The following article was written by the team at Morningstar.
Saving is an important part of any sound financial plan. In order to measure consumer spending and saving, the Bureau of Economic Analysis publishes personal income, expenditure and saving statistics, including the personal saving rate. This saving rate is calculated by taking disposable income (income after taxes), subtracting personal consumption expenditures, and dividing the result by personal disposable income. The saving rate has been generally trending downward for the past few decades. Recently, the saving rate was 3.7% in February 2012, extremely low when compared with previous levels. As the image illustrates, it would seem that when the market is in trouble, consumers get scared, spending less and saving more; the opposite happens when the market is doing well. However, even if the economy is now on the way to recovery, it’s probably not a good idea to stop saving.
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