Interesting thing i found:
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At the start of the 21st century, that same personal savings figure dropped from a positive 174.3 billion dollars in 2004, down to a negative 34.8 billion dollars in 2005. The following year in 2006, that figure went down even further when it reached negative 102.8 billion dollars.

General economic principles state that consumers will save some of their disposable income and spend the rest. A negative savings rate means that U.S. consumers are spending more than 100% of their monthly after-tax disposable income . Other variables aside, the overall decline of personal savings (as has been consistently calculated over the past 80 years) indicates that the percentage of household savings has gone down to zero and is now in negative territory.
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Source: US Consumers: Negative Savings, Trillions In Debt, Negative Equity, Disaster Ahead « Chicken Smith