Put me in the “I’m not really saving for anything” camp. No major upcoming expenses, and I leave reasonably cheaply, so the money is accumulating. I have about $15K in school loans, but I had the good fortune to graduate and consolidate them at a very low interest rate. So low that I can make more money on the interest from a savings account than I’m paying on the loans. Plus I get a slight tax break for paying education loan interest.
One bad motor scooter (2006 yamaha road king)
Sorry that would be road star
Well I save in general for retirement, but I am also saving in separate places for:
A nice hot tub. I have a hot tub, but I want a nice one.
A big screen flat screen TV. I only really use it for American Football, but I still want one.
A nice digital SLR camera.
I could buy any one of these if I wished, but I prefer to save for it. I put 20 dollars away here and there and when it gets to be big enough, I’ll decide what I’m buying. (It is currently around 660 dollars.)
Retirement. Venice. Emergencies. Security.
A new flat or maybe a townhouse in the burbs. Now that I have 3 bambina’s as well as the assorted relatives and nannies, the 1800 sq f place we have now is cramped. We’ll keep this place as a rental but have to come up with the 30% mortgage, redecoration fees (flats come with bare concrete walls) and two years mortgage payments in cash savings - it’s a lot of money and to do it today would mean liquidating all stocks and bank accounts. There’s about a 6 month gap too where I would have to pay the mortgage before getting rental income from our current place.
I would like to buy a very local vacation home near Huangshan Mountain, which is a national park about a 5 hour drive away from Shanghai.
Then I’ve got to pay for the education of 3 girls. No way I get to retire early
A trip to the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival with my knitting buddies.
Long Term: Kids’ College and Retirement
Short Term: Paving my driveway after 4 years and finishing up replacing our 45 year old windows. Maybe Lasik for me.
Jim
Long term: Retirement
Medium term: A trip to Hawaii
Short term: My Amazon shopping cart (currently 6 DVDs and 1 book)
a membership to the SDMB 
Also- college, a car, an apartment, health insurance, car insurance, and other things that will become essential once my parents quit taking care of me.
I’ve been saving for about a year now, have got about $8k. Now all I have to do is walk into a travel agents and buy a plane ticket. The only problem is, I haven’t the slightest idea where I want to go. I also want to save for some land up north. I don’t care how inaccessible it is, I want something that’s mine!
We’re Americans, we don’t save up. We just get whatever we want and make the minimum monthly payments the rest of our lives!
I just cleared a debt that’s been hanging over me for way too long. (Though nothing so dramatic as Tripler’s – way to go, man!)
Now I’ve got a comfortable budget surplus for the first time in years, and am on the verge of getting my tax returns for a few years sorted, finally. (Simple neglect and procrastination, there.) The nice part is that I’m pretty sure there are substantial overpayments for the years in question, so I should have a nice fat refund coming soon.
First up: A new computer. Then, a new living-room suite. After that, a house. (If things stay the way they are, I should be able to sock away $1500 a month, which isn’t too shabby.)
Small savings: new camera gear…would really like a nice 35mm prime lens and a 24-70 f/2.8 to compliment my kit.
However, that’s mainly been put on hold as I’ve got two large savings projects going on right now.
House
Baby
My wife and I are planning on buying a house this summer as well as trying for our first child, so we’re pretty much putting things away to have the cash to do both of those.
Well, according to your location, you’re already in one of the cool destinations, so why don’t you visit somewhere mundane and boring? It will soon be spring in the suburbs of Toronto.
Two words: College tuition
I wouldn’t exactly call it “saving”, but I have to live on the cheap because I mustmustmust have my credit card paid off before I go to Bulgaria next month. I should have more than enough to swing it (thanks to the three weeks of PTO I have saved up and shall be receiving in a nice lump sum when I leave my job), but you never know!
Add in: need to ship quite a few boxes of…stuff (mostly books, thank god for book rate) to California, and then fly myself to California, and then my friend is coming to visit me there for a week and I shall need funds to entertain her… and I’m a little concerned about my bank account.
I think it’ll be okay. I hope.
cross fingers
BTW, even sven’s list of things to get makes me glad Bulgaria has a climate similar to Chicago and I will be expected to dress “professionally”, so I don’t need to rush out and buy a whole new wardrobe.
I am a miser, saving like a motherf^&*er, caught by international laws about investing. With a bit of luck, when I move out of the U.S. I’ll have enough to buy a house outright. Or at least put down a very sizable down payment.
Heh, I live in Auckland. The least-cool part of my fine country. I’m thinking Mexico, or Argentina. These are both great options, as a) I don’t speak a word of Spanish, and b) I could fly to London for about the same price. I think England must be full of 20-something Kiwis pulling pints on their OE by now, they probably don’t need any more.