stockpile of cash when I had debt to work on. Mostly debt free by the time I passed 30 maybe a couple of grand at any given time in revolving credit card debt. Maybe 40k in the 401k at the time I hit my 30's and a couple of grand in savings. I could have/should have saved more but I had some expensive hobbies like motorcycles, golf, beer, traveling, cloths, home theaters, etc. If I ever got laid off for an extended period of time I would have just had to take the penalties. Wasn't until all the debt was serviced after I crossed the 30 mark that my savings account started to build up. Could have/should have paid the debt down quicker and build my savings up faster but the temptation when you are in your 20's is to live life not save for later. Not sure if my 20 year old self could have done it but I wished I had lived more like a pauper like I did in college for 3-4 years out of college and got out of debt sooner rather than later. When you were a poor bastard like I was in college it's hard to resist the temptation of buying all the things you could never afford once you start pulling in a steady paycheck.

From 30-40 my savings doubled more than 3 times. It's amazing how fast those numbers build up when you don't have debt to service and you almost triple your salary since you started college. If I can keep up the pace I might not have to work in my 60's. 59 by my current estimate because that's when the house is paid off. The faster I can pay it off the earlier I can retire. I haven't been able to put more in the mortgage right now because of having to save for my son's college. I hope he can leave college without debt like I had to.

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people who save money in the bank are dumbasses. The interest rates don't even keep up with inflation.

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Such a fricking idiot

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I had about 5k but I had also finished paying off 92k in student loans when I was 29 and a half

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That is impressive if you really paid off 92k in 7 years. That's about $1,100/month for 7 years.

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Absolutely. I have 175k in a HELOC. I’ll use it if necessary. But if only had 175k LOC I’d be fricked 90% deals in my market

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Assuming you're making money and have some invested outside of retirement accounts, you might want to look into margin as well.

$15k in checking, $25k in savings, $40k in 401k and another 10k in a vanguard IRA. Own a home ($220k left of mortgage), no student debt, no car payments, but paying my wife's tuition for engineering classes. 27 years old and was laid off and out of work for most of last year and not contributing to any of my retirement accounts at the time.