why do so few people have two million dollar 401ks/IRAs?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can relate to the above poster. Mine are in various places.

take time to consolidate it. You just have to fill out a form.

Then it's an IRA not a 401k.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:i have had access to a 401k and a nice employer match for the last 10 years and that account has $600k.

i had pretty lackluster access to 401ks in the prior 20 years, with probably a decade total of no contributions at all, and that rollover account is sitting at $250k.

the growth in an account that is being actively contributed to by multiple sources (employer, employee, market) is starkly different than one that just sits and follows the market.

I agree my 1.1 million 401k is a job I had just 10.5 years with no rollover. But had job 2006 to 2016 where I did max every year. Had it 90/10 stocks/bonds most of time. And got around a 15k match year year.

My one job I was at 8 years I still have I only put 6 percent in, I only made like 65k and they only matched 3 percent that 401k is small.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Lololol! the vast majority of working americans DO NOT have access to a 401k account and of those the vast majority of those workers live paycheck to paycheck.

As someone who has a HHI of 700k/yr, even I am acutely aware of how financially hard life is for many of my fellow Americans. I have shocking news for you, the average income in the US is 40k/yr and the poverty rate is 11% with many many many people living just above that. For the love of god people die in this country because they can’t afford medical care. You think that can afford to save millions? They can hardly afford to buy a pack of chicken legs and a gallon of milk.

and what are you doing about it? My neighbor for instance has a scholarship to send a kid to University of Maryland every year. He felt guilty at his level of income sending his kids to school when others cant afford it. He has been doing it 30 years. So paid 30 poor kids college education. He has at all time 4 kids in college that are not his own. He is now like 75 been doing it since he was 45.

I wish I was him. I dont have that type of money. But I bet he will have a lot of people at his funeral. He also paid his kids college education and plans to pay all his grandkids college education. He has a grandchild in Columbia Medical School right now he is paying.

Funny part he owns no property and no cars. He lives with his Son and Daughter in law even though he is super rich. He just focuses on giving it away.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can relate to the above poster. Mine are in various places.

take time to consolidate it. You just have to fill out a form.

Then it's an IRA not a 401k.

DP here. You can roll 401ks into a single IRA. They are literally called “Rollover IRAs”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Because the majority of those with 1M in their retirement accounts are not 45. When it takes someone until 60-70 to hit 1M, there is not a lot of time for the money to double.

This is the answer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Because the majority of those with 1M in their retirement accounts are not 45. When it takes someone until 60-70 to hit 1M, there is not a lot of time for the money to double.

This is the answer.

+1. It's going to take me nearly 20 years, nearly all donating the max minus the first 2-3, to get to $1 million dollars. I estimate this at a 6% return rate though I've done better than this in the past. Perhaps I'll get there a little faster, but we have Trump as president, so who knows. But I didn't start contributing to my 401k until my late 30s as I was paying off loans, car, first down payment on my house, and paying for daycare.

Also, some people have way better matches - there was a thread on this awhile ago. I get 50% of the first 6% of my pay, so overall about 3% of my salary. Others get much better matches than that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I wonder if it's because many of us have had more than one job, so our retirement accounts are spread out across multiple accounts. I have a current 401k with my employer's facilitator, an IRA with Vanguard that was created by rolling over 401ks from previous employers, and a Roth IRA with Vanguard that I opened when I was younger and below the limit. Looking at them individually, none of them is particularly high, but in the aggregate, it's a nice number.

For me its this. I have $1.1M in 401k and $800k in IRAs (traditional and roth). I probably just showed up in the Fidelity stat for Americans who have crossed $1M in 401k but I'm 52 and $2M is a 5% market jump away. ($ is in State Street S&P 500 mostly)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can relate to the above poster. Mine are in various places.

take time to consolidate it. You just have to fill out a form.

Then it's an IRA not a 401k.

DP here. You can roll 401ks into a single IRA. They are literally called “Rollover IRAs”

Most 401ks don’t allow rollovers while you’re still employed

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can relate to the above poster. Mine are in various places.

take time to consolidate it. You just have to fill out a form.

Then it's an IRA not a 401k.

DP here. You can roll 401ks into a single IRA. They are literally called “Rollover IRAs”

Most 401ks don’t allow rollovers while you’re still employed

When you switch jobs you sure can. That’s what we are talking about. People who have had several jobs.

https://www.schwab.com/ira/rollover-ira?src=SEM&s_kwcid=AL!5158!10!79371180530818!!!!21491475827!!62017338!6280559353&ef_id=429753eebcc6102deccf3bac51908948:G:s&keywordid=21491475827

[Anonymous]

I maxed out my 401 (k) every year since graduating from law school, and most years had a small match. I didn't hit $1 million in aggregate retirement funds until I was 42. I have more in my brokerage account.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Fees also can suck away most of the growth. I once had a work retirement account with 2% fees. That takes away half the growth over time.

Good point, thankfully that type of thing is less common in the last 10-15 years as more and more people realize how awful those fees were, and there are so many good low fee options now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:i have had access to a 401k and a nice employer match for the last 10 years and that account has $600k.

i had pretty lackluster access to 401ks in the prior 20 years, with probably a decade total of no contributions at all, and that rollover account is sitting at $250k.

the growth in an account that is being actively contributed to by multiple sources (employer, employee, market) is starkly different than one that just sits and follows the market.

I agree my 1.1 million 401k is a job I had just 10.5 years with no rollover. But had job 2006 to 2016 where I did max every year. Had it 90/10 stocks/bonds most of time. And got around a 15k match year year.

My one job I was at 8 years I still have I only put 6 percent in, I only made like 65k and they only matched 3 percent that 401k is small.

A 15k match per year is incredible. I get a couple grand a year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can relate to the above poster. Mine are in various places.

take time to consolidate it. You just have to fill out a form.

I don't think it's a good idea to roll old 401ks into a current employer-sponsored 401k. I don't like putting all my eggs in my employer's basket.

I rolled mine into an IRA that I can control.

+1
This is what we did.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Fees also can suck away most of the growth. I once had a work retirement account with 2% fees. That takes away half the growth over time.

My husband and I started with similar amounts and we both max and have similar matches. He’s a fed. Currently his acct has about $400k more than mine because of my fees.

[Anonymous]

Im 54 and have 1 m in my account , dh has about 1.3.

Id easily have 2 million if we didn’t have kids. Or if we made more money. Our salaries simply weren’t enough to max retirement and pay for kids and save for college (200k/kid saved). In the early years it was daycare expenses then College savings.

We only started maxing retirement (including catch up contributions, so about 30k each) in last few years as we hit college savings goals and salaries went up but I expect we will retire in 5 years or so with more than enough for a comfortable but not extravagant life. We also plan to downsize eventually and put extra equity to work, though not sure if as a rental property or in stock market.