Poll: How much money do people have who are retired?

For retired posters only, (anonymously) how much $ do you currently have?

  • < $1 million

    Votes: 51 35.7%

  • $1-$2 million

    Votes: 48 33.6%

  • $2-$3 million

    Votes: 20 14.0%

  • $3-$4 million

    Votes: 8 5.6%

  • > $4 million

    Votes: 16 11.2%
  • Total voters
    143
And hey, as a bonus to my lessons learned, I am now a dryer sheet aficionada. Yeah!
 
Fritz

I think there are possibly some other options or maybe it just depends on how you look at it. Also things may change over time. I recently semi-retired (working about one day a week). I don't have SS yet (not old enough), have a 401(k) that I can't yet access (not being fully retired).

DH is retired later this month. He has a 401(k) (I guess that is investments in your poll), could take a non-COLA Pension, and will take SS. In his case he will take his pension as a lump sum. So, are we investments + SS or since a large part of the investments is from a pension lump sum are we considers pensioners?

Also right now, since I'm not eligible for SS more of our income is from investments while later it the combined SS income of DH and me may (or may not) end up being more than investment income.
 
LOL! said:
If you use the Search function for past polls, I think you will find some of your questions answered. Or start your own poll. You may need a pre-poll (like you have sort-of done) in order to appease the persnickety.
Click to expand...

I didn't find any polls that allowed forum members to classify themselves by suggested classes of retirement methods. Would give everyone a snapshot of current members' status (anonymously). Has this forum ever approached allowing members to publicly self classify by current status (i.e. retired, not retired), and not just newcomer status (Dryer sheet aficionado)? Might be kind of nice to know how to answer a thread with the poster's current status in mind (not everyone fills out the profile section).
 
Moemg said:
...frankly I do not see the difference between having a $40,000 pension or a million dollars to invest they both give you to same amount to spend.
Click to expand...

To my mind, I would rather have the cash equivalent of a pension any day of the week. With the principal under my control I can tap into the capital rather than be subject to yearly payouts. Put another way, you can spend the "million dollars".

I suppose you could monetize a pension through incurring debt, but that is far from an efficient approach.

Obviously the best case is to have a nice pension AND a boat load of cash.
 
Interesting to know, but the amount of $ you need to retire early is still a function of personal lifestyle, investment risk/return, and your defintion of early.
 
I only read the OP before voting. I added a net present value of my pension since it provides about half of our yearly budget. Clearly, a poll needs to be very explicit to avoid ambiguous results.
 
Earl E Retyre said:
I apologize for stirring things up with my poll. I see it was not the best formed poll. But I am only a dryer sheet wannabe. In the future, I will try and do better. Having said that, I did assume that since the forum is called FIRE (Financial Independence Retire Early), that most people on the site would not qualify yet for a pension or SS since they retired early after receiving financial independence. Otherwise the site may have been called Financially Able to Retire Tomorrow. Although that may not make for the best acronym. Anyway, thanks to those that did answer the poll. I still found the results very interesting and informative.
Click to expand...

From my earlier post, I assumed you were asking what you just wrote here (no SS or pension). When I first joined this forum, I was not aware of the large variety of early retirees and those who had not yet gotten there but were working on it and needed advice on how to plan for it.

BTW I like your screen name and the alternate acronym and your ability to find humor even as you were subject to some mild criticism. :)
 
REWahoo said:
You didn't consider many of us here may have retied in our 30's, 40's or 50's and actually lived long enough to be eligible for SS? Or were in the military and became eligible for pensions in our 40's? Or worked for state or municipal govts where retiring with full pensions at age 55 might be commonplace?

There are many roads to FIRE and assumptions should be tempered with reality. :)
Click to expand...


and I'll add one more twist . A few us have survivor pensions as we were young widows .
 
donheff said:
I only read the OP before voting. I added a net present value of my pension since it provides about half of our yearly budget. Clearly, a poll needs to be very explicit to avoid ambiguous results.
Click to expand...

It wouldn't matter if OP were James Carville. People would be bitching all day anyway. It's how we keep our minds sharp. :) I did a poll on where do we live. Some were oh so offended that it featured Washington and the West Coast. Oh, the shame!

Over on the Too Hot thread people are so upset that "she isn't really hot", Ya shure, you betcha! And salt isn't really salty, or sugar really sweet.

Ha
 
Katsmeow said:
Fritz

I think there are possibly some other options or maybe it just depends on how you look at it. Also things may change over time. I recently semi-retired (working about one day a week). I don't have SS yet (not old enough), have a 401(k) that I can't yet access (not being fully retired).

DH is retired later this month. He has a 401(k) (I guess that is investments in your poll), could take a non-COLA Pension, and will take SS. In his case he will take his pension as a lump sum. So, are we investments + SS or since a large part of the investments is from a pension lump sum are we considers pensioners?

Also right now, since I'm not eligible for SS more of our income is from investments while later it the combined SS income of DH and me may (or may not) end up being more than investment income.
Click to expand...

I pretty much leave it up to the individual to rank their retirement income stream - B/4 social security, and after. For selecting "Retired" (either pensioner or investor) - used receiving SS as my benchmark for "govt. recognized " retirement status (not related to SS start age) . The selections B/4 SS were for those not yet retired, or in early retirement - w/o the benefit of SS.

As for converting a pension to a lump sum - I would see that as you took on investment risk/responsibility - waiving pension guaranteed benefits. This would re-classify it as an investment, and would rank it according to where it fell related to dollar amount of current total available retirement assets. I also did this with a small pension - had no intention of allowing the company to roll it into an annuity. Felt I could do better on my own, controlling investments in retirement. FYI - I rolled it out at first eligibility to a roll over IRA, to allow it more growth time with it as a pure investment and not as a immediate retirement income stream.

Would agree that things will change over time. I was interested in the "current" make up of the organization's members (where is everyone now). I'm new to the group, but it would be nice to know (given the name of the organization), how members are grouped as to early or pre-retirement goals/paths (pensioner or investor), and also post-retirement with SS status (pensioner or investor). I believe it would have given Earl an answer more along the line he was seeking.
 
I can tell you my dad has about $200k in stocks for retirement... He also has about $600k in real estate (and about 300k in mortgage debt)... He has a pension which lasts forever and will be getting SS when he reaches the age... my mother on the otherhand only has about $200k vested in stocks $400k in real estate ($200k in mortgage debt) plus a pension and SS... altogether they have about a little under a million (I am including real estate holdings) plus a very health pension + SS... I don't think I will see a dime of it... my dad is married to a gold-digger who will go after every cent and he is stupid enough to let her... my mom will have gambled away every last dime... such is life...
 
W2R said:
I wonder if perhaps some people who have significant amounts of their net worth sunk into their housing, or value of pension/SS/whatever, are just embarrassed to admit on an anonymous poll that they don't have much actual money. There is nothing to be embarrassed about, though. Hey, we all wish we had an 80% pension, SS, and a big paid off house. This part of one's net worth sure seems more certain than investing, to me.

The OP specifically said he was interested in "background info when reading posts regarding investment opinions, etc., re: how much of a nest egg people are investing." The nest egg that I am investing consists of mutual funds and cash. My pension is not part of that. My house is just a place where I live.
Click to expand...

Nobody here has "actual $$$" unless it's in a big pile of cash....

Digital $$$ on a computer screen is great...

I have more than 2M of em;)
 
haha said:
Over on the Too Hot thread people are so upset that "she isn't really hot",
Ha
Click to expand...
Whoa, I missed that one. Headin over to the search page now :)

Edit: I already saw it after all. Not a photo contest like I was hoping.
 
Money? Not much.

Assets ... income producing real estate : ~1.5m.
 
evilnewbie said:
I.. He has a pension which lasts forever
Click to expand...
If it is a public pension (from the Federal Government), the probability of survival will be high but not forever. The government can cease its obligation at anytime though not likely.
 
Are you trying to say that you have $5 - 6 million in assets?
Click to expand...

No, not there ... yet. Had 3m but it all got cut about in half over the last few years.
 
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