When 30, What Age Did You Plan For Retirement?

[ocean view]

Target was 54, same as dad; actual was 50. No plan to get there other than save, save, save.

 

[pjigar]

At 30, my plan was to FIRE at 40 by using "leverage" i.e. moving to a low cost developing country. I changed this plan at 35 due to special need kid. DS will have a much better life here at home. So now the plan is to FIRE at 50.

 

[Midpack]

I didn’t have an age goal. My goal at 30 was to save and invest as much as possible, to reach FI as soon as possible even though I didn’t actually know the term. The concept of YMOYL had an impact on me, even though I never owned any bonds (or funds) until about 10 years ago. I assumed I’d have a pension and retire at 65, neither came true in the end. I realized at about age 50 that we were FI and that we could retire early and that made me save even more.

 

[imoldernu]

When 30, What Age Did You Plan For Retirement?

Retirement?
With a wife and four kids, back in 1966, the only concern was survival!

 

[mountainsoft]

retirement + supporting aging parents.

That was the surprise wrinkle in my plans. Two years ago I wouldn't have dreamed that I would need to support my mom in addition to my own retirement needs. Plans change.

 

[RobbieB]

I didn't seriously think about retirement until I was 50. And then I targeted 59.5

 

[chilkoot]

At 30 I had just been hired at the company from which I would eventually retire. Was too relieved to be done with the "getting dirty for a living" phase to be very concerned with retirement. Only started thinking about RE when I was in my 40's. Made it out at 55.

 

[slowsaver]

I had no retirement 'plans' at age 30, although I did have a 401k that I automatically invested in via my paychecks. But ... after seeing so many layoffs during and after the dot-com bubble popped, and after noticing that the "older" software engineers were not able to find new tech jobs as easily, I came to the conclusion that I would probably get laid-off between age 40-50 and never work in high tech again. That anxiety in my 20's and 30's turned into a real plan by age 40. Thank goodness I had the foresight to max-out the 401k, so that I had something to work with when I was ready to make a plan.

 

[scrabbler1]

I can't say I had any serious retirement plans at age 30. I had just refinanced my mortgage and was saving $200 per month with the reduced payment. I had just gotten promoted to supervisor at work, and things were going well there. My company had expanded its minimum hours worked per week from 35 to 37.5 but had also boosted its 401k company match from 50% to 75%. I had some stock in my 401k but not in my taxable accounts yet.


It wasn't until I turned 35 that I put early retirement onto my radar. By then, I was thinking mid-50s but some good things happened from ages 35-45 which accelerated the process, enabling me to retire 10 years ago at age 45.

 

[UnrealizedPotential]

When I was 30 I thought that age 52 would be the age I retired. I still actually thought that 6 months before pulling the trigger . Some things I began to realize that were a game changer for me in the final 6 months. I left my job at age 46 over two years ago. You just never know. I don't regret my decision .

 

[exnavynuke]

At 30, I figured 62 or older for retirement. By 35 I was convinced that I didn't want to work that long but hadn't started working on a plan to make that happen. By 40 I had my current fire age of hopefully 47 established.

 

[kimcdougc]

Never thought about retirement. Too busy raising kids and working. Just put $ into the 401K for 30 years and never touched it. Retired in 2015 at the age of 57. Life is good.

 

[street]

I really didn't have an age to retire but of course I knew at sometime I would retire. I actually thought at times I would work and never really retire. LOL

I just wanted to accumulate as much as I could because that just was my instinct to do.

Then one day I sat own and really took a look at my portfolio and there really was no need to continue so I just retired. I was brought up you worked till you dropped and keep on saving and being frugal.

 

[marko]

When I was 25 I thought I'd retire at 32.
Only slightly unrealistic but then at 26 my job got really, really interesting, fun, and....it took another 25 years.

Otherwise, I'd probably have hung it up around 35.

 

[Mdlerth]

His last words were "Bugger all"

I started my career at 21. Since 58 was the eligibility age for a Megacorp pension, I figured I would retire at 58.

By the time I turned 30 I was sure I'd never live long enough to retire. If it ultimately does end up that way, my final thought will be "I feel so cheated!"

 

[LOL!]

Like some others in this thread, at age 30 I had a plan to be financially independent at age 40, but since I loved my dream job I didn't have a plan to retire at age 40. It all worked out quite nicely.

 

[Aerides]

At 30 it was not on my radar. I was doing pretty well at my MC, still low on the totem pole but starting to move up a bit.

Tons of debt, no long term plans whatsoever.

Between 30 and 35, divorced and remarried to a far better match, and the idea of ER was agreed to but abstract. 55? certainly not longer. Over the next few years we got more serious, and around 39/40 we set a $ goal and plan to get there. Met that about a year ahead of plan and RE'd at 46.

 

[KevinP]

At 30, I was hoping for 50. I had a pension I could collect at 55 and was already investing a little. I figured I could save enough to retire 5 years early.

I'm currently 50 and probably could retire now, but fear is holding me back a bit. Hopefully 2 years from now.

 

[athena53]

I planned to retire at 65. That was when everyone retired, wasn't it? ;-) It's probably just as well I didn't have a hard and fast plan back then; marriage followed by a child at 31, spouse who was a financial train wreck, divorce, remarriage 7 year later, move to a LCOL area... none of that was in the spreadsheets!

Two memories did make me question my assumptions: first, when I was 27, coworkers were talking about a guy they knew whose company told him he was being promoted. He told them he didn't want to be promoted. They told him he had no choice. He ER'd because he had enough investments to do so. My Dad was demoted from his job running a branch of a major steel company when I was 32. He and Mom sold the house in the Midwest, moved to Myrtle Beach and eventually bought a place there for cash.

It drove home the point that it was good to build up a cushion so you have options in your 50s/early 60s. I ended up retiring at 61- job turned sour, didn't want to look for another one, end of story. Life is good.

 

[SumDay]

Never even thought about actually retiring at that age. I had about $3000 in my 401(k) then. Every dime I put in it killed me. Glad I plowed through. 21 days to go...

 

[Walt34]

At 30 I was planning to retire March 12, 1998 with 25 years of service in a law enforcement job and 25 years was the "normal" retirement time. But when the actual date arrived I didn't want to retire because I was enjoying the job so much in the then-new field of computer forensics and online computer crimes. To me it was terrific job that was right out of a science fiction novel, the job certainly didn't exist when I was hired in 1973.

I finally did retire after 29 years, 4 months with better benefits than I would have had if I had left at 25 years. Mostly it was mounting frustration with obtaining the needed ongoing training, equipment and software (few people outside the arena realized how fast the field was evolving) and the traffic in the Washington, D.C. area. When I looked at the retirement numbers I realized that I could make more money selling t-shirts out of a van and there was no financial reason to continue, so I put in the papers.

 

[nvestysly]

DW and I started planning for retirement as soon as we had "real" jobs - contributing to company retirement plans, IRA's and then 401-k's when they became available to us. That was in our early to mid 20's.

By the time we were 30 we hoped retirement would be earlier than traditional 65 but we didn't know exactly when it would take place.

By the time I was 40 I wrote a goal - retire by age 50. I missed that by two years and retired at 52 but mostly due to OMY syndrome. We were FI at age 50 and could have retired. When megacorp offered an early out package at age 52 it was too good to refuse.

 

[NYEXPAT]

Had you been buying Put options or otherwise "Short" going into 87?
Usually it works the other way around. Interesting story.

-gauss

I was a Futures Trader and I happened to be Short the futures on the S&P 500.

 

[HI Bill]

At 30, I wasn't really thinking about retirement. I had just under $60K in my 401(k), no real estate, and about $5K in savings. It wasn't until 33 that I really started to think about ER, and came up with the goal of 50 (now, 53 due to wanting a better standard of living in retirement).

 

[LuckyDog]

The goal was 53 and I achieved the goal...