How old are you and how much do you have saved for retirement?

[TXHokie]

I prefer hard numbers like this table -
http://www.financialsamurai.com/2012/01/09/how-much-should-one-have-in-their-401k-at-different-ages/
Sadly I'm not near even the low end.

 

[Train]

I prefer hard numbers like this table -
http://www.financialsamurai.com/2012/01/09/how-much-should-one-have-in-their-401k-at-different-ages/
Sadly I'm not near even the low end.

pfft, $127k by 30? I think I had $10k at 30, if I summed stocks, IRA, 401k

 

[Red Squirrel]

Probably not as much as I should. I'm 26 and have $9,614.88 exact right now in RRSPs. Any other money I save is for short term stuff like house renovations, things I want to buy etc but what I should be doing is leaving that money there in case of emergency instead of spending it as I get it. I'm bad for spending money on stuff I don't *really* need, and should have built up a much larger savings by now. At least I don't have any debts though, other than the mortgage, which I pay extra on, so at least there's that.

Oh and this is not counting whatever I have through my employer. No clue what I'm at now. I'd have to check the YTD on my pay stub. There is probably a place somewhere I can check the total too. Never really looked. I'm not really counting on employer given retirement though. I'm still far from retirement, and by the time I get there they'll probably have taken that away. Seems each union renewal, we lose something, eventually it will be the pension.

 

[Elfear]

$0...I'm gonna get a government job and retire at 85% of my salary at 55 though so it's all good.

Not sure if serious...

If you're talking federal govt., that ship sailed a long time ago. The current pension (FERS) is only about 30-33% of your salary after working for 30yrs. You do get 401k matching but you'd have to dump in a lot to retire on 85% of your salary.

Some state governments may have better pensions than that but they also typically pay less.

 

[OILFIELDTRASH]

Is atot made up of smarter than average internet people (huge savings, supermodel wife, Ferrari) or is this a lot of lies?

 

[Rudee]

Early 40's. Paid off my house recently, so all of my take-home pay with the exception of household expenses goes into savings and investments for retirement.

 

[Wyndru]

I haven't saved much since my job has a pension. Hopefully I stay in the state retirement system to claim it.

 

[rh71]

...didn't you just say that your mom still does your finances?

what does that have to do with the ability or inability to do math? Anyone who has a financial planner can't add? Do I have to mention she's in finance?

 

[Blieb]

Avg age 34
Using average income over the last 8 years = ~1.7x
Using today's income = ~1.4x

 

[Jeff7]

I'm a few weeks away from 31.
As a multiple of my salary, I got bumped from about 0.366x down to 0.335x - from a pretty nice pay raise. (Bastards!)
But that's not including a decent bit of overtime pay on that base salary. :\ That'd drop me down to around 0.31x.

I hadn't done much investing until recently though. I did the 401k up to the match (50 cent match on up to 4% of pay), but only that. I saw the "Bogleheads" thing mentioned here now and then, and have started into the realm of low-cost index funds. Up to that point, I regarded the stock market as a very effective way of losing a lot of money, and little more, with a few extremely wealthy exceptions. I now have an IRA, and I've also increased my 401k contributions, though the fund options there are rather lousy. But, that allotment of tax-advantaged parking space expires each year, and you can't get it back.
I'm now up to around a 20% savings rate.
Once I get a (low-interest) loan out of the way, that could get bumped up to 30%.

Oh well, I should catch up at some point - unless I keep getting more sizable pay increases.

 

[gorcorps]

You got ripped off on that pc. Build it yourself and don't go for the highest of the high. You also overpaid for memory, keyboard, headset, etc. You simply like to spend.. that isn't indicative of the hobby. Why on earth would you need to spend 200 on memory after blowing an insane amount on a pc just 2 years ago? For gaming it simply isn't necessary... I game comfortably on a 2 yr old pc that I bought/built for 900 and I use a 24 inch monitor. Additionally graphic cards have barely improved over the last 2 years... SSDs aren't useful for gaming... why would you spend 150 more after blowing an insane amount on a pc? Again, your wasteful spending and inefficiency is not indicative of the hobby. You don't need to upgrade/buy new pcs for at least 3+ years nowadays.

Even getting games on release can be cheap. I got guild wars 2 on release for 40, 35 for xcom, etc.

You don't even know what I have, or when I bought it. I did build it myself, and I don't think you're reading the post right. I paid $100 for the ram (not $200, read it again) and 32gigs of ram for $100 is a pretty decent deal. I had 8gigs when I built it and was having a potential issue with a stick so took advantage of a sale. That price I quoted wasn't just a tower. I was starting from absolute scratch so needed all drives, case, monitor, OS, speakers, etc. The upgraded drives were for NAS storage so I had a proper backup of my important files.

Also, you're acting like I said you HAVE to spend this much. I never said it was necessary, in fact I even used the phrase "it depends" because I already know how much the price can vary. So quit misrepresenting my post, re-read it because you obviously missed some stuff the first time, and cool your jets pal. Nowhere did I say it was necessary to spend what I did, but I had the money and that's what I wanted.

 

[brianmanahan]

younger than 30, 3x salary

 

[brianmanahan]

actually multiple of salary is kind of a dumb way to look at savings success anyway. say you get an awesome new job, pays 2x what you were making. all of a sudden, you are doing half as good according to this! and likewise if you lose your job, your multiple is divide by 0!

i think a much better way though harder to quantify is (how much you have saved) / (how much you spend per year). when that gets to 20 or 25, you have pretty good odds of not running out provided it is invested wisely, and you can think about retiring.

 

[Engineer]

actually multiple of salary is kind of a dumb way to look at savings success anyway. say you get an awesome new job, pays 2x what you were making. all of a sudden, you are doing half as good according to this! and likewise if you lose your job, your multiple is divide by 0!

i think a much better way though harder to quantify is (how much you have saved) / (how much you spend per year). when that gets to 20 or 25, you have pretty good odds of not running out provided it is invested wisely, and you can think about retiring.

I can sure tell you that I spend far more now than I will have to in retirement (college for one of my girls and saving for the next one right now). My goal is to actually have liquid savings go up year over year while paying their educational expenses. So far (year #1), it has been a success.

 

[CountZero]

Is atot made up of smarter than average internet people (huge savings, supermodel wife, Ferrari) or is this a lot of lies?

With the right set of circumstances it isn't too unlikely to be true.

Basically graduate college with little or no debt. Get a job immediately for $70k+ possibly with great benefits (high 401k match, good stock plan, etc). No major life setbacks (surprise kids, layoffs with long unemployment, sickness, etc). Finding a significant other in similarly good financial shape helps. It still requires discipline as at $70k maxing out a 401k ($17k or so per year) is a fair chunk of change to just have disappear into a hole but it is possible to do. Out of the four people around my age (early 30s) whose financial situation I am even moderately familiar with only one was lucky enough to have all of these work in his favor.

The biggest negative factor to retirement savings seems to be student loan debt. I do wonder what is going to happen to this generation that is graduating with record setting debt, you lose a lot when you lose those early years of compounding interest.

 

[brianmanahan]

29 years old
3x (2x in 401k, 1x in company stock)

whoa thats risky

 

[IBMer]

32 and I have 1.5 Salary in 401k, also what some don't mention is I have also have 0 debt. That being said, I think my generation having gone through 2 pretty serious stock market dives will be worse off. Even more so in the fact that the average person has less trust in the stock market because of it.

 

[brianmanahan]

I can sure tell you that I spend far more now than I will have to in retirement (college for one of my girls and saving for the next one right now). My goal is to actually have liquid savings go up year over year while paying their educational expenses. So far (year #1), it has been a success.

yeah would have to be expected retirement spending, versus current spending that would include one-time things such as college.

of course, if you are retiring early and have to buy your own health insurance, it could cost as much as putting a kid through college :awe:

 

[child of wonder]

33

$0

However, wife and I will begin putting a combined $13k in this year and ramping up to maximum contributions next year. Maxxing out Roth IRAs next year or 2015, too. We have to catch up.

 

[Doppel]

I prefer hard numbers like this table -
http://www.financialsamurai.com/2012/01/09/how-much-should-one-have-in-their-401k-at-different-ages/
Sadly I'm not near even the low end.

LMFAO That chart is hilarious. I'm not close to low-end, either and the huge majority of Americans aren't. I am ahead of the average (although that's laughably easy to do considering how little many/most people have), but behind where I "ought" to be. Honestly, I don't worry about it. I am now contributing at, after match, around 14% of income, so it is what it is. It's growing fast but early on I had so much outcome to income it wasn't possible to save very much without living like a pauper, which is silly. I sure as all hell won't be trying to put additional away at the moment, have way too much other stuff to spend it on, most of it necessary, some of it not.

 

[herm0016]

26, .6x but my 401k balance is already above the avg. household income, and I am single.


and the guy with that chart is an idiot.

evidence: http://www.financialsamurai.com/2010/09/22/renters-should-pay-more-taxes/

he belives renters do not pay taxes, and the the owner of the property will not pass on the cost. ha!

one of his comments on this post:

Financial Samurai Reply:
September 22nd, 2010 at 4:42 pm

Nope. Landlords charge tenants RENT. The government charges people taxes.

This is a KEY difference which you and many others are missing.

 

[RichieZ]

30, >10x

 

[Vdubchaos]

32 and I have 1.5 Salary in 401k, also what some don't mention is I have also have 0 debt. That being said, I think my generation having gone through 2 pretty serious stock market dives will be worse off. Even more so in the fact that the average person has less trust in the stock market because of it.

Wait, people actually have ANY trust in the stock market?

Thanks for good laughs....

 

[Cuda1447]

28, approximately .9.

*edited

 

[Exterous]

That line of thinking doesn't really apply to those of us in our late 20's, early 30's. The market performance over our working careers has pretty much been a wash. I didn't save much for retirement during most of my 20's, but it really doesn't matter in hindsight.

Over the last 10 years the DJI is up 76% and the VTSMX is up 93% Sure you might only be up a couple % from June of 2007 but that only really applies for the money you invested in June of 2007. This is more than balanced by money invested in March of 09 which is up ~110%. If you are in your late 20s early 30s you should have been salivating at the market in late 2008 and 2009.