70%

[Kronk]

Guess I'm in the vast minority. House equity (paid off house) is around 50-55% of our net worth.

But at least we're going in the right direction -- at the beginning of 2009 it was more like 63%.

I have calculated that between house upkeep, 4% SWR on the house equity, property taxes, etc. that what we've got is equivalent to $2,000 in rent. In other words, if we sold our house, put the proceeds in a diversified portfolio, and rented something for $2k/month our net finances would basically look the same. That doesn't include fluctuating home prices, but it was still a useful exercise for me to go through to figure out how much my house "costs" me.

[deserat]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ProspectiveBum I had a project at work at while back to put together a report on a customer's 401k data. In building that report, I could see the contribution levels of the 400-500 employees in the organization. Just from eyeballing it, I'd guesstimate that fewer than 10% were contributing the max, and the majority of those seemed to be older employees contributing up to "catch-up" limit of $21,500. Most of the contributions were very small ($2K - $3K per year). The 401k consultant at my own company told me that I'm one of only 2 people at my ~20-person company contributing the max. I do get concerned that by being responsible now, I'm going to get "punished" later in life, to help pay for the folks who haven't saved enough.

Very interesting stats - I still contribute the max and I'm only working part-time. My husband contributes the max as well....it's something that isn't negotiable. We'll go without the nice stuff in order to ensure we hit that max. He didn't do that before he married me, but he sure does now and loves looking at our portfolio (well, with the rough and tumble stock market, it sometimes astounds him to see the swings in our net worth).

If your small sample size is representative, then that 10% of those only contributing to the max means many will be working a lot longer, so perhaps SS won't take such a dive or be as bad as predicted with many still needing to work beyond normal retirement age (which is being slowly adjusted upward).

I think the 'punishment' is coming soon - just how bad it will be is the question andhow fast one can recover or adjust.

[mickeyd]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ProspectiveBum I do get concerned that by being responsible now, I'm going to get "punished" later in life, to help pay for the folks who haven't saved enough.

I usually assume that future Congresses will look back on those of us that have LBYM and try to screw us. The Roth IRA, for example, has a bunch of ways that they can screw us, tax us, punish us in the future.

We just have to trust our elected officials...:r ofl: