I'm 29 and have about 30k. But I like to travel and have student loans, so it's been a bit of a slow climb.

Anonymous wrote:LOL, I am a late bloomer. At age 27 I had probably 0 net worth. I was horrible with money. I don't know what my wife saw in me that convinced her that I had potential.

The vast majority were in your boat, pp. No one's going to chime in and say it here, however.

Age 29 with about $60k in tsp. Never made more than $60k a year though.

What if you also have a pension? How would that adjust what you should have in independent retirement savings outside of that?

LOL, I am a late bloomer. At age 27 I had probably 0 net worth. I was horrible with money. I don't know what my wife saw in me that convinced her that I had potential.

OP, the majority of Americans do not have close to enough saved for retirement, regardless of age. The average 20 something has $16,000 saved. I only had about that much when I was in my twenties.

At 27 I probably had around ~40-45k. I was 2 yrs out of law school working in biglaw; was maxing out but with no match. Then I left to clerk where I had to take a year off from retirement savings. I didn't hit 100k until at least 31-32. Now I'm in a job with an 8% match (and with a higher amount in the 401k from all the yrs of saving) and it's amazing how much faster it grows. Those earlier years were a slog.

fidelity suggests you should have 1x your salary by age 35. Some have updated that to age 30. I have that (90k) - this is after working 7 years with a match.

Anonymous wrote:my husband and i are your age. we have around 200k in retirement savings combined excluding cash and brokerage savings and excluding real estate

it doesn't count if you got it from your parents.

I am 33 and just reached 100K. Started working at 26 after law school, clerked for a year and made nothing (and saved nothing) - was just getting by, then small law for two years making 85K, then big law for four years making 200k+, now in medium size and making 170K.

At 27, just try to pay what you can and definitely get any match that is available to you. My husband, who made less than me for many years, had an amazing match and has over 500K saved at 36.

Impossible to answer your question without knowing your expenses. All of the super early retirement people I know of had ridiculously low expenses or they didn't really retire - they just stopped going to an office job and started freelancing (blogging, construction, dog walking, etc.). If you can live on practically nothing then it won't be hard to retire at 27. If you have more normal expenses then it will take a relatively large amount of money since you will likely have a very long retirement (50+ years).

Anonymous wrote:I thought this was going to be a thread about retiring at age 27.

I'm obsessed with FIRE, financial independence, etc. Super interesting to read about.

I thought this was going to be a thread about retiring at age 27.