I’ve never thought of savings in terms of setting a target amount per month. Instead, I’ve always targetted my spending so that it is at most 70% (though often this has been lower) of whatever cash I regularly have coming in. Any income I get above my regular pay is 100% sent to savings.

I budget assuming 2 paycheques per month, though I am paid bi-weekly. Off each paycheque I automatically withdraw a fixed amount to my shared household spending account and my personal one. All of this spending is around 65% of each paycheque (after all deductions). It includes everything from necessary life expenses, fun money, and travel to emergencies.

Everything else is saved. So, to be more precise my savings come from 4 sources:

• Automatic paycheque deductions for DC pension and employee share plan
• Everything that is leftover after the automatic deductions for spending
• 2 ‘extra paycheques’ each year (24 pay periods in spending budget vs 26 actual)
• Annual bonus