What Percentage of Your Income Should You be Saving Every Month

If you are attuned to your financial health, you may be well aware that personal finance experts advise you about the importance of regular savings. Savings balances are directly correlated to personal debt and financial security. As savings balances increase, personal debts decrease. If you want to improve your financial health and well-being, it makes sense to contribute to monthly savings goals. However, you may not know how much to save or how to get started. With a closer look at monthly savings goals and strategies, you can better determine how to allocate your funds.

How Much Money Should You Save Every Month?

One of the primary questions people ask regarding saving money is how much money should you save every month. The answer to this question varies substantially from person to person. Some people who start saving early may be comfortable saving ten percent of their income per month. If you start later in life, you may need to save 20 to 30 percent or more of your income each month. Many people initially save money in an emergency fund, and it is wise to have at least six to eight months’ of personal expenses saved in this account. After funding this account, many people then save money for retirement. Therefore, your financial need for an emergency fund as well as the number of years you have until retirement and your desired lifestyle in retirement will all play a role in how much money you should be saving each month.

Why Saving Early and Regularly Is So Important

The unfortunate reality is that saving money requires regular effort and a lot of hard work. You may have heard that starting to save early and regularly is important. However, you may be wondering why saving early and regularly is so important. You may need to save thousands of dollars in your emergency fund before you even start to think about retirement savings. It can take many months to save up that amount of money, depending on your current financial situation. The earlier you get started, the more money you will have later in life. More than that, when you save and invest early, you can benefit from compounded interest and dividend re-investments. These are ways to make your money work for you.

How to Start Saving More Money

The first step to save money is to determine your financial goals. As a starting point, determine how much money you want to save in an emergency fund. Then, allocate a portion of your monthly budget toward savings. Set up an automated account transfer that moves money into your savings account on a regular basis. Over time, you will see this balance grow. When it is at the desired level, re-allocate your monthly savings contributions into a retirement account. While getting started with a savings and investment plan can be frustrating, it can be one of the best steps you can take to set yourself on a path for improved financial security. Take time today to analyze your current personal finance status as well as your financial goals. By doing so, you can develop great savings plan to follow in the coming years.

Philanthropy Today: Bigger Gifts Given to Smaller Regions

The early 1980s ushered in a second Gilded Age, which resulted in the minting of a number of new millionaires and billionaires in the tech and finance industry. Whereas once a great deal of wealth was concentrated into a few major metropolitan areas such as New York, Boston, Chicago and the Bay Area, the second Gilded Age saw vast pockets of wealth is distributed more evenly across the country.

This wealth distribution led to a very interesting trend occurring in US philanthropy right now. In the past, major philanthropic contributions have largely gone to charities and organizations located in major metropolitan centers. Generally, the same places all the wealth was located. Now, with wealthy individuals being spread across the country, more and more philanthropic giving is happening in smaller urban centers and even rural areas.

Distribution of wealth = distribution of philanthropy

While the Forbes 400 list is home to more than enough billionaires who came into money as a result of more traditional industries like real estate, healthcare, energy, manufacturing or hospitality, they aren’t all centrally located into a few small regions like days gone by. For instance, Colorado is home to a whopping 10 billionaires cloistered within the state’s small borders, while Wisconsin boasts 8 and even the meagerly populated state of Arizona shelters another 6.

While billionaires, of course, have more than their fair share of philanthropic dollars to spread around, they are of course not the only individuals capable of creating real change with their financial largesse. In a report published by Wealth-X last year, there were in excess of 73,000 individuals of “ultra-net-worth.” According to the report, “ultra-net-worth” was defined as people possessing liquid assets in excess of $30 million. While the largest concentrations of these people were still found in the more traditional affluent cities of Los Angeles and New York, there were plenty of individuals populating smaller urban centers in less populous states such as Arizona, Minnesota and Michigan.

This distribution of wealth goes a long way towards explaining how so many smaller universities and regional cultural institutions are suddenly finding themselves the beneficiaries of some major contributions and raising money in record amounts. For instance, out of the 20 universities that received the most donations in 2017, 3 of them were state universities in Indiana, Ohio and Michigan.

Small players becoming national powerhouses

North Carolina, in particular, has seen a steep influx of wealthy residents moving in. This is in part thanks to the developing Research Triangle centered around the Raleigh-Durham and Chapel Hill region, but Charlotte and Mecklenburg County have also become a major financial center. One analysis showed that between the period of 2015 to 2015, the population of Mecklenburg residents with an annual income exceeding $1 million increased by 27 percent.

This sudden influx of wealth goes a long way towards explaining why the charitable Foundation For The Carolinas (FFTC) has suddenly become one of the biggest philanthropic powerhouses capable of competing on a national level. Established in 1958 on the basis of a $3,000 gift from the United Way, the tiny little local foundation that could has developed into a mighty locomotive boasting a whopping $2.5 billion in assets in 2017.

New strategies for the 21st Century

Some of this is due to the influx of wealth into the region but it also has to do with the strategy the foundation has used for getting that wealth in the door. About 5 years ago, the funder strayed from seeking the traditional donations of cash, stocks and real-estate and instead began to focus on local business owners who wanted to help their communities while still running their businesses. One example of this is a developer from Charlotte who started a sub-foundation through FFTC called the Crossland Foundation that is subsidized through the profits from his business.

Subsidiary foundations are making a huge difference, but not just with aging donors looking to make an impact before they retire or a way to contribute after retirement. Even young companies like MapAnything are creating small subsidiary foundations and pledging percentages of their equity to them. In 2017, nearly 29,000 grants were issued by the FFTC, with more than $420 million of funding going out the door. Their assets gained them a 6th place position on the list of largest community foundations, but their grants and contributions earned them a 2nd place on that list.

Small regional affiliate foundations help distribute grants and funding

Part of their success lies in their system of distributing resources via 13 regional affiliate foundations that concentrate their efforts on smaller cities and counties throughout the area. One of their most notable endeavors involved creating and funding the Opportunity Task Force to address some of the foundational issues that drove social tensions in the area following the fatal police shooting of Keith Lamont Scott in 2016. logan sekulow

Regardless of whether you reside anywhere in or near the Carolinas, the FTTC is a foundation worth watching. The FTTC serves counties located in both North and South Carolina and is one of only a few such institutions that can boast such a successful track record leading to its phenomenal growth rate. Grants are awarded in such diverse areas as education, animal welfare, disaster relief, environmental concerns and even to religious institutions. The foundation manages dozens of competitive grant programs in addition to the charitable funds of more than 2,600 individuals, families, businesses and non-profits.