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There is no doubt some have pensions etc. But the vast majority do not. The figures posted just confirmed my contention all along that the investment firms ( and most posters on these boards) who scream that if you do not have over a million dollars you are screwed are spewihg nonsense. Obviously there are a whole lot of people who don't have close to that figure, or a pension, retiring every day. Just as I suspected
You really shoudn't concern yourself with national averages or medians so much (unless just a curiosity issue). All that matters is will you have enough to live a sustainable life of your choosing when you retire. Many people will not have adequate funds, and many will have more than they will ever need.
People have different aspirations and expectations for retirement. Some people want to be able to have enough to never have to alter their current working life style, while others are willing to move to a cheaper cost of living area and cut their expenses. So someone stating that they have $350,000 saved and someone else saying they have $2,000,000 isn't going to reassure you one way or another. As someone feels or currently does live on $30,000 a year, and someone else may feel they need at least $100,000 a year.
The national average is not that good as a whole. Do you want to compare yourself to that, or do you want to figure out how much you need? Couples with two social security checks retiring are usually much better off than a single person retiring with one social security check, as the single person will require a larger nest egg than a couple. For purposes of examining your retirement income, you should not count your home as an asset unless you plan to sell it and move to a cheaper house. You only want to count those assets that will generate retirement income for you in your calculations.
Remember. We save money in two ways. By earning more or by spending less. If you arrive at retirement with less than what you would have liked, then just do what is necessary to spend less. It can be achieved on many different income levels.
i would bet it is more a case of misery loves company. many folks just like hearing how bad everyone else is doing so either they don't feel so bad or it just makes them feel better.
personally i don't spend time reading any of these articles which are just un-informative useless trash to me.
i much prefer to steal thoughts and ideas from more succesful people that increase my own knowledge and abilities...
You really shoudn't concern yourself with national averages or medians so much (unless just a curiosity issue). All that matters is will you have enough to live a sustainable life of your choosing when you retire. Many people will not have adequate funds, and many will have more than they will ever need.
People have different aspirations and expectations for retirement. Some people want to be able to have enough to never have to alter their current working life style, while others are willing to move to a cheaper cost of living area and cut their expenses. So someone stating that they have $350,000 saved and someone else saying they have $2,000,000 isn't going to reassure you one way or another. As someone feels or currently does live on $30,000 a year, and someone else may feel they need at least $100,000 a year.
The national average is not that good as a whole. Do you want to compare yourself to that, or do you want to figure out how much you need? Couples with two social security checks retiring are usually much better off than a single person retiring with one social security check, as the single person will require a larger nest egg than a couple. For purposes of examining your retirement income, you should not count your home as an asset unless you plan to sell it and move to a cheaper house. You only want to count those assets that will generate retirement income for you in your calculations.
Remember. We save money in two ways. By earning more or by spending less. If you arrive at retirement with less than what you would have liked, then just do what is necessary to spend less. It can be achieved on many different income levels.
Oh I totally understand this. But it does not change my position. You have to admit there is not a firm out there who would say that $300,000 is enough for a couple to retire with. And of course as you pointed out this probably includes the value of their home which will not generate income in most cases.
As for me I plan on having more than the national average, have way more already and I'm more than a decade from retirement. But the point remains you do not have to have $1.2 million as many claim.
You can't say what someone needs. someone may need nothing more then ss to live a low end no frills lifestyle in some less desireable area.
once basic life is sustained nothing is a need. everything that sets your budget beyond that is a want.
Retirement income is like water . It will always find its own level. Lifestyle,location and wants will determine what you need not general rules of thumb.
Some folks want larger buffers for unplanned emergency spending. I fit in that camp. I find my life always seems to get hit with large expenses that were not even on the radar.
With no pay checks in retirement i want to plan for them not rule them out.
For what we want out of retirement anything less then low to mid 7 figures in nyc would be short of our goals and we don't live in manhattan either.
But that does not mean i couldn't survive on just ss somewhere . I just prefer not to. we would not be able to fill our lifes dreams ,wants and goals if that was the case.
We have lots of travel goals, charitable giving goals , gifting and lifestyle goals we are striving for.
Nothing is a need but these are the wants in lfe we set our sights on. our idea of retirement activities isn't that walk in the woods or along the beach anymore.
we want to see the world , we want to live near the kids and grandkids even if it means living in nyc. we don't want to watch every penny we spend nor sweat every bill. better yet we do not want to fear our income stream will be broken by poor markets,bad sequencing or low interest rates.
all that adds to the amount of money you desire for retirement. we need little but we may desire a lot.
i actually started my retirement exit strategy last week by going part time and hope to cut that back in a year, i am delighted we did meet goal.
Last edited by mathjak107; 07-19-2014 at 05:06 AM..
I get it, you've made your point over and over. Again HALF the people out there have far less than what is recommended. And again my point is what is recommended is not necessarily true. As you said nobody, certainly not the investment firms or posters on a message board, knows how much anyone will need. So how is it that so many seem to want to tell others what they need if they do not really know? As I said a ton of people are obviously in retirement with far less and I doubt they are all eating cat food. So it can be done.
Last edited by DaveinMtAiry; 07-19-2014 at 07:25 AM..
the only people telling others what they need without all their personal financial info , expenses , goals and wants are those that have no clue what retirement planning is about.
if they understood anything about it they would realize they are answering a question they can't answer.
but usually the question that can be answered is not i need x-amount to live how much do i need to save but rather i have a projected view i will have x-amount of money so how much can i spend?
since expenses ,lifestyle ,goals and wants are usually still unknown most folks are interested in the reverse.
they project a certain amount saved and want to know how much can i safely spend a year from this big ole pile of money IF i reach that amount and have it last a lifetime so we can plan around it.
there are ways to ball park that conservatively to get an idea.
i can tell you how to do that , that is just math.
but in no way can i tell you how much you need to save... that is uique to only you. so you tell me what you have , i can give you a ball park on a safe spending rate , but i can't tell you what that amount should be and do the reverse.
very different question.. one way is the dog waging the tail. the other is the tail trying to wag the dog.
Last edited by mathjak107; 07-19-2014 at 07:26 AM..
the only people telling others what they need without all their personal financial info , expenses , goals and wants are those that have no clue what retirement planning is about.
if they understood anything about it they would realize they are answering a question they can't answer.
but usually the question that can be answered is not i need x-amount to live how much do i need to save but rather i have a projected view i will have x-amount of money so how much can i spend?
since expenses ,lifestyle ,goals and wants are usually still unknown most folks are interested in the reverse.
they project a certain amount saved and want to know how much can i safely spend a year from this big ole pile of money IF i reach that amount and have it last a lifetime so we can plan around it.
there are ways to ball park that conservatively to get an idea.
i can tell you how to do that , that is just math.
but in no way can i tell you how much you need to save... that is uique to only you. so you tell me what you have , i can give you a ball park on a safe spending rate , but i can't tell you what that amount should be and do the reverse.
very different question.. one way is the dog waging the tail. the other is the tail trying to wag the dog.
We agree. So why does virtually every investment firm scare the crap out of people? Obviously to get them to invest more, with their firm. They have scared so many that some of those folks have pretty much given up on retirement, some have stopped saving altogether with a "what's the point, I'll have to work 'til I'm dead anyway" mentality and that's just wrong.
Perhaps the selfish and apparently realistic view is that what you need is what you want to have until you get there. At that point what plays out is based on what you have and how you manage it. Our retirement dreams are based on hopes and our retirement is based on reality. So pre/retiree's dream on and retiree's live on and may all enjoy what they have.
i think investment advisors want you to have as much slack in the plan for the awe craps of life and the unknowns..
i can tell you how i came up with an amount that worked for us and yes it has slack in the plan..
i added up all the expenses and spending that was non descretionary where we had no choice without major changes to alter those bills.
lets suppose it was 45k .. since our budget will have lots of income for descretionary spending and wants i times our non decretionary spending by 2 . so 90k is the budget.
i would tack on 20k for taxes and extras and need 110k a year .
subtracting out ss may leave you with 80k from savings needed.
if i times the 80k x 25 for a ball park i get 2 million bucks as a starting point.
depending on my taste for volatility i may need more or less as depending how i allocate and how returns ,market sequences and inflation are .that will determine whether i can safely raise the amount up or down.
that is only a starting point. real time will then determine my actual draw as no one can predict the future. the 50% discretionary spending budget has lots of slack for cutting back if i need to .
but at least i have a number to plan around. the number is going to be a moving target in real life.
but i could never do that budget guessing for anyone else . someone with far less discretionary spending has a lot less or maybe nothing to cut if things do not go well. they may require a different set of planning. criteria.
the reality is like tuborg said what we want and what we end up having to work with are 2 different amounts.
how much do i need to save is not a practical question to ask decades in advance . the better and more answerable question is if i save this much how much can i spend today?
Last edited by mathjak107; 07-19-2014 at 08:00 AM..
Perhaps the selfish and apparently realistic view is that what you need is what you want to have until you get there. At that point what plays out is based on what you have and how you manage it. Our retirement dreams are based on hopes and our retirement is based on reality. So pre/retiree's dream on and retiree's live on and may all enjoy what they have.
correct again .
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