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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Based on the small sample of my parents/their friends, they didn't need huge retirement savings because:
1. They paid $40-50K for the homes where they raised their kids in the 80s-90s and sold for $400K+ ten years ago. And most had been paid off for a long time before they sold.
2. They took the money and bought a smaller place in a lower COL area. No mortgage and their taxes and utilities plummeted.
3. Many of them have pensions from jobs, military, etc. So they add that to SS, they can cover their bills.
4. A few of them inherited some money/homes from their parents--none are rich off of that but it helped.
5. They aren't paying for the kinds of things we are in our 40s/50s raising kids--no college savings, summer camps, sports dues, etc.
6. They have no commuting costs--yes, they have to pay for gas but only if they want to go somewhere. Most of their social activities take place within 5 miles of their homes. And their cars last longer because they don't use them as much.
7. When they go out to eat, they go during the day for the lunch specials and cook simple meals for dinner. So much less expensive and they can sit and chat for awhile because restaurants aren't itching to get them out the door at 2pm.
8. They can travel on off times and aren't stuck going on vacation during the small windows of school breaks.
9. In addition to their primary homes, many also had small vacation homes that they bought for under $50K and are now worth 5-10x that. A lot of them moved into the vacation homes that, again, they had paid off well before they retired.

The short answer is, they didn't need a lot of retirement savings because they don't have a lot of expenses. And they held their assets elsewhere.[/quote]

And now most of us in our 50s don't have pensions, even federal pensions are just a small percentage of what they were.

Most of us have had to move to get jobs, so paid the same higher prices for houses that younger people did (although not as much as they are selling for now.)

Our retirement is mostly tied to the stock market. [/quote]

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