What's the size of your portfolio?

[aida2003]

Hello,

While reading a few threads on "Hi, I am..." yesterday, I "met" a few millionaires with great wealth which got me curious. I created a poll to learn the size of ER or seeking ER retirement portfolios.

I don't have skills in statistics or surveys, so this will be far from perfect. It's more anecdotal than scientific but it should be interesting nevertheless. By human nature we try to compare ourselves to somebody else and see how we do.

Anyway, please vote on the size of your retirement portfolio: 401k (or similar plan) + IRA's + Taxable accounts. Do not include inheritance (subtract its approx. value from your total), houses, vacation homes, cars, or other valuables.
IMO, this would show saved our sweat earned money and saved for retirement.

ETA: Not PUBLIC anymore! Posters saying that it's worthless and nothing to gain. This is a voluntary voting. Nobody will know YOUR portfolio and I do not care about YOUR portfolio though a lot of people choose to disclose sometimes. It's an anecdotal survey, I know. Just to get an idea how well y'all doing as compared to the whole population. I wouldn't believe whoever says that we are not curious...

 

[RobbieB]

Vote where?

 

[REWahoo]

I've never felt comfortable revealing the size of my portfolio, but I do have large hands.

 

[Meadbh]

Public poll? I don't think so!

 

[GrayHare]

Public poll? Only if I can vote Boaty McBoatface.

 

[HFWR]

I have a portfolio so big it'll make you puke.

With apologies to Steve Martin...

I'm on the lower end of the ER.org scale, if that's any help.

 

[REWahoo]

Looks like the poll has been changed from public to private.

 

[bingybear]

not much for comparing with the jones' or seeing who is bigger.
I use to get multiple envelopes with 8x10 paper with my portfolio written on it. It is now electronic and thus is much smaller. One could get more envelopes and pieces of paper by having it spread out at multiple brokerages. ;-)
I'll skip the poll if we ever find one

 

[Rickt]

I don't see what's the point of this poll? How does it matter what the size of someone else's portfolio is as long as they are comfortable with their personal safe withdrawal level?

 

[RobbieB]

It's actually kinda cool and one of the reasons I signed up here.

Here we have a place where retired people (and even those lusting for same) can share some stuff. Here we have a mix of those that did it by extreme frugality and also a few hedge fund guys that took the money and ran. A good mix.

A mix of scrimping and saving and high pressure "got it and I'm done" and the whole range of in between. Pretty cool. We all share the love of "not working" eh?

 

[Meadbh]

Thank you to the OP (or the mods) for making the poll private. However, the question posed is still not clear. Specifically, the requirement to omit an inheritance. I have received two inheritances, and I put them into my investment portfolio. One of them was 11 years ago. I don't know how I can separate out the past value of that inheritance, which was substantial, and calculate the present value of the remainder of my portfolio. Hence, I am not going to answer the question.

 

[Viking]

Where's the "enough" option?

 

[RobbieB]

A better question would be "net worth"

My house is paid for and I do consider it an "asset" as I don't have to pay rent or mortgage and that is a real "income", same as if I had assets paying that dividend.

 

[Dreamer]

Public poll? I don't think so!

Just curious, how can you tell if a poll is public or private? It would be nice to know for the future. Thanks.

 

[Fermion]

If you are selling your paid off house and living in a van down by the river, do you then get to count your house money in your portfolio?

 

[rodi]

Not to poke the bear... but what about folks with gold plated pensions, but not a huge nest egg? Are they poorer than someone with no pension, but a bigger nest egg?

I agree that it's odd to exclude inheritance... if it's money in the nest egg...

Also - what about rental properties... they provide an income stream, and can be sold to increase the nest egg...

Too many problems with how this poll was defined in the OP.

 

[gcgang]

Maybe he meant just financial assets, the type of thing an FA gets paid to manage.

 

[cyber888]

Looks like the bell curve peaked around the $1M - $1.5M mark. That's where most people are I guess. Honestly, I'm still caught off-guarded and puzzled sometimes when some people ask "can I retire, I have >$4 million nest egg."

 

[RobbieB]

As always, it depends on how old you are, dependents, expenses, liabilities and the ever important "lifestyle"

Not to mention your faith in history, current interest rates, health conditions and "world politics"

It caused me to delay because of fear of the unknown for sure.

 

[bbbamI]

I've never felt comfortable revealing the size of my portfolio, but I do have large hands.

 

[NW-Bound]

Some posters have said that it is not the size of your portfolio, but what you do with it.

PS. About a man's hand size, do I have to post that Snopes article again?

 

[Major Tom]

As Meadbh says, how would I omit the value of the inheritance? I received one a few years ago, which was added to the money already in my taxable account. Should I just subtract the original value of the inheritance, or calculate what it would be worth now, if I hadn't been making withdrawals from that part of my stash?

I understand the reasoning for wanting us to include only money from our own sweat and labor, but it complicates things a bit for me. Besides, a fairly significant portion of my portfolio came from the sale of rental properties. I owned them for less than 2 years but it was during a boom in the market, so I made a nice profit. The properties were managed for me, and my only "sweat" was sitting by my fax machine to sign and fax the paperwork from the purchases and subsequent sales. Not much work involved.

If the rules change and I am allowed to vote based on the total portfolio size, I'll participate. Otherwise, I think I'll sit this one out.

 

[AlbaCrush]

Not to poke the bear... but what about folks with gold plated pensions, but not a huge nest egg? Are they poorer than someone with no pension, but a bigger nest egg?

I would fall into this category. While I don't have a million dollar nest egg, I have a nice pension and health care. I also own my home and have a modest 457 and savings.

 

[NW-Bound]

This "size" poll shows up every so often. I wish there's a way to link them all to see how the poll results change with time.

Inheritance has not come up in the past, to my knowledge. Other questions that have arisen include whether the amount should be divided by two for a couple. That last one would knock me down a couple of notches.

 

[tmm99]

I've never felt comfortable revealing the size of my portfolio, but I do have large hands.

As I always say, big hands, big gloves