vania-janet/multiturn-rag-retrieval-data huggingface dataset:
The rule that I know is six months of income, stored in readily accessible savings (e.g. a savings or money market account). Others have argued that it should be six months of expenses, which is of course easier to achieve. I would recommend against that, partially because it is easier to achieve. The other issue is that people are more prone to underestimate their expenses than their income. Finally, if you base it on your current expenses, then budget for savings and have money left over, you often increase your expenses. Sometimes obviously (e.g. a new car) and sometimes not (e.g. more restaurants or clubs). Income increases are rarer and easier to see. Either way, you can make that six months shorter or longer. Six months is both feasible and capable of handling difficult emergencies. Six years wouldn't be feasible. One month wouldn't get you through a major emergency. Examples of emergencies: Your savings can be in any of multiple forms. For example, someone was talking about buying real estate and renting it. That's a form of savings, but it can be difficult to do withdrawals. Stocks and bonds are better, but what if your emergency happens when the market is down? Part of how emergency funds operate is that they are readily accessible. Another issue is that a main goal of savings is to cover retirement. So people put them in tax privileged retirement accounts. The downside of that is that the money is not then available for emergencies without paying penalties. You get benefits from retirement accounts but that's in exchange for limitations. It's much easier to spend money than to save it. There are many options and the world makes it easy to do. Emergency funds make people really think about that portion of savings. And thinking about saving before spending helps avoid situations where you shortchange savings. Let's pretend that retirement accounts don't exist (perhaps they don't in your country). Your savings is some mix of stocks and bonds. You have a mortgaged house. You've budgeted enough into stocks and bonds to cover retirement. Now you have a major emergency.
Assuming your all paid up on your taxes (very likely unless you get a good paying job and take a lot of deductions throughout the year on your W-4), you'll probably get money back from the IRS when you file your tax return. As I mentioned above, if you have a bank account, you can opt to have your refund money returned electronically and get it much sooner than if you didn't have a bank account (again, possibly saving you literal months of waiting). Should I save for my future? If so, how much? Any good articles? Yes, you should save for the future, and start as soon as possible. It's outside the scope of this answer, but listen to your Economics professor talk about compound interest. In short, the later you start saving, the less money you have when you retire. Not that it makes much difference now, but you have to think that over 45 years of working (age 20-65), you likely have to have enough money for another 20+ years of not working (65-85+). So if you want $25,000 a year for retirement, you need to make ~$50,000 - $75,000 a year between your job and any financial instruments you have (savings account, stocks, bonds, CDs, mutual funds, IRAs, job retirement benefits, etc.) Where you should stick money your money is a complicated question which you can investigate at length as you get older. Personally, though, I would recommend some combination of IRA (Individual Retirement Account), long term mutual funds, and some sort of savings bonds. There is a metric ton of information regarding financial planning, but you can always read something like Investing For Dummies or you can try the Motley Fool's How To Invest (online and highly recommended). But I'm Only 17... So what should you do now? Budget. Sounds dumb, but just look at your basic expenses and total them all up (rent, utilities, phone, cable, food, gas, other costs) and divide by two. Out of each paycheck, this is how much money you need to save not to go into debt. Try to save a little each month.
My perspective is from the US. Many employers offer 401(k)s and you can always contribute to an IRA for either tax deferred or tax free investment growth. If you're company offers a 401(k) match you should always contribute the maximum amount they max or you're leaving money on the table.    Companies can't always support pensions and it isn't the best idea to rely on one entirely for retirement unless your pension is from the federal government.   Even states such as Illinois are going through extreme financial difficulties due to pension funding issues. It's only going to get worse and if you think pension benefit accrual isn't going to be cut eventually you'll have another thing coming. I'd be worried if I was a state employee in the middle of my career with no retirement savings outside of my pension.   Ranting: Employees pushed hard for some pretty absurd commitments and public officials let the public down by giving in. It seems a little crazy to me that someone can work for the state until they're in their 50's and then earn 70% of their 6 figure salary for the rest of their life. Something needs to be done but I'd be surprised if anyone has the political will to make tough choices now before thee options get much much worse and these states are forced to make a decision.
"Yes you can do the withdraw if you turned 55 during the year you separated from service. http://www.401khelpcenter.com/401k_education/Early_Dist_Options.html#.VdMrqPlVhBc Leaving Your Job On or After Age 55 The age 59½ distribution rule says any 401k participant may begin to withdraw money from his or her plan after reaching the age of 59½ without having to pay a 10 percent early withdrawal penalty. There is an exception to that rule, however, which allows an employee who retires, quits or is fired at age 55 to withdraw without penalty from their 401k (the ""rule of 55""). There are three key points early retirees need to know. First, this exception applies if you leave your job at any time during the calendar year in which you turn 55, or later, according to IRS Publication 575. Second, if you still have money in the plan of a former employer and assuming you weren't at least age 55 when you left that employer, you'll have to wait until age 59½ to start taking withdrawals without penalty. Better yet, get any old 401k's rolled into your current 401k before you retire from your current job so that you will have access to these funds penalty free. Third, this exception only applies to funds withdrawn from a 401k. IRAs operate until different rules, so if you retire and roll money into an IRA from your 401k before age 59½, you will lose this exception on those dollars."
"Congratulations. The first savings goal should be an emergency fund. Think of this not as an investment, but as insurance against life's woes. They happen and having this kind of money earmarked allows one to invest without needing to withdraw at an inopportune time. This should go into a ""high interest"" savings account or money market account. Figure three to six months of expenses. The next goal should be retirement savings. In the US this is typically done through 401K or if your company does not offer one, either a ROTH IRA or Traditional IRA. The goal should be about 15% of your income. You should favor a 401k match over just about anything else, and then a ROTH over that. The key to transforming from a broke college student into a person with a real job, and disposable income, is a budget. Otherwise you might just end up as a broke person with a real job (not fun). Part of your budget should include savings, spending, and giving. All three areas are the key to building wealth. Once you have all of those taking care of the real fun begins. That is you have an emergency fund, you are putting 15% to retirement, you are spending some on yourself, and giving to a charity of your choice. Then you can dream some with any money left over (after expenses of course). Do you want to retire early? Invest more for retirement. Looking to buy a home or own a bunch of rental property? Start educating yourself and invest for that. Are you passionate about a certain charity? Give more and save some money to take time off in order to volunteer for that charity. All that and more can be yours. Budgeting is a key concept, and the younger you start the easier it gets. While the financiers will disagree with me, you cannot really invest if you are borrowing money. Keep debt to zero or just on a primary residence. I can tell you from personal experience that I did not started building wealth until I made a firm commitment to being out of debt. Buy cars for cash and never pay credit card interest. Pay off student loans as soon as possible.
etc. Now when you get your Paycheck you prioritize your money and you stuff it in the envelopes. How much you put in each envelope is easy. Enough to pay for that thing. Savings and Retirement meet different goals. You want $6,000 savings. Well just like that game in the kid version, you're not going to get there all at once. But you can see and make decisions on what is most important. You want $1,000,000 to retire on. Sure, but that envelope is going to take a while to fill up. At it's core, the important parts are that: Let me explain the rent example, as it's the oddest. You get $500 a week, and you need $1000 for rent. This means you're spending from your envelopes. During week 1 and 2 you're spending last months week 3 and 4. You DO NOT do: This is important because if you lose your paycheck in week 3 or 4 you are homeless. Finally, in general, you stick stuff in savings envelope. And you want to reach a savings envelope goal of 6 months of your average pay checks. Once you reach this goal, then you're in good shape, and a job loss doesn't mean you're homeless. You can always just pull from savings. It's important when using these envelopes to understand that you only make the decision of what is more important when you're sticking money in, not when you're taking money out, and that you only work with the money you have right now today (in your hand). Now what you think you're going to get tomorrow. Money in the bank can be split into virtual envelopes. Money in savings can be in any vehicle, but generally you want a short term emergency envelope (savings account) and a long term envelope (CDs for example). Take a look at YNAB.com they used to provide free lessons in using their software to manage an envelope system. And the I know it's going to get comments section. The rent v.s. homeless is a real example.
I wish I had started contributing to the pension fund offered by my employer sooner than it became compulsory. That is, I started working when I was 23 but did not contribute to the pension fund until I was 30 (the age at which it is compulsory to do so). I lost a lot of productive years in mid to late 90s, when the stocks were doing well. :-(
On re-reading the question, I see that you're self-employed, decent income, but only have an IRA. Since the crux of the question appears to be related to your wanting to put aside more money, I suggest you open a Solo 401(k) account. The current year limit is $17,000, and you can still have an IRA if you wish.
Rule of thumb: Invest in a tax deferred account only if your marginal tax rate is higher now than it will be in retirement. If you plan on making more taxable income in retirement than you do right now, then you should invest outside a tax deferred account.
I would say start now, its never too early! It does add up over time and even if it is just a tiny amount, just getting in the habit of setting aside money is great. Looking back i wish i had started earlier instead of pushing it back. There will always be something to spend it on  pushing it back whether its college or a car ect.  Start now and thank yourself later.
With either type of scheme, you can claim this pension after you reach retirement age, whether or not you are still working. In some schemes you are also permitted to claim the pension earlier than retirement age if you have stopped working - it will depend on the rules of the scheme. What counts as ""retirement age"" depends on how old you are now (and whether you are male or female) as the government has been pushing this age out as people have been living longer. In addition to both schemes, there is also a ""state pension"" which is a fixed, non-means-tested, weekly amount paid from government funds. Again you are entitled to receive this after you pass retirement age, whether or not you are still working."
"Age. Current marginal rate. Total saved so far. Current rate of savings. Joint or single filer. These are among the variables that go into making this decision. Without this, my answer is a general response. In general, you have one marginal rate today. (Unless you happened to be straddling a bracket limit).  In retirement, you have your marginal rate, of course, but also every bracket up to that level. It can make sense to save today pretax to avoid 25%, knowing this money will be withdrawn at an average 10 % or so in retirement.  Edit to clarify to the one who offers comment below to the contrary.  The 2015 taxtable for single filer:  A single person has a combined $10,300 standard deduction and exemption. This means that if he has no other income in retirement, a withdrawal of $47,750 results in a tax bill of $5156. This is an average 10.8% on that withdrawal. It also means that one can save nearly $1.2M before hitting the 25% bracket in retirement. With the numbers I offered, the next $1 is taxed at 25%. In general, if a new worker starts by using Roth, and goes to traditional to avoid slipping into the 25% bracket, they will have a nice mix of pre and post tax money.  In the end, it's not a long term binary choice. Each year, you can decide which flavor or mix of flavors to use. You can convert from traditional to Roth each year to ""top off"" the 15% bracket, so you retirement withdrawals never push you into the 25% bracket.  Note - the math above tragically ignores The Phantom Tax Rate Zone caused by the taxation of Social Security benefits. For a young person, I don't know that I'd advise counting on this benefit, but if you believe in fairy dust, unicorns, and the like, you should be aware of how the government currently plans to tax you. This situation leans strongly toward the Roth. Until congress decides to use Roth withdrawals as a trigger to tax or reduce your benefits, in which case, just using a taxable account will be all that's left.  2 years ago, I wrote a blog post The 15% solution which walks the reader through the process of optimizing their savings from a tax standpoint. The choice of investments is another matter, this simply addresses the pre-tax post-tax issue."
Conclusion: Saving into pension and company share save schemes is supremely tax-efficient and, provided you're OK with your money being locked away until you're 57 (pension) or tied up in company shares, it's understandably many people's priority to make use of these schemes before considering other forms of saving where you pay into them from your salary after tax. Now, about this: I am trying to understand how much I should put into it Should I put money into these, or should look for another way to save (how will this work out if I go back to France or another country)? Nobody here can advise you what to do since individuals' goals and circumstances are different and we don't know enough of the picture. That said: FWIW, I'll tell you what I might do based solely on what you've told us in the question… First, I'd definitely contribute 6% to the company pension. This gets you the full employer match. That's free money (plus, remember the tax relief = more free money). If you're 27, a total of 12% salary into a pension a year is a decent rate to start saving for retirement. Actually, 14% would be generally advisable, and maybe more still – it's generally a case of 'the more the better' especially while young, as you have time for growth and you don't know what later priorities might change / financial needs might arise. Nevertheless, you said you might move overseas. So in your position I would then:"
I don't use a rule of thumb for this. Instead, I use a budget.  Throwing money into a savings account for the purpose of building a savings account is okay, but I only put money into a savings account that I have a purpose for.  For example, there are bills that come up once a year, such as insurance premiums, property tax, annual subscriptions and memberships, etc. I plan for these in my budget each month, and the money goes into my savings.  I also have an emergency fund, which is used in the event that a large, one-time, unexpected expense comes up that I hadn't planned for. I have a goal for how large I want this fund to be, so I put money in savings until it is built up to the level I want it at.  There are other long range saving goals I have: my next car, vacation, furniture replacement, technology replacement, etc. Each of these gets some money each month, which goes into savings.  I also have retirement savings in the budget, but that doesn't go into the savings account; it gets invested in my retirement account.  My point is that instead of arbitrarily choosing a percentage of your income to put into a savings account, think about the purpose of that money. That will help you determine how much needs to be saved, and it will also help motivate you to do so.
you can begin drawing retirement income from 401k, ira and roth accounts at any age.  the key is that it must be retirement income. you can't blow it all on an epic party, but you can withdraw a modest amount every year while preserving enough capital to last the rest of your life.  there are 3 common strategies for doing this: side notes: techinical details: roth conversion ladder: substantially equal periodic payment plans:
Your long-term saving targets will include retirement, kids' college, house, etc. Medium-term might be your college, or a car. Short-term might be a vacation somewhere or a new laptop. In all cases saving, then spending money you do have is better than spending money you don't have. I think that's the first takeaway of this truism. However, I also believe 10% is said as a retirement target. Retirement is very important and this advice is stressed by many financial planners because it's very easy to underestimate how expensive it is. By the same token, it's recommended that you spend 2 months' salary on an engagement ring, and that particular truism can be traced back to a DeBeers ad. I personally don't know whether 10% as a retirement target is sage - it sounds right but I haven't followed it for a variety of reasons. Please corroborate against multiple sources and apply to your own financial person.
"I wrote a spreadsheet (<< it may not be obvious - this is a link to pull down the spreadsheet) a while back that might help you. You can start by putting your current salary next to your age, adjust the percent of income saved (14% for you) and put in the current total. The sheet basically shows that if one saves 15% from day one of working and averages an 8% return, they are on track to save over 20X their final income, and at the 4% withdrawal rate, will replace 80% of their income. (Remember, if they save 15% and at retirement the 7.65% FICA /medicare goes away, so it's 100% of what they had anyway.) For what it's worth, a 10% average return drops what you need to save down to 9%. I say to a young person - try to start at 15%. Better that when you're 40, you realize you're well ahead of schedule and can relax a bit, than to assume that 8-9% is enough to save and find you need a large increase to catch up. To answer specifically here - there are those who concluded that 4% is a safe withdrawal rate, so by targeting 20X your final income as retirement savings, you'll be able to retire well. Retirement spending needs are not the same for everyone. When I cite an 80% replacement rate, it's a guess, a rule of thumb that many point out is flawed. The 'real' number is your true spending need, which of course can be far higher or lower. The younger investor is going to have a far tougher time guessing this number than someone a decade away from retiring. The 80% is just a target to get started, it should shift to the real number in your 40s or 50s as that number becomes clear. Next, I see my original answer didn't address Social Security benefits. The benefit isn't linear, a lower wage earner can see a benefit of as much as 50% of what they earned each year while a very high earner would see far less as the benefit has a maximum. A $90k earner will see 30% or less.
After determining your potential savings rate, it is important to spend some time considering your retirement goals. In particular, do you want to live on the same amount of money you live on today? Maybe more? Less? Less: If you plan on living on less than today, I would maximize pre-tax contributions as a first priority (ie, 401k). In doing so, you opt to withdraw the money in the future at a lower marginal tax rate. If you have other pre-tax accounts available, such as an HSA, I think it makes sense to go this route: The Same/More: If you plan on living on the same or more than today, then the Roth choice becomes a matter of personal preference if you believe taxes will be higher at retirement then today. For those in this camp, I've seen recommendations that say Roth should be approximately one-fifth to one-half of annual contributions (where possible). My suggestion would be to wager on the lower end as most pre-tax accounts can be converted to Roth in a year when you may be in a lower marginal tax bracket. Assuming your savings rate is 20% on 100k income, the one-fifth recommendation would be $4000 towards Roth and the other $16000 towards pre-tax accounts, such as 401k or HSA.
One opinion related to savings is to save 30% of your take home salary every month, split the amount into two parts depending on your age (29) one part would be 30% of 30% and another 70% of 30%. Take the 70% and buy blue chip stock and take the 30% and buy govt. bonds. Each 10 years adjust the percentages at 40, 40% on bonds and 60% on stock. Only cash out on the day you retire, otherwise ignore all market/economic movements. With this and the statutory savings (employment retirement) you should be ok.
The screen copy talks about disablity, so if you want to cut your leg off or so, this would work. Otherwise, yes, you can retire anytime now. However, you can only get social security benefits after you turn 60, and it will not be much. So if you have enough money around to feed yourself till you turn 60, and thereafter want to live on the meager benefits, then you can retire now.
"I have an idea.  Keep saving what you are and think ""Early Retirement"".  Work for 20 years, then do whatever you want 40 hours a week.  If your satisfied with your current lifestyle, start thinking of your bigger long term financial goals and when you want to accomplish them by.  Maybe you can accomplish these sooner than you think.  Saving to buy a house/property?  Investment portfolio?  Want to travel all over the world?  Family planning/kids?  I am sure you will figure out how you would want to spend it."