Poll: How much have you saved for retirement?

daddybigbucks wrote:

...so I'm the loser on this thread - apparently. I don't know how you young guys do it. I guess it's cause I farted around for 7 years after college - just worked here-and-there, backpacked the States, etc. Right now I've got 27 yrs. of teaching, but only around 64K in my pension, with around 42K in a Legg Mason Value Trust fund, and around 70K in this newer Prudential annuity plan. So in 5-10 years, I'm not confident where I'll be... I just know that after three kids in college (two still in), and after just raising them, I've still got a mortgage - not much other debt - but still a mortgage.

There's a big selection bias in this thread so don't feel bad - basically if you've done real well investing through diligence and hard work or even luck you're proud of it so you post on here to show others how it can be done (or just to brag). If you've got 170k saved up, at any age, particularly outside your home, your in the top half of wealthy people in this country.

This is true - the people who have chimed-in are in no way representative of the general population. Most people have very little in savings.To make you feel better - I am 33, about 30K in 401k and 60k in stocks and mutals and 10k in short tern inventments.But I am now school loan free and owe $0.

ambassador orange wrote:

There's a big selection bias in this thread so don't feel bad - basically if you've done real well investing through diligence and

49 years old. 280K in TSP (Gov. type of 401k), and about 30k in other various IRA's. House almost paid off (3yrs).

Will have a FERS pension of 1.1% of base pay after 30 years. Social Security.

Doin' okay, just wish my wife's job had a pension and 401k.

Bad part? 4 kids 11 yrs. old and younger. Lots of college expenses upcoming and only 35k saved for it so far. We're definitely talking in-state college.

But, I guess we're doing better than most.

I am 53, and have 7,400 in an IRA.

But, not to worry, I'll have Social Security to live on.

It's sad to think about looking forward to not earning income.

I'll just keeping working in some capacity as long as I can.

You build up money. Then you hope that it whittles away at the same point that you take your last breath.

I guess working is like adding sand to an hour glass.

Then you stop working and turn the hour glass upside counting down the days 'till your death.

For those fairly young people that own a house with no mortgage-why?

Take the cash out, invest in something worthwile and take the deduction on the mortgage interest.

fmr,

You must not live where I live. People who want to continue to live in this area who have built up equity in their home and who have a fixed rate mortgage are far better off than renters. Even if their home doesn't apprecaite much more in the next few years, they won't have to worry about rent increases.

Rents for apartment have skyrocketed in my area. A lot of people cannot afford to buy now have to deal with increasing amounts of rent each year. I don't know what the long term consequences of this will be. But if you want to live in this area, owning is a much better option.

The point is that owning keeps your housing costs fixed. That is a very important factor while saving for retirement. And when you eventually don't have a mortgage to payoff, you don't have to worry about housing costs in retirement - aside from property taxes and hoa fees.

A friend of mine has 3 kids, no savings, no college savings, 2 new cars, and get this..

HE'S THINING ABOUT BUYING A BIGGER HOUSE!

Some people will always be broke no matter how much they make.

Off the Grid wrote:

Long term (~100 years) real return (i.e. adjusted for inflation) return on home equity in the US?

0.0%

3 majors spikes

'28-'29 up

'30-'33 down

'01 - ? up

Otherwise, US housing has only kept pace w/ inflation. that is the mean to which this trend will revert.

This almost certainly represents a misunderstanding of how flows should be accounted for. The housing has several attributes, the primary ones include: a flow of housing services, a semi-permanent capital asset (land), a depreciating capital assest (structure).

I believe that the figures you have cited do not include any imputed value to the flow of services (think of it as the implicit rental value or housing services).

Missing this component means that the calculation is biased downward. If you only looked at the selling price of rental housing and never accounted for the rental payments you would be making the same mistake (and it would show that investments in rental housing is a very bad investment with negative returns).

As for the two parts of the housing capital stock (land and structure), what you find is that the structure depreciates in value while the land appreciates. One way to see these effects is to compare the change in the housing prices of a standard house (and lot) with a condominium (with much less land per unit of house). The distnction is even more easily seen when the effects of inflation are removed (because the appreciation of the land component is generally positive in real terms and negative for the strucutral component). In doing comparisons, do not rely in the offical tax information that attributes value separetly land and structure because they typically overstate the value of the structure and understate the value of the land.

If you want to better understand this, go to discussions of the national accounts.

A similar mistake in the assessment of the appreciation of stocks occurs when the stock price index (e.g., DJ 30 Industrials, S&P500) is used to measure returns without including dividends, although this is a smaller mistake than leaving out the implicit rental value in the housing stock.

age 47, plan to retire age 68

inherited bank stock 210,000

stock mkt 450,000

money mkt acct (doing 3.75%return right now) 810,000

401K 275,000

no debt, just house note

income per year 200-225K

how am I doing here wrote:

age 47, plan to retire age 68

inherited bank stock 210,000

stock mkt 450,000

money mkt acct (doing 3.75%return right now) 810,000

401K 275,000

no debt, just house note

income per year 200-225K

Seems like you could retire a lot sooner. Why wait??

ambassador orange is correct about paying off the mortgage early.

It will really depend on the rate on your mortgage and what tax bracket you are in if it makes sense to pay off the mortgage early.

If I have established an emergency fund and had still had extra cash and was looking long term....

If your company has a 401(k) plan with a match, I'd increase my contributions to make sure I get the matching amount before I'd pay off principle in the mortgage.

If I still had extra cash, I'd then probablly fund a Roth IRA before paying off the mortgage.

As far the asset allocation in those accounts, that is another question, but I am pretty confident that I'd be able to get a better return than the effective rate on paying off a low rate mortgage.

18 month old son, would need to see him thru probably private school then college. could be costly by 2024. also believe working hard sets good example to child.

$810k in MM? Pay off your house, especially b/c I would guess your house note is > 3.75%. If you don't want to do that, at least move some MM to stock market. Of course, you have and make a HELL of a lot more than I, so who am I to give advice?

3.75% is horrible for a MM these days. INGdirect and Emmgigrant both beat this by nearly 1%. Move that money!

15-I have $75 in my piggy bank upstairs

and i am in debt big time...I borrowed $15 from my mom and $5 from a friend for ice cream so basically I am screwed.

32:

401k: $24,000

Roth: $45,000

Bonds: $30,000

Home Equity: $42,000

Other Investment Accounts: $55,000

26 years old....mortage of 123,000(on condo though appraised at 130,000), credit card debit-6000 and a car loan wityh 40 payments left at 280 a pop

28 years old and married.

Combined $10k cash on hand and $50k in CDs (for a house).

Combined $45k in investments (Roth and Simple IRAs).

Combined $60k in student loans (all fixed at 2.8% with a 20 year term, so no big deal).

Generally put away 25% of income towards long-term savings. Managed 30% a few times.

I generally manage to put 25% of pre-tax pay towards long term savings, although my investments are low because of the impending home purchase.

Off the Grid wrote:

Guys....NEVER get married. At least not w/out a prenup. There is absolutely no (rational) reason for it.

Ha ha. you guys are funny. don't get married, huh?

hmmmm.......

At age 32, I had saved about 40 grand, and had invested little of it (I was good about saving, never had debt, but just stupid about investing). I met a great girl. I knew her family had SOME $, but honestly swear-to-God, didn't really think she had big-time bucks. She didn't live it like, didn't act like it. I would have married her if she had $5 to her name (again, I never cared too much about $). So.....we got married. Never really asked her about her or her family's funds, but did start realizing she had some.

Ok, cut to the chase. Unbeknownst to me, her family gave her a trust fund when she was 21. She hadn't touched it once by the time we married (told you, she doesn't live extravagant at all), and I knew nothing about it. It is now worth.....

3.7 MILLION $'s.

What do you all think of marriage NOW?

And her family has $'s more which my wife & I will eventually see, and her uncles Millions more (some if which we will get).

How do you all feel about marriage now??

And I am not bragging, I got lucky. It happens sometimes. It still doesn't feel real. We still live rather cheaply (one car, ver moderate house). I take public transport. But I know I will never have to worry about $ again. Luck.........