Totally depending on your age and when you plan to retire. In your 20s through your 50s, I would whole heartily agree with what you are saying, but at age 50 and beyond, its time to switch over to maintaining and less growth as you approach your magic number of dollars or the age you plan on retiring.
Retirement Targets
- Thread starter yowza
- Start date
It doesn’t have to be all or nothing. I put in what my employer matches which totals 9%. I’ve done that since age 22 and I now have 5x my salary at age 45, which is exactly where I should be. I’ll get a small pension (right around $3200 per month) and SS.
I feel fairly good about where I’m at and I’m not putting away 25% of my salary like people on here seem to think everyone should.
I feel fairly good about where I’m at and I’m not putting away 25% of my salary like people on here seem to think everyone should.
My plan is going conservative with an amount equal to 2 years in retirement cash.
Then an S&P 500 bucket
Finally keep the 65-35 bucket with a QQQ-SPY ish portfolio.
This will start to happen in about 3 years, but will be gradual. At this point I will also be on a Coast FIRE plan.
But like the old saying says.....man plans, God laughs
We are stressing that. Learn the tools. It can't hurt, but also be prepared that it may commoditize a lot of things or replace in a lot of areas.
I think the 25% people are ones more oriented toward the FIRE timeline.
Mine is still around 70% stocks, which is actually overweight versus my target. Putting all eggs into one country (US - QQQ) can be a tad risky though, even if that country is the US. If you want go all in on stocks then I’d still diversify with some global stocks.
There is a lot of nuances to this conversation though. I get bored just sitting a letting it ride, so I’ve added quirks to my portfolio that helps me take care of my “ active investor” itch. I go in and out of positions based on a momentum trigger. For my global stocks, I also split that among 10 countries that are the most undervalued. I redo that list once a year roughly.
LOL - if you believe that's happening, you should probably invest all your $ in bullets and clean water instead
25% savings rate needs 32 years of working to retire
50% savings rate needs 17 years of working to retire
I really wonder how many people are squirreling away that much for retirement per year? If you were pulling in 100K a year, after taxes you would be around 70K, so you would be putting away $17,500 a year for retirement at 25%. Not sure that number is close to possible for the average working class person.
Here we go again, parents thinking they know better just because they're parents. The only things kids would do related to this discussion is prolong your working career and shorten your retirement. Parents make that decision themselves and are absolutely "spending now" even more so than someone like me.
The ability of the typical American to retire is questionable at best
At it is, even if a person had millions saved there's still have a chance of outliving the money. Social Security is not dependable at current levels.
This is a topic I think about way too much.
Raising kids cost a lot of money, for those that do not have those same kids that is money that they can use towards living today, or for retirement in the future. It their choice, but people without kids sure do have a lot more money that those that do.
I never said it means we know better. It meant that we have several other variables playing into it. I want my kids to have a better life than me so I’m holding back on some things to make that happen. My parents did that for me, and yes that is our decisions.
Before you get too deep into your forever alone rant, I think @BCClone just means that your spending/saving choices may be different if you have kids.
I wouldn't bother feeding them but they get way goddam cranky when they hungry
Child labor laws have ruined my retirement! Those kids are 7, get a factory job like the rest of us did and buy your own food!!! And save 43.5% of your income for retirement in a roth IRA while paying cash for your bikes!
I think I just figured out how I'm teaching my kids finances.
Difficult to answer because there are some many variables at play to come up with a number for the average American. How much money did you make in your career, what age do you plan on retiring, your overall health when you retire, and what type of lifestyle you want to maintain or plan on doing in retirement.
Without a doubt we have many that will not come close to having a million or more put away for retirement, but if you did, that would easily bring in $4 grand a month, throw in SS, another 4 grand between a couple and that is $8,000 a month. If you house is paid off, there is no reason that most couples could not have a very nice retirement on that type of monthly income. Many states do not tax people on their retirement income, so that helps.
SS is to large a program and too many people depend on it for it to just go away, there will be a compromise before 2033 when the cuts would kick in, and even if they did kick in you still would receive around 80% of what you were getting before. Hard on people, but for most not enough for them to be wiped out. I suspect that we will increase the cap from is current $167,000 or so and then add on years before you reach full retirement age.
