Last week I read this post by The Prudent Plastic Surgeon, which starts out calling a savings rate of 20% “pretty much mandatory” for building wealth. I think this is a fine goal. He writes that paying down debt should count, as it improves your net worth (which it does).
I wasn’t so sure. After all, if your plan relies on saving and investing 20% of your money for 30 years in order to build up your nest egg, then using some of that money to pay off debt should, in theory, mean that you come up short.
As I was walking this weekend, I was thinking about this more and more, and was getting more and more annoyed. I figured it was time to bring out the numbers and see how this worked.
Continue reading “What Does Saving 20% Get You?”