Poll: How much have you saved for retirement?

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.........[/quote]

Does your wife have a sister?

Fabio wrote:

Does your wife have a sister?

No, one brother. So if you're willing to get a sex change......(because I'm pretty sure he ain't gay. But he does have the same "deal" has his sister ). :-)

Marryin' $. It ain't just for women any more.

Snatch wrote:

Fair comment.

I paid $50,000 18 years ago for my current home.

Recent valuation $800,000.and that is conservative.

Average home in the suburb $1 mill.

Free rent for 18 years and tax free.

At or near retirement sell and buy in a less affluent area or country.

Cash left to invest however I wish.

My investment home $95,000 in 2000.

Current valuation $275,000

Average home in the area $350,000.

Show me one of your portfolios that will show long term growth like these and I,m sold.

On either of these homes have you ever done any repairs? A new roof? Bought a lawnmower to cut the grass? Homeowners insurance? All of these are costs which must be taken into account if you try and determine a return on equity. Once you take into account these costs I guarantee there are many other investments that yield better returns.

99.9999% of people in America don't live where you live. Pretty much everyone else in this discussion has been talking on macroeconomic terms. There are always exceptions to every rule. And when did I say not to buy a house anyway? I just said to not rely on drawing income from the equity in a house come retirement.

A diversified portfolio with a low cost REIT and a low cost index fund of the S&P 500 should expect to yield better returns than a portfolio of the S&P 500.

48.

2.5MM IRA

550K equity in 20 year old real estate investment about to liquidate. (so i get cash)

500K equity illiquid real estate LLC (commercial bldg as above) but negative cash flow right now of a few k. (Income to pay tax on but no cash distribution)

1.2MM home equity (real estate here is nuts, our house is fairly modest)

750K equity on second home (not too liquid, but very real)

160K saved for only child college ed (soon)

2.5MM taxable investment accounts

I m sort of retired, need to get back to real work real soon for personal sanity and satisfaction.

I was able to take substantial investment risk at an early age without much worry as the family has money. Paid off well. But above is my own, cept for some help on the down payment for house.

(250K)

Granted, I live in a place that is not the norm.

But you seemed to discount the benefits of owning a home while retired. Not having to pay rent aside from property taxes, HOA fees, and maintenance fees is a lot better than having to pay increasing amounts in rent.

If an older person really needs a stream of money from their home, they could take out a reverse mortgage (but genarlly that is not advised since they are very expensive to take out). They wouldn't be able to do that without owning a home.

29, just graduated from law school, married.

Wife and I have law school debt of about 200k, income of 300k+, and about 30k in our 401ks, 25k in checking, and no credit card debt.

We just started saving this year. Plan to have paid off law school debt in 3-5 years and will buy a house then (hopefully the market will have bottomed out at that point).

runover wrote:

But you seemed to discount the benefits of owning a home while retired. Not having to pay rent aside from property taxes, HOA fees, and maintenance fees is a lot better than having to pay increasing amounts in rent.

Nope just amazed at how many people on here listed their house as their only retirement savings.

Even more amazing is how many guys on this site complain about paying an extra $5 for a pair of racing flats or another $5 for an entry fee. I guess that is how they are making their millions....being cheap!

okay, sorry I mis-interpreted what you were saying.

People should hold a diversified portfolio and have liquid assets when retired. That is why I would suggest investing in a tax deferred account or tax advantaged account like a Roth before paying off a low interest mortgage if they have extra cash while they are young.

update?

Age 28:

$45K in personal investment account

$65K in Retirement accounts

$110K all-in, not counting checking accounts or any other minor investments.

37 year old (married, no kids)

House Value: $1,600,000 (conservatively). We owe $430K at 2% interest rate on 15 year mortgage with 13 years remaining. We are not going to pay that off early given the low rate. So call it roughly $1,150,000 in equity.

Retirement Accounts: $1,400,000 (about $800K of that is in Roth accounts); Note that this is roughly an even split of $700K each for my wife and me. Investments split 60% in VTI, 20% in VXUS and 20% in BND.

Investment Account: $750,000 (60% in VTI, 20% in VXUS, 20% in VWITX)

Checking: We keep $20K in our checking account. Both of our paychecks go into this account, and we move whatever amount above $20K at end of month into investment account.

How did we get to where we are today? Put simply, a lot of hard work. Top undergrad, top MBAs, IB/PE/Consulting jobs working 80+ hours per week before moving into VP+ positions in corporate world. Also, passive investing in broad market index funds with very low fees. Home has appreciated about $600K (conservatively) since we purchased it. We max out our retirement accounts every year. We don't buy fancy watches, clothes or expensive dinners, but we do splurge on nice vacations (probably spend about $20K on vacations each year). I'm sure that not having kids has probably helped us reach the numbers above too. That decision wasn't about money... just a personal choice in that we didn't really want kids. Lastly, the money is shared and all goes into one joint account... we don't keep separate accounts (except for retirement accounts where required) based on who makes more / less (although recently we are both at similar income levels).

If I had one piece of advice it would be to put as much into your retirement accounts in your 20s as possible. Second would be to invest in passive index funds with low fees, and don't chase individual stocks (google Boglehead if you want to learn more on that style of investing).

I’m 52 and the VP of Finance for my company and I have no idea how much I have saved for retirement or a specific plan for retirement.

I like to plan for things I look forward to. I don’t look forward to retirement.

49, married

Together we have about 2m in RE equity (primary, vacation home, and limited partnerships)

About 2.5m In brokerage accounts, only 500k of that in taxable space

DINK

71. 24x annual income in savings. Just used to living well below my means. Still running in 5-10 year old shoes. Wearing same clothes 10-15 years old. No debt.

just about enough. Fortunately my mrs and I dont have expensive tastes. Most important thing is to have house paid off which we did ten years ago.

I really don't have any 401k saved up. My mom won the lottery about 6 years ago. She won 5 million dollars, so we are still living off of that. I drive a new car my mom bought me a few months ago. I don't have any bills because my mom paid them off. I spend most of my time putting together my NBA players on draftkings. Me and my mom just chill most of the time.