What is your net worth if you are 55 years of age

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hope the younger folks are reading this thread! There is a lot of wisdom here.

I'm reading.

I'm 44 and a single woman.

It surprises me that a couple in their 50s would have a total net worth of 3m with 2m of that in retirement.

I will have 2m in retirement BY MYSELF at their age (to me, for two people, they don't have a lot). If had stayed married, it would have been much, much more than double that. I worked my entire marriage but he made more income wise. I had more in retirement when we met and he had a professional degree and I did not.

I think younger people are smarter about retirement and building assets than people 55 plus.

Did you have kids? Many of the people who are in their 50s have either paid or are paying for their kids' colleges after daycares, schools, all the extra stuff of kids.

Personally I have zero need for the more than 2.5M we have accumulated so far in retirement. What's the point of saving/investing more than you need? And if you're surprised by the "low" amounts you read here, you should look at the data! You'll really feel superior then.

Yes, I have kids. And I had an unheard of 70k debt from college in 1999 because my parents refused to pay and I took out private loans (because with their income, I could not get much federal aid at all). I paid about 250k in childcare costs for 6 years as well. I have almost always had two jobs. I will feel comfortable at 3 million in retirement, but I should get to 4 million by age 66 (If I was still married we would have 10 million at retirement...we kept our own retirements in our divorce). My grandmother is 96. My mom has Parkinsons. I am afraid of both outliving my money AND having major healthcare costs. So, yeah, I have all the extra stuff to pay for, plus I had a huge student loan debt I paid off while saving for retirement. I generally think people don't save enough.

Just my 2c but I think you might want to consider therapy if you're this anxious that you're always working two jobs when you have 2 million at 44 to support 1 person, and judging others as not having enough when they have a few million (and you know nothing about what they need). To me it feels distorted, anxiety-driven and not a balanced outlook on life. Given you seem to have a lot of sources of stress in your life (I'm sorry about your mom's illness) you might want to get an external perspective.
As for longevity, my family members regularly live to near (on occasion past!) 100 and they don't outlive their money with much less--instead they find it grows--this has been over many different decades of knowing old relatives so not just now in the bull market. Except for health care/LTC nearly all expenses dwindle way down when you're elderly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:55/51

120k HHI
2 M assorted retirement accounts
40k outside of retirement
300k home equity
No pension
College savings not included in net worth

Current annual spending around 75k

Very impressed with your retirement accounts.
I'm 55yo. Was a single mom of three kids.
500k home equity
250k retirement account
20k savings

College is paid for. (Last kid is a senior this year.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hope the younger folks are reading this thread! There is a lot of wisdom here.

I'm reading.

I'm 44 and a single woman.

It surprises me that a couple in their 50s would have a total net worth of 3m with 2m of that in retirement.

I will have 2m in retirement BY MYSELF at their age (to me, for two people, they don't have a lot). If had stayed married, it would have been much, much more than double that. I worked my entire marriage but he made more income wise. I had more in retirement when we met and he had a professional degree and I did not.

I think younger people are smarter about retirement and building assets than people 55 plus.

Did you have kids? Many of the people who are in their 50s have either paid or are paying for their kids' colleges after daycares, schools, all the extra stuff of kids.

Personally I have zero need for the more than 2.5M we have accumulated so far in retirement. What's the point of saving/investing more than you need? And if you're surprised by the "low" amounts you read here, you should look at the data! You'll really feel superior then.

Yes, I have kids. And I had an unheard of 70k debt from college in 1999 because my parents refused to pay and I took out private loans (because with their income, I could not get much federal aid at all). I paid about 250k in childcare costs for 6 years as well. I have almost always had two jobs. I will feel comfortable at 3 million in retirement, but I should get to 4 million by age 66 (If I was still married we would have 10 million at retirement...we kept our own retirements in our divorce). My grandmother is 96. My mom has Parkinsons. I am afraid of both outliving my money AND having major healthcare costs. So, yeah, I have all the extra stuff to pay for, plus I had a huge student loan debt I paid off while saving for retirement. I generally think people don't save enough.

Just my 2c but I think you might want to consider therapy if you're this anxious that you're always working two jobs when you have 2 million at 44 to support 1 person, and judging others as not having enough when they have a few million (and you know nothing about what they need). To me it feels distorted, anxiety-driven and not a balanced outlook on life. Given you seem to have a lot of sources of stress in your life (I'm sorry about your mom's illness) you might want to get an external perspective.
As for longevity, my family members regularly live to near (on occasion past!) 100 and they don't outlive their money with much less--instead they find it grows--this has been over many different decades of knowing old relatives so not just now in the bull market. Except for health care/LTC nearly all expenses dwindle way down when you're elderly.

You need to improve your reading comprehension. I will have 2 million around age 55. I needed two jobs to pay for exorbitant student loan payments in my 20s and then insane child care costs in my 30s. I literally would not have the retirement I have if it were not for working more than most people—my expenses were too high. My student loan payments were $700 a month in my 20s…almost as much as my rent!

[Anonymous]

55 and 53. NW about $4m. Both high level Feds. One already retired receiving est $110k pension. The other can retire in 5 years and collect est $70k pension. We don’t count pension in NW but according to above estimates I would estimate $3m value of pensions. Both carry survivor clauses.

[Anonymous]

Former academics: both in our 50s and switched to federal government at 50, partly to be able to save for retirement. Net worth currently 1M between the two of us. We might retire at 70 if we are lucky.

[Anonymous]

57 YO, HHI 190K. 1.7 mil 401K, 500K home equity, 60K cash. Emergency fund depleted (I am in a medical crisis). 1 mil life insurance. Expectation is I will use the life ins. in the next year or two.

DW will will be left we with about 3 mil; she is unemployed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:57 YO, HHI 190K. 1.7 mil 401K, 500K home equity, 60K cash. Emergency fund depleted (I am in a medical crisis). 1 mil life insurance. Expectation is I will use the life ins. in the next year or two.

DW will will be left we with about 3 mil; she is unemployed.

I'm so sorry for your medical crisis. You seem to have planned your finances well.

[Anonymous]

We are 52
HHI 250K
3.5 mil in 401k +IRA
1 mil other investment, cash
750k home equity (paid off)
250k 529 for 2 kids
no pension
Want to retire ASAP

[Anonymous]

49 years old...wife 42 HHI $750K

We are at $7M+ all in (IRA, Equity, Brokerage) and hope to be ~ $10M+ by 55.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:55 and 53. NW about $4m. Both high level Feds. One already retired receiving est $110k pension. The other can retire in 5 years and collect est $70k pension. We don’t count pension in NW but according to above estimates I would estimate $3m value of pensions. Both carry survivor clauses.

Surprised at the high pension for someone not elligble to retire yet. Assuming they have FERS?

[Anonymous]

Also many folks 55 and up had a SAH wife. My wife has not worked since 2001.

Even better My friends wife never worked on the books. No SS or 401k. My cousins wife also never worked in the books.

Hard to even max out one person with multiple kids and non working spouse and a mortgage

[Anonymous]

DW and are coming up on 55.

NW: $7M, but we still have two kids living at home. DW is fed, so she’ll be returning soon. I will continue working until the kids are in college.

[Anonymous]

55/54

HHI $320k (we both work part-time: 30hrs/week and 24hrs/week respectively)
$3.6M 401k +IRA
$130k cash
$500k home equity
$100k 529 for 2 kids (one a junior in college and other in middle school (5 more years to add to 529))

[Anonymous]

How do you guys deal with the fact that we are currently in the biggest stock market bubble in US history? The stock market dropped *90%* from 1929-1932 and didn't recover for 25 years. Like if you are planning to retire because you have $4 million, but then that becomes $900,000 in a couple of years, how are you anticipating or planning to adjust in that case?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How do you guys deal with the fact that we are currently in the biggest stock market bubble in US history? The stock market dropped *90%* from 1929-1932 and didn't recover for 25 years. Like if you are planning to retire because you have $4 million, but then that becomes $900,000 in a couple of years, how are you anticipating or planning to adjust in that case?

My plan works for a 50% crash at any moment and I plan for a way to pay for life without drawing down stocks for 5 years at planned spending. If a more catastrophic crash happened I would drag out that planned spending longer. If there was more inflation that I expected I would rent out our in-law suite for income. My assets are reasonably diversified.
But you will run out of life if you try to plan for every worst case scenario--at some point you just have to trust that you will adapt in the moment.
And it's not a "fact" that we're in the biggest stock market bubble--that kind of thing can't be a fact, it's a way of reading the situation.