Retirement Targets

[clonechemist]

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.

Yeah if you start at age 22 and stay disciplined, 25% savings is not necessary by any means (unless you want to retire ‘early’)

Just realize everyone’s situation is different. And many people aren’t able to start saving and do so consistently starting at age 22, for various justifiable reasons

 

[Cyclones_R_GR8]

I retired at the end of February. For the 5 years prior to that I had been living on essentially what my SS would be so anything saved would just be spending money.
I still haven't gotten myself into spending mode. After years of saving, especially the last 5-6 years it is hard to change that mindset.

 

[CycloneSpinning]

I think the 25% people are ones more oriented toward the FIRE timeline.

Probably depends on what your definition of FIRE is. A 25% savings rate probably doesn’t have you retiring prior to age 50 (or maybe even 55). 25% should put you on a path to retire earlier than most though.

 

[ISUCyclones2015]

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.

And I am saying parents made an 18 year+ long decision to spend now when they decided to have the kid.

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.

You're not holding back though. You just did whatever math in your head that spending money on a kid is better than spending it on XYZ. The variables are exactly the same when it comes to this overall retirement discussion, Spend or Save. You're choosing to Spend.

 

[clones_jer]

I retired at the end of February. For the 5 years prior to that I had been living on essentially what my SS would be so anything saved would just be spending money.
I still haven't gotten myself into spending mode. After years of saving, especially the last 5-6 years it is hard to change that mindset.

I'm curious, you're 5 months in - are you bored yet?

 

[KnappShack]

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.

$1 million seems like a far off dream to most judging by the articles I read.

Social Security could be cut severely. I'm not banking on 80% of what the administration website estimates for me.

This could be a full blown crisis....or we'll just have a elderly workforce for McDonalds (just hope they can actually count change)

 

[DSMCy]

I retired at the end of February. For the 5 years prior to that I had been living on essentially what my SS would be so anything saved would just be spending money.
I still haven't gotten myself into spending mode. After years of saving, especially the last 5-6 years it is hard to change that mindset.

I'm still along way from retirement but I still think about what I'll do when I get there
I completely understand that feeling of anxiety to start spending down that next egg you've spent 40 years building up

I think putting a decent amount into an annuity (or annuities) is a great way to manage that. I especially thing an annuity with an income rider is a great choice so once you turn that on in 5-10 years, you have guaranteed income for life.

 

[3TrueFans]

And I am saying parents made an 18 year+ long decision to spend now when they decided to have the kid.

Lol It’s not like he said he was forced to, just that it’s a different scenario than not having kids. You’re a weird dude.

 

[1SEIACLONE]

$1 million seems like a far off dream to most judging by the articles I read.

Social Security could be cut severely. I'm not banking on 80% of what the administration website estimates for me.

This could be a full blown crisis....or we'll just have a elderly workforce for McDonalds (just hope they can actually count change)

I would agree most are not going to reach a million or more in retirement savings, I know we didn't, but we also have pensions to cushion the blow. You also have to remember that your SS retirement numbers depends on how long you are willing to work. I retired at age 62 and therefore only get 70% of what I would have gotten if I had wanted to work until my full retirement age of almost 67. So tomorrow I will clear $1575 in SS, my wife gets a little less.

If you can bring in $8 grand a month between the two of you and your house is paid off, there is no reason you should not be able to live very well on that type of income. Remember you expenses do go down in many cases when you retire, which helps us a lot. We purchase less gas in a month now than we did in a week while working.

 

[CycloneSpinning]

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.

Social security is so interesting. It gets put in place in 1935 and is sort of a safety net in principle…with not a huge percentage of the population expected to benefit. Hospital care and medicine greatly improve, resulting in life expectancies jumping from around 60 in 1935 to 75 just forty years later. At that same time, the baby boomers are starting to hit the workforce, and they want that social security benefit in place despite fears of solvency starting to creep in. Political actions ensue.

And here we are another fifty years later. Those boomers have retired, life expectancy is up to 80, and I guess the ongoing experiment continues…

 

[ISUCyclones2015]

Lol It’s not like he said he was forced to, just that it’s a different scenario than not having kids. You’re a weird dude.

Point to where I said anything related to force. I used the word decision or a derivative of it like 6 times lol

Also it's 2025 and we're arguing on a sports forum on our lunch breaks. We're all weird here buddy.

 

[3TrueFans]

Point to where I said anything related to force. I used the word decision or a derivative of it like 6 times lol

Also it's 2025 and we're arguing on a sports forum on our lunch breaks. We're all weird here buddy.

Hey you launched into the "oh great here come the parents thinking they know everything" rant when @BCClone was just pointing out that different scenarios may change someone's choices on spending, and therefore retirement. You got some stuff to work through?

 

[SayMyName]

I would agree most are not going to reach a million or more in retirement savings, I know we didn't, but we also have pensions to cushion the blow. You also have to remember that your SS retirement numbers depends on how long you are willing to work. I retired at age 62 and therefore only get 70% of what I would have gotten if I had wanted to work until my full retirement age of almost 67. So tomorrow I will clear $1575 in SS, my wife gets a little less.

If you can bring in $8 grand a month between the two of you and your house is paid off, there is no reason you should not be able to live very well on that type of income. Remember you expenses do go down in many cases when you retire, which helps us a lot. We purchase less gas in a month now than we did in a week while working.

The age at which you retire and the age that you claim social security can be 2 completely independent actions. Just gotta plan properly for that scenario.

 

[1SEIACLONE]

Social security is so interesting. It gets put in place in 1935 and is sort of a safety net in principle…with not a huge percentage of the population expected to benefit. Hospital care and medicine greatly improve, resulting in life expectancies jumping from around 60 in 1935 to 75 just forty years later. At that same time, the baby boomers are starting to hit the workforce, and they want that social security benefit in place despite fears of solvency starting to creep in. Political actions ensue.

And here we are another fifty years later. Those boomers have retired, life expectancy is up to 80, and I guess the ongoing experiment continues…

Way to many think of SS as an investment, which it was never meant to be. It's life insurance for old people, that was then morphed into a program for people that were disabled, aid dependent children and a few other groups. The draw back for many is that they may never collect because they pass before they can start to draw. Both of my brothers paid into the program for decades and died before either one could draw money out. But the on the flip side, my two grand daughters got their first check last month after my son in law passed in May.

If you were to phase the program out, or turn it to a 401K type program, then how do you pick up the slack for people that are disabled or aid to dependent children, or even have enough money to cover those currently drawing or will in the next few years? The easiest way to fix the program and insure that it continues on is take the cap off, and then apply it to all forms of income, placing a cap on the amount that you can draw out when you retire. It helps the most people, keeps the program solvent for the future, and the people affected the most, will not need the money. Means test it in other words. None of that is going to happen, because one party refuses to raise taxes on the wealthy, so the program is in trouble. It hard to ask a person working in construction or some other physically demanding field to postpone collecting when their bodies are already breaking down with old age at 60.

 

[CycloneSpinning]

Way to many think of SS as an investment, which it was never meant to be. It's life insurance for old people, that was then morphed into a program for people that were disabled, aid dependent children and a few other groups. The draw back for many is that they may never collect because they pass before they can start to draw. Both of my brothers paid into the program for decades and died before either one could draw money out. But the on the flip side, my two grand daughters got their first check last month after my son in law passed in May.

If you were to phase the program out, or turn it to a 401K type program, then how do you pick up the slack for people that are disabled or aid to dependent children, over even have enough money to cover those currently drawing or will in the next few years? The easiest way to fix the program and insure that it continues on is take the cap off, and then apply it to all forms of income, placing a cap on the amount that you can draw out when you retire. It helps the most people, keeps the program solvent for the future, and the people affected the most, will not need the money. Means test it in other words. None of that is going to happen, because one party refuses to raise taxes on the wealthy, so the program is in trouble. It hard to ask a person working in construction or some other physically demanding field to postpone collecting when their bodies are already breaking down with old age at 60.

Agree with a lot of this. The only piece I don’t think can be 100% true is the lack of desire for the one party to raise taxes on the rich being why problems haven’t been solved…as we’ve had different points in the last 40 years where both parties have been solely in power and refused to fix things (or perhaps didn’t know how).

Despite that, I completely agree that removing the income cap would seem helpful. I also don’t see a problem with phasing it out for very high net worth individuals…though I also know that they would find creative solutions to keep as much as they could.

 

[1SEIACLONE]

The age at which you retire and the age that you claim social security can be 2 completely independent actions. Just gotta plan properly for that scenario.

Very true, you just have to run the numbers, which is easy to do by just going to the SS website and plugging in your info and then using it as a way to determine what is best for you and then factor in your overall health and how long in general your family members live.

I retired in May of 2023, but could not start drawing my SS until Jan of 2024, I was only 61 when I retired and the program has a month delay, so we get our July check in August. So I had 7 months after I retired before I could start to collect, I made up much of that difference by starting to collect my IPERS June 1st and still being paid by the school over the summer. So I double dipped income for those three months.
I keep reading about all the benefits of waiting and how much more money you will receive by doing so, but that extra money down the road does not help if you need it now or can invest it. Plus throw the fact you may pass before you start to draw. I have never second guessed my decision to start drawing at 62.

 

[benman82]

Way to many think of SS as an investment, which it was never meant to be. It's life insurance for old people, that was then morphed into a program for people that were disabled, aid dependent children and a few other groups. The draw back for many is that they may never collect because they pass before they can start to draw. Both of my brothers paid into the program for decades and died before either one could draw money out. But the on the flip side, my two grand daughters got their first check last month after my son in law passed in May.

If you were to phase the program out, or turn it to a 401K type program, then how do you pick up the slack for people that are disabled or aid to dependent children, over even have enough money to cover those currently drawing or will in the next few years? The easiest way to fix the program and insure that it continues on is take the cap off, and then apply it to all forms of income, placing a cap on the amount that you can draw out when you retire. It helps the most people, keeps the program solvent for the future, and the people affected the most, will not need the money. Means test it in other words. None of that is going to happen, because one party refuses to raise taxes on the wealthy, so the program is in trouble. It hard to ask a person working in construction or some other physically demanding field to postpone collecting when their bodies are already breaking down with old age at 60.

Removing the cap won't do anything because high earners get money through owning a business and you only pay into SS if you're a wage slave.

 

[1SEIACLONE]

Removing the cap won't do anything because high earners get money through owning a business and you only pay into SS if you're a wage slave.

Very true, you would have to come up with a way to tax stock options and bonuses for the program to be made fully safe. It will take a combination of both raising the cap and increasing the retirement age, I would guess.
This problem is not going to be fixed until we reach crisis stage, which is not far off, the program itself is too popular and too many depend on it for a fix not to be made. Not many politicians will want to run again if the system collapses on their watch.

 

[Cyclones01]

And I am saying parents made an 18 year+ long decision to spend now when they decided to have the kid.


You're not holding back though. You just did whatever math in your head that spending money on a kid is better than spending it on XYZ. The variables are exactly the same when it comes to this overall retirement discussion, Spend or Save. You're choosing to Spend.

The cost to raise kids is one thing, and you're right.

Choosing to forgo spending on yourself now in order to save more money to leave for your kids some day is another thing. If you don't have kids, then you wouldn't have that consideration.

 

[4theCYcle]

The best way to plan for retirement has never changed, live below your means, and squirrel away as much money as you possible can for your Golden Years, and hope like hell that you do not get cancer or some other disease that wipes you out financially. Way to many live for today, not worrying about tomorrow and retirement, they either do not care, or they believe that they are not going to be around that long, so why save for something, that they are never going to need.

Set up a 401K through your employer, hopefully they have a generous matching formula, and put every dollar you can into your plan that they will match. Or go find a job in a field that still has a pension, they are still there in education, civil works and other places. Most important, find a good person you trust to handle your money, trust their advice and follow what they are saying. Talk to others about who they use and interview the ones you like best, you will know the correct person when you are comfortable with them, and they have a plan on how you can maximize your retirement. If you have any doubt, then move on to the next person, until you find the one best suited for you and the amount of risk you are willing to take.

To each is their own, but I don't necessarily love this mentality. There has to be a common middle ground because the ones who live for today aren't wrong either. My wife works in an industry that is rough on families. When little ones or grownups get cancer and pass, do you think that they wish they could have done something big or gone on some trip etc to live life and enjoy? Yeah they do. We aren't guaranteed tomorrow so I say take that trip you've been wanting to do. I say to enjoy more of the experiences over materials but that's just me. Because I usually don't say man, I wish I didn't take that vacation or trip to such and such just to skimp along in life so that way I can maaaaybe enjoy 10-15 years of retirement on the backend generally with lesser health.

Like I said, everyone is different and can have their own plan, but I don't agree with the penny pinch and not enjoy things today either.

Obviously starting earlier is better for compounding and I have done a good job, but we also try to take multiple vacations each year.