I am 31 and have about $32k in my retirement accounts. Is this well below average?

what does your non-home loan debt look like?

i am 27, no debt, 25k in retirement.

I have no mortgage or credit card debt. I owe $2k on my car loan and will have that paid off by the end of the year. I have about $6k left in school loans. I recently got a promotion at work and am now contributing a total of $1,000/month to my retirement accounts. Thank for your help.

Are you currently employed?

Based on all the financial stuff I've read, I think you're on a good pace. I'm also 31, and have about $22,000 in retirement, plus another $5,000 in college funds for the kids. So I'm behind you, but don't feel too bad about it. After all, our generation won't retire until at least age 70, so we've got 40 more years. $500/month into IRAs for the next 40 years should go a long ways. You got an early start, and I don't see any reason why you won't retire a millionaire, provided you've got the money in decent funds.

Of course, all society could collapse at some point, in which case none of us will retire.

askjdisd wrote:

I have no mortgage or credit card debt. I owe $2k on my car loan and will have that paid off by the end of the year. I have about $6k left in school loans. I recently got a promotion at work and am now contributing a total of $1,000/month to my retirement accounts. Thank for your help.

$1000/month is even better. You're in great shape.

You're probably ahead of the national average for your age but that isn't saying much.

Aat this point you can't go back in time so now you should focus on contributing the max to both your 401k and Roth IRA from this day forward.

I have maxed out My IRA and 401k sine I was 21 (I am 36 now) and have no regrets. Contributing anything less than the max is simply not an option for me. You get used to living off a smaller paycheck very quickly. It becomes second nature to you.

I'm almost 39, so I don't remember what I had in my 401k at 31. But I only started it when I was almost 27. So, if I had more than $30k, it wasn't by much. To provide context, my 401k now has about $180k. For most of that time, I was contributing 7%.

Were you contributing 7% of gross or take-home?

All depends on how much you want to live on. You should be saving about 10% of your salary if you hope to replace most of your current income. For what it is worth, I am guessing your slightly above average.In 2007 people under 35 had 960035-45 had 3700045-54 had 6300055-64 had 100000Obviously the problem with this is it ignores other financial numbers (i.e. a young married couple is more likely to save for a house while a young single person can afford to do retirement savings) and things like salary (if you making 100k and only have 32k you suck. If you make 24k and have 32k your doing a lot bettr. Or if you just finished med school 2 years ago versus been working since 22).

askjdisd wrote:

My saving has picked up recently, but I feel I'm way behind the 8-ball on this. Any thoughts?

Thanks.

I think you're screwed. But honestly, I'm in much better shape financially in my late 30s than I was in my early 30s.

At 32 I was deep in debt, almost nothing in retirement. Now I'm 45 and have a little over 150k in my retirement, no debt, maybe 125K in cash and stock, 120k equity in house and I feel like a failure. I'd like to have a do over.

Just die young and you'll be fine.

I'd say you're above the average, but again that is saying much. I'm 25 and have $30,000 in my 401k and I'm below the majority of my friends (have all been working since they were 22).

I would agree with someone else stating that is all depends the situation you're in. If you just graduated (med school, phd, whatever), then you're probably doing well.

X-Runner wrote:

Just die young and you'll be fine.

correct answer

Thanks for your thoughts. I got my masters in May 2009, but the tuition was covered by my employer.

I was at about the same level, maybe a little less at your age. I now have about $850k put away, and hope to hit $1M before I retire. I never put away any big chunks of $, just steady saving as much as I could, and split it about half in stock mutual funds and half in bond mutual funds. I managed to pay most of my two kids college expenses along the way also. Just like running, consistent effort eventually pays off.

'I have no mortgage'

and no house

This is true. I'm married but I rent. At this point in my life, home ownership doesn't interest me at all. That may change, of course. But my "American Dream" doesn't include home ownership. :)