<prompt> Human: My take home is 2,500 after taxes, health insurance, etc with a total 401k contribution employer employee of 500 a month, then I put 175 a month in a Roth IRA. So, is my total retirement percentage 500 175 2500 27. Am I using the correct numbers here, so 27 is the amount I am putting away for retirement? Im never sure if I use pre-tax or after tax numbers. Thx.  <response>: The number you hear in the news when they say Americans are saving X of their income is based on the way the Bureau of Economic Analysis calculates savings rate. Basically its net savings Savings from Take home pay pre-tax SavingsTotal income Take home pay pre-tax Savings. Your calculation is almost correct, but you need to consider the pre-tax savings as income. So in your case, it would be: 175500 2500500 22.5For more, heres a good article that discusses calculating your savings rate in more detail: 