<prompt> Human: Its been a hard journey but Ive been increasingly watching my expenses over the past year paying down debt and trying to keep expenses below income. Today I realised it may be a good idea to keep track of my personal cost to income ratio as a way of setting savings targets. Last year I was 70-80. Im hoping that with a potential payrise this month and some further budgeting I can get this down to just below 50 for 2014. I am 28 years old and single. How about you PF?  <response>: This is a weirdly phrased question. A more standard version of this that gets asked frequently is What is your savings rate?My savings rate of income after taxes last year was a bit over 40 but this includes money thats being saved as part of a long-term budget goal ie., Im not spending it within the next couple of years, but this pot of money is allocated for a potential large purchase down the road, before retirement. I dont include in any short-term budgeted items in this figure. I.e., If Im saving money for a vacation, that doesnt count as savings. On the flip side, I dont like some people, count debt paydown as savings either. I should be able to get it close to 50 this year pretty easily, I hope. I know numbers like that get thrown around in FI circles a lot, but for any lurkers who are getting frustrated seeing people post stats like that, I know its not easy. It does require decent income and if youre just out of school, with lots of debt, this is going to require tremendous effort or not be realistic in the short term. You dont get there by just cutting cable and going with a prepaid plan or anything you find in rfrugal_jerk. You need to increase your income. Because Im probably a bit older than the average redditor, this number is probably not that impressive; Im actually in catch-up mode. 