I am a SAHM who used to be a fed . I resigned in 2002 (age 38) and had $98,000 in my Thrift. When I was 50, it was worth $264,000. I kept it until 2016, when I finally rolled it into an IRA. At rollover, it was worth $269,000. With zero contributions in 17 years it has grown to $405,000. I'm 55.

OP, the reason the numbers are so low per DCUM standards as you have only asked about retirement accounts even if people are making out, that’s not much. Investment non retirement accounts can have much more.

We have 1.3 million at age 45 in retirement accounts but 2 million total.

When I was about 40/41 we hit 1M combined. We stopped for about a year due to childcare costs but now at 46 we have about 2.1M combined.

I've been surprisingly diligent about tracking financials.

2009 - 1st job - early 20s - $8K in a Roth 401k.

2019 - 1st job out of PhD - early 30s - $175K
- $100K in Roth Rollover + $75K in current 403. (I now get 10% match).

I didn't contribute much (maybe 2K in to the Roth) for the 6 years of PhD+Post Doc. I got super lucky that I invested everything in an SP500 index fund.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What numbers would need to be posted for this thread to longer be “normal” ?

By my quick skim of the posts only 1 person has $1 million in their 401k, that’s not common for a DCUM Money and Finance thread (even for posters under 50). Usually the posters under $1 million are in the minority.

One million for one person is a lot. Many couples have over one million.

Back in day you could not put as much in 401k. As recently as 2002 It was only 11k a year and in 1980s around 7k a year. The 401k catch up for folks over 50 did not start till 2001.

They jacked it up to $16,500 in 2009 so folks who maxed out last ten years had huge market gains, larger limits and catch up.

That said I have always contributed and I have Four 401k. Did not combine
225k
250k
750k
150k

So I have $1,475,000 in my 401ks.

I did not do max or close to max till 2007. But did max last 12 years all equities and catch up last 9 years where bulk of gains came.

My wife is a SAHM but she has 500k from legacy 401k

So we should hit two million combined in a few months

End of 2009 - 360k
As of now (almost end of 2019) - 1.2 mil