I've always saved very aggressively, even when I didn't have any money. When I first moved out, I ate nothing but rice, lentils, eggs, and lard for several months to save a slush fund. Even today, I make ~15-20k USD below median income for my city, and I've managed to save just shy of 10k in the past year and a half.

Obviously the ongoing coat of living crisis is a big deal that needs to be addressed, but we also need to acknowledge that saving your money is unpleasant, and a significant number of people aren't willing to do what's necessary in order to build financial security.

My friends (I don't get out much, I only have a couple) all have significantly better income/expense ratios than I do, and have exactly nothing saved. Honestly I don't think that would change if you gave them all an extra $20k/year, because they will find a way to rationalize something into being a necessity.

It's not remotely crazy, and I have lived there. I had times where I foraged for berries and plants for food, and was lucky enough to know how and where to do so. That was a long time ago, before wages stagnated and inflation went bananas. I'm surprised more people aren't starving to death today, just looking at the numbers.

Financially, we are well enough to have my family’s needs met comfortably but frugally. Can’t really ask for more, though additional breathing room would be nice. We can afford emergencies and recover after some time.

My parents and grandparents taught frugality; luck made ends meet like a good job and buying a house at the right time.

We have a bit of savings I have in mutual funds because I’m currently too mentally tired and risk-averse to pick something with higher return potential.

I credit my success to some hard work but mostly luck. At the end of the day my first job was from a recommendation. I believe interviewed well, sure, but I don't think they would've taken my resume otherwise. I'm extremely fortunate to be where I am financially.

Shit still happens though. I lost my job about a year ago and was unemployed for like 6ish months. I had enough money in savings that it didn't really matter but it still sucked. One thing that has been difficult for me is watching what I say. As an example, some stupid shit happened and I feel like a company owes us ~$800 and another one ~$200. (Not going into details because they're irrelevant and I want to move on from the stress.) These things royally pissed me off. I still get upset when little things happen and I lose money. I hate it. It sucks. As much as I want to get comfort from my friends by venting about it, sometimes it's better to shut up. Because some of them mostly just hear how I'm able to withstand losses like that and that in turn makes them feel upset that they aren't. It's a tricky thing.

As for my philosophy, for the most part my wife and I have been able to spend within our means without much aggressive or intentional budgeting. It's only been since the job loss and her being unemployed to pursue writing a novel that things have gotten tight. (And by right I just mean our savings aren't noticably increasing.)

Failures? Well, let's ignore stuff like crypto and stock picks because that's just gambling. I wish I had started maxing out my 401k in my 20s. I started on my early 30s. Also, we used to have a truly stupid amount of money in a checking account. We should've put it into stocks (as in total market ETFs) earlier.

OH. THIS IS IMPORTANT. I WISH SOMEONE WOULD'VE TOLD ME HIGH YIELD CHECKING ACCOUNTS EXIST. Like, holy hell. I should've done that ages ago. I don't even wanna think about how much money I've lost on, especially because we kept a stupidly high amount of cash in our checking account... I still haven't moved it because it's hard and I'm lazy but wow wow wow. This is stupidly important. The reason savings accounts are annoying so because it's a little harder to get to your cash. But a checking account with interest? Hot damn.

Lastly, I've never had a credit card. It's been fine but it would've been nice to get the tiny marginal benefits of cash back and stuff.

After school I had one week of cash left when I got my first job. I moved to a tiny town to work in the mining industry. Pay to cost of living is very good. I've always been careful with money and dislike shopping.

I save about 50% annual income. This is piled up in various investments. I can retire before 40.

I have about 1 year worth of expenses in cash I can access tomorrow. I try to keep at least 3 months but I'm squirreling away extra for known upcoming expenses.

I have enough in my emergency fund that if I lost my job I'd be ok for about a year.

I'm nearly to my goal, after that I'm going to change my focus to expanding my portfolio.

Still no way I can buy a house though. Need to make about 3x more money for that to happen.

I credit it to having a property owner that's kept rent cheap and having low overhead, and being frugal borderline cheap.

I'm doing well, but the job is sucking my will to live, and I think about quitting and going to work in a bakery or farm every day

Not sure if youre only asking Americans, but in case this is for everyone:

I'm doing pretty well.
Could probably scrape by for a year if my wife and I both lost our jobs.

Mainly lucked into success:
My boss from a summer job when I was in college knew the boss of an internship I was applying for, and put in a good word for me.
They hired me upon graduation, but went under shortly after, however a large company was on a hiring spree right at that time and I landed a job there with a hefty pay bump.
Then I got laid off there right as a local startup was on a hiring spree to increase their valuation because they were looking to be acquired by a major high-tech company, and they hired me, again with a hefty pay bump.
They got acquired, and I started working on a team based on San Francisco. Because wages here were so much lower than the bay area, they were throwing raises at me because it was pennies to them.
I've been there for over 10 years.

As long as AI doesn't make my job redundant, I'll be good for the foreseeable future.

Better than ever. But I hate my job with a deep and burning passion, and I'm pretty deeply burnt out. So I'm not sure what to do. I'm worried that I won't be able to find anything that pays as well.

Not great, but I might be able to cover a grand in an emergency.

Could be better.

I get job contracts for a few months at a time. Sometimes there are months when I'm unemployed, and those are hard on my savings. I used to do just fine, but this year has been very difficult and my normal savings are pretty much gone. (I still got some in funds/investments though.) So basically, I had a buffer but I had to use it, and now I have nothing. I guess it's because of the rise in prices? I don't "waste" money on frivolous things like I might have in the past, but it's only getting more and more difficult. Add to this student loans. I wouldn't have €1000 to spare for an unexpected expense. I am really angry at society, to be honest. If the job market wasn't so ass, I wouldn't have to deal with these short contracts.

Maybe it helps to understand it when you think of it from the perspective that those $1000 expenses do happen, they're not just hypothetical. But being able to cope with an event like that leaves you less able to handle a second one, and a third one

Couple that with the fact that I'm the US there is very little financial education so what might be an expected event for one person surprises another. Imagine living with a roommate and not realizing that to move into your own place involves coming up with first and last month rent, deposit, hook up fees, renters insurance, furniture, kitchen supplies, toiletries, etc... None of those should be unexpected, but also why would you expect them if you didn't happen to run into them before?

Basically no amount of saving accounts for an expense that takes it all, and it's then followed up by another one right after. And for some people those events are small and happen so quickly you never catch up and now you have late fees and interest and stress.

I have 1k euro left. No job, 35 years old. I wanna kill myself sometimes.

No debts, but I burned through all my work coping mechanisms on the way to paying them off, burned out badly and now I can barely look after myself, let alone do things for someone else.

Luckily, if you can call it luck, at least one of the benefits agencies of my country (can't really say government as they don't change much if at all when the government does) agrees with my self-assessment and is providing me a pittance to live on. If I still had a mortgage (or rent) though, I'd be f--ked. Then again maybe I'd qualify for some other kind of assistance. I don't exactly want to have to find out.

One of the other agencies largely implied that all I needed was a nagging wife and I'd be A-OK. Yeah, no, that's not how mental illness works. Pretty sure at least one of us would end up in the ground. Probably just me, because I don't think I could bring myself to harm anyone else.

But, to drag this back on topic, I have some funds put by for emergencies, which might cover me a couple of times. After that, well, I try not to think about it.

It is crazy given my healthcare costs are 2k. I pretty much have a monthly nut of 6k and my wife and I do not live a lavish lifestyle oh and I won't be able to work much more before I will have to figure out retirement. I will be in ruin if I can't produce thousands a month.

Am early in my career. no debts out of college due to lots of scholarships and a bit of hwlp from my grandparents helped a lot. Bought a house, have a wife in grad school so pretty much just living off of one paycheck. Had to cover a 10k roof replacement last year which sucked, but am back up to about 25k saved up should I lose my job or face another major expense.

I am pretty frugal in general but spend money on a hobby every once in a while. Not into drinking or any legal or illegal drugs so that has peobably saved me thousands of dollars too at this point.

Started paying off debt, saving, and investing consistently over 25 years ago. It has really worked out, and my wife and I are more financially secure than most. Even still, we're one health crisis away from potential bankruptcy, because we live in the United States.

Barely surviving, but not from everyday expenses. Got two kids in college and this year FAFSA decided not to give any help to anyone so all expenses are on me.

every time I read one of those statistics, I feel the same way.

I'm doing very well relative to that statistic.

I live fairly simply, but I don't consider myself particularly frugal.

I like traveling, learning, eating, watching and reading stuff, and making things, which are all pretty cheap interests.

If I were to credit anything with my financial success, it would be a practiced awareness of financial opportunity and persistently learning about and attempting every viable opportunity I'm interested in to gain a practical knowledge of cost-benefit streams.

I've tried many ways to make money and work less, and some of them worked out.

I'm traveling this year, so I save most of my income, and with the IRS' FEIE I don't pay income tax(up to 120k).

I have a few investments and some ten thousands accruing interest.

i don't have immediate plans, but I want to buy some land at some point, basically so I have more area to build stuff and make stuff, sign up for cryonics and get a new electric bike or the Aptera if it every goes into production.

c'mon aptera.