In the lead-up to the economic crisis, our personal savings rate was at the lowest point ever recorded by the Commerce Department. Just 1% of our paychecks remained after our collective expenses. Things seemed to change after the recession hit, however: By June 2010, our personal savings rate hit 6.4%. It looked, in other words, as if we'd learned our lesson. But this year, our savings rate started dropping once more. In September, it hit 3.6%, the lowest level since December 2007. If we learned our lesson about saving after the recession, it took us only a few months to forget it.