What's your age / 401k balance

[Anonymous]

33 (me) - 120K
37 (DH) - 380K (insane matches over the years)

Have another 200K in a brokerage account, 350K in home equity, and 100K in checking account for emergency.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Late 50s, and $500k. (Single.)

Now before DCUMers post that I'm way behind, the median retirement savings for people 55-64 is only $45,000. Unless they are government employees with pensions, I don't know how they plan to live.

https://www.debt.com/edu/personal-finance-statistics/

People think they need way more than they do. Controlling expenses is as important as how much you save. While I'm not personally pursuing it, reading the "FIRE" (financial independence, retire early) community on the web has really opened my eyes. I think there are some holes in their long term plans (health care being the biggest), it really makes you chill out and appreciate how much you can do with $500K invested correctly.

Yup. We're the couple with in our early 30s with 0 invested in 401ks above. However, we do have enough in index funds to meet property taxes, food, and utilities just barely...which means we're FI. We keep working due to healthcare (we want more kids), charity (making more lets us give more), and college (we'd like to pay for our kids), but it's nice knowing we literally don't have to work for the rest of our lives if we suddenly got sick of it all.

[Anonymous]

36. $10k in my 401k.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Late 50s, and $500k. (Single.)

Now before DCUMers post that I'm way behind, the median retirement savings for people 55-64 is only $45,000. Unless they are government employees with pensions, I don't know how they plan to live.

https://www.debt.com/edu/personal-finance-statistics/

People think they need way more than they do. Controlling expenses is as important as how much you save. While I'm not personally pursuing it, reading the "FIRE" (financial independence, retire early) community on the web has really opened my eyes. I think there are some holes in their long term plans (health care being the biggest), it really makes you chill out and appreciate how much you can do with $500K invested correctly.

Exactly. If a couple each gets $2000/month in SS and $20,000 yield from $500k (that's a 4% withdrawal rate), that adds up to $68,000 a year. If your house is paid off, that should be comfortable. Not rich, but comfortable....

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Yup. We're the couple with in our early 30s with 0 invested in 401ks above. However, we do have enough in index funds to meet property taxes, food, and utilities just barely...which means we're FI. We keep working due to healthcare (we want more kids), charity (making more lets us give more), and college (we'd like to pay for our kids), but it's nice knowing we literally don't have to work for the rest of our lives if we suddenly got sick of it all.

Your house is paid for, I assume? Just curious why you prioritized saving in index funds outside of tax-advantaged accounts rather than inside them. Inheritance or something you couldn't roll into a tax-advantaged account? I figured you must have at least $400K - $500K in index funds if you're using the 4% rule.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Late 50s, and $500k. (Single.)

Now before DCUMers post that I'm way behind, the median retirement savings for people 55-64 is only $45,000. Unless they are government employees with pensions, I don't know how they plan to live.

https://www.debt.com/edu/personal-finance-statistics/

People think they need way more than they do. Controlling expenses is as important as how much you save. While I'm not personally pursuing it, reading the "FIRE" (financial independence, retire early) community on the web has really opened my eyes. I think there are some holes in their long term plans (health care being the biggest), it really makes you chill out and appreciate how much you can do with $500K invested correctly.

NP - any particular site you recommend for learning about this? I'm intrigued.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Late 50s, and $500k. (Single.)

Now before DCUMers post that I'm way behind, the median retirement savings for people 55-64 is only $45,000. Unless they are government employees with pensions, I don't know how they plan to live.

https://www.debt.com/edu/personal-finance-statistics/

People think they need way more than they do. Controlling expenses is as important as how much you save. While I'm not personally pursuing it, reading the "FIRE" (financial independence, retire early) community on the web has really opened my eyes. I think there are some holes in their long term plans (health care being the biggest), it really makes you chill out and appreciate how much you can do with $500K invested correctly.

NP - any particular site you recommend for learning about this? I'm intrigued.

Mr. Money Mustache is kind of the "guru," although I find him over-the-top extreme (and it has come out he has an ulterior motive, very much into reducing impact on the earth, which is cool, but turns some people off). However, I'll point you there and then you can just dig in and start googling around. http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly-simple-math-behind-early-retirement/

There are tons of others. MMM has a forum, although it's not super active (active enough to get answers but not as a daily read).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Late 50s, and $500k. (Single.)

Now before DCUMers post that I'm way behind, the median retirement savings for people 55-64 is only $45,000. Unless they are government employees with pensions, I don't know how they plan to live.

https://www.debt.com/edu/personal-finance-statistics/

People think they need way more than they do. Controlling expenses is as important as how much you save. While I'm not personally pursuing it, reading the "FIRE" (financial independence, retire early) community on the web has really opened my eyes. I think there are some holes in their long term plans (health care being the biggest), it really makes you chill out and appreciate how much you can do with $500K invested correctly.

NP - any particular site you recommend for learning about this? I'm intrigued.

https://www.reddit.com/r/financialindependence/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Yup. We're the couple with in our early 30s with 0 invested in 401ks above. However, we do have enough in index funds to meet property taxes, food, and utilities just barely...which means we're FI. We keep working due to healthcare (we want more kids), charity (making more lets us give more), and college (we'd like to pay for our kids), but it's nice knowing we literally don't have to work for the rest of our lives if we suddenly got sick of it all.

Your house is paid for, I assume? Just curious why you prioritized saving in index funds outside of tax-advantaged accounts rather than inside them. Inheritance or something you couldn't roll into a tax-advantaged account? I figured you must have at least $400K - $500K in index funds if you're using the 4% rule.

Yes, paid off house. We don't do the 401k because we're teachers, so we do IRAs and mutual funds. We do use the 4% rule but have far less than 500k. However, it's growing, and we do have enough to keep the house and keep ourselves fed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Late 50s, and $500k. (Single.)

Now before DCUMers post that I'm way behind, the median retirement savings for people 55-64 is only $45,000. Unless they are government employees with pensions, I don't know how they plan to live.

https://www.debt.com/edu/personal-finance-statistics/

People think they need way more than they do. Controlling expenses is as important as how much you save. While I'm not personally pursuing it, reading the "FIRE" (financial independence, retire early) community on the web has really opened my eyes. I think there are some holes in their long term plans (health care being the biggest), it really makes you chill out and appreciate how much you can do with $500K invested correctly.

NP - any particular site you recommend for learning about this? I'm intrigued.

Mr. Money Mustache is kind of the "guru," although I find him over-the-top extreme (and it has come out he has an ulterior motive, very much into reducing impact on the earth, which is cool, but turns some people off). However, I'll point you there and then you can just dig in and start googling around. http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly-simple-math-behind-early-retirement/

There are tons of others. MMM has a forum, although it's not super active (active enough to get answers but not as a daily read).

Also, keep in mind that MMM is really a much more loose version of ERE, which itself is just an application of YMOYL. The basic idea is to save 25x your income and enjoy the rest of life FI. However, if you believe you need 100k/yr, your number flies up to 2.5M. If you can be happy on 50k/yr, you only need 1.25M. If you can be happy with 25k, your number shrinks to 625k. Personally, I think we'd be just fine on 25k, but DW is used to spending much more, so we're probably shooting for 50k, although we've already reached our barebones level of 5k (property taxes, food, utilities).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Yes, paid off house. We don't do the 401k because we're teachers, so we do IRAs and mutual funds. We do use the 4% rule but have far less than 500k. However, it's growing, and we do have enough to keep the house and keep ourselves fed.

How'd you get your house paid off by your early 30's on teacher salaries?

You must have a house with a pretty low property tax if "far less" than $20K can cover your property tax, utilities/basic expenses, and food! And it sounded like you had at least one kid. Good for you though, totally goes to the point of keeping expenses low. Do you live around DC? If you're teachers, I assume you're paying into some sort of pension beyond just IRAs (unless private)?

[Anonymous]

45/43

We have about $2.3M combined.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Also, keep in mind that MMM is really a much more loose version of ERE, which itself is just an application of YMOYL. The basic idea is to save 25x your income and enjoy the rest of life FI. However, if you believe you need 100k/yr, your number flies up to 2.5M. If you can be happy on 50k/yr, you only need 1.25M. If you can be happy with 25k, your number shrinks to 625k. Personally, I think we'd be just fine on 25k, but DW is used to spending much more, so we're probably shooting for 50k, although we've already reached our barebones level of 5k (property taxes, food, utilities).

I read Your Money or Your Life and couldn't really get into it, although I did do the exercise at the beginning and was pleased to find my net worth:total lifetime earnings was around 50%.

However, I did do a spreadsheet of our annual expenses and that floored me a little bit. It's a good exercise vs a monthly budget. Cutting to "bare bones," I was only able to get it down to about $33,000. Our "normal" expenses right now are $58K, and that's not counting health insurance. Cutting $10K wasn't *too* hard (although not something I want to do while still working), but cutting that next $15K was challenging and would really require some lifestyle adjustments. DH and I have been pretty good about not spending anywhere close to what we earn, but it was an eye-opener to see how much lifestyle creep was still in there.

Most of our investments are sitting in tax-advantaged accounts, so I've started trying to understand the Roth ladder and how you can access it prior to 59.5.

[Anonymous]

^^17:07 again. I should note our home is paid for, hence why I was surprised our expenses were still that high. Property tax is $6K though, which is a pretty good bite.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Yes, paid off house. We don't do the 401k because we're teachers, so we do IRAs and mutual funds. We do use the 4% rule but have far less than 500k. However, it's growing, and we do have enough to keep the house and keep ourselves fed.

How'd you get your house paid off by your early 30's on teacher salaries?

You must have a house with a pretty low property tax if "far less" than $20K can cover your property tax, utilities/basic expenses, and food! And it sounded like you had at least one kid. Good for you though, totally goes to the point of keeping expenses low. Do you live around DC? If you're teachers, I assume you're paying into some sort of pension beyond just IRAs (unless private)?

We're not in DC; we're in a lower COL area. We bought a house that was 2x HHI based on one of our incomes and then combined that with aggressive repayment and freelancing and knocked it out in our 20s. We've got 2 kids and property taxes are around 4k/yr. Utilities are somewhere around 300/mo on average, and we could definitely trim food to 300 or less. We do pay into a pension, but we have no faith in it continuing to be available (there'll be something, but we think it'll be turned into a 401k after being decimated continually over the years), so our plans are independent of it. Despite that, social security is either completely inaccessible to us or will be severely reduced because of the pension that may or may not exist. Oh well. Thank you for your kind words. And yes, we'd like 1-2 more kids, which is a big part of why we continue to work (babies cost us around 2-3k with our health insurance...).