Honestly this thread is silly without income.

Saving 2M by 50 would be incredible and probably near impossible for someone making 75k per year.

Saving 2M if you make 1M per year at 50 would be sad.

Incomes also can jump significantly and so much depends on length of compounding.

I got a phd in humanities, so made no money in grad school and my first couple post phd "jobs" were fellowships that paid, like, 30k a year. I didn't really earn a salary until I was 34 and it was a gs 11. I didn't break 100k until I was 44. I work in a non profit. I'm 52 and now make 140k. I really wish I had understood how important it was to invest as much as possible early on. I would have likely made different choices.

Early 40s: DH & DW combined ~$800k (+ a generous pension)

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ages 49/48
$1M tax-deferred
$600k Roth
$750k home equity (paid off townhome)
$175k college (one kid)

SS estimate for both of us $4,500/mo.

It is really odd seeing so many posters like PP above who have nothing saved outside of tax advantaged vehicles.

What does that mean?

Why is it odd? A balance of Roth and Traditional is all you need to manage your tax burden in retirement. There are plenty of strategies for withdrawing penalty free early if you want to retire early.

Maybe penalty free, but you will get hosed by taxes.

Not with a Roth.

Anonymous wrote:How do you factor in a pension? I expect to receive something like $3K a month. How do you value that in your total retirement?

Typical plan for drawing down savings in retirement is to withdraw 4 percent per year.

So take what you expect your pension to pay you annually and divide that by .04. That will give you the lump sum of how much your pension is “worth”, i.e., the amount of savings that it would take to produce that income stream.

Anonymous wrote:How do you factor in a pension? I expect to receive something like $3K a month. How do you value that in your total retirement?

The way to think about it is not so much "what is my pension worth", but "How much of my post-retirement needs will my pension cover and how much do I need in my cover the rest."

PP above, you say your pension will be about $3,000 per month.

Just factor that into your retirement savings needs. Say you've concluded that your total retirement costs will be $10,000 per month. You know that your pension covers $3,000 of that. so you need to save enough in your other retirement accounts to get another $7,000 per month.

Honestly this thread is silly without income.

Saving 2M by 50 would be incredible and probably near impossible for someone making 75k per year.

Saving 2M if you make 1M per year at 50 would be sad.

56M. $2.3M in brokerage+401K, $1.5M rental property, and a pension that kicks in at 61. Took early retirement last year.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ages 49/48
$1M tax-deferred
$600k Roth
$750k home equity (paid off townhome)
$175k college (one kid)

SS estimate for both of us $4,500/mo.

It is really odd seeing so many posters like PP above who have nothing saved outside of tax advantaged vehicles.

What does that mean?

Why is it odd? A balance of Roth and Traditional is all you need to manage your tax burden in retirement. There are plenty of strategies for withdrawing penalty free early if you want to retire early.

Maybe penalty free, but you will get hosed by taxes.

We have a lot in 401k (almost 4m) with only about $300,000 in taxable accounts. We have maxed out 401ks since we are in the 37% tax bracket and have been in the top bracket for years. We should be in a lower tax bracket in retirement. We will also convert portions of 401k to Roth during early years of retirement when we don’t have RMDs or SS.

Divorced mom, 41, coming off large career gap due to being SAHM in early years. $250k in 401k/IRA, $35k in 529 (one child), $100k savings. (Yes, I am panicked).

Anonymous wrote:$30 million. Sometimes I'm concerned that it won't be enough.

Ouch. Unless you can get that up to at least 80-90M by your mid 50s you will probably need to have a part-time job forever in retirement.

me: 52; 600k in various 401k and 435k in investment accounts, mostly from real estate and other investing. Will have pension of about 3k/month. Need to start figuring out roth conversions.

DH: 59: 650k in combined roth and 401k; will have about 7k/month in pension when he retires. Even though he makes more than I do, he was not a saver at all until we met/married in our late 30s/40s. I have changed his ways, but he lost out on a lot of compounding over the years and is still not financially savvy (and I'm just barely savvy). I did encourage him to take the job with a good pension and he plans to work another 10 years if he can to max out retirement and pension.

Together: 150k in our joint investment account, 50k in emergency funds; about 400k in equity (but 600k mortgage, will likely sell and downsize once our kids are off, bought house only in 2021 when we moved to a MCOL area);

170k/150k per kid in college savings. Grandparents also have college savings for kids so they will be covered either way. Am not counting on any other family money--mom has some, but given her assisted living costs now and the fact that she's physically healthy but in early/mid stages of demential, it may all be gone. And that's what worries me---we will have enough to retire on but not sure about long term care.

50/55 4M in retirement savings. We will retire when I hit 55.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ages 49/48
$1M tax-deferred
$600k Roth
$750k home equity (paid off townhome)
$175k college (one kid)

SS estimate for both of us $4,500/mo.

It is really odd seeing so many posters like PP above who have nothing saved outside of tax advantaged vehicles.

What does that mean?

Why is it odd? A balance of Roth and Traditional is all you need to manage your tax burden in retirement. There are plenty of strategies for withdrawing penalty free early if you want to retire early.

Maybe penalty free, but you will get hosed by taxes.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How do you factor in a pension? I expect to receive something like $3K a month. How do you value that in your total retirement?

Calculate the annual pension and multiply by the number of years you would expect to collect it.

LOL

Anonymous wrote:How do you factor in a pension? I expect to receive something like $3K a month. How do you value that in your total retirement?

Calculate the annual pension and multiply by the number of years you would expect to collect it.