Murph
Recycles dryer sheets
20 years. I didn’t start maxing until after that, and then it got to 1.5M after another 9 yrs. ESOP helped.
How many years did it take for your 401k to hit 1 million ?
- Thread starter targatom2019
- Start date
20 years. I didn’t start maxing until after that, and then it got to 1.5M after another 9 yrs. ESOP helped.
Monterey298sc
Recycles dryer sheets
- Joined
- Aug 3, 2018
- Messages
- 133
20 years , I’m 59 now and have 1.4 cash. About 1.6 M In Commerical property I will be selling in next 5 years for retirement.
20 years to the first million, maybe 5 or 6 years to the second (fingers crossed), max'd out, 7% employer match, AA 60%-70% in equities throughout. Two market dips along the way (2000, 2007), I kept on investing throughout as I didn't know what else to do, truly.
Spent 19 years saving in my 401k to get to 1/2 million before I quit, but if you count DH's too, then we hit it about 20 years in. We also pivoted to focus on aftertax savings in the last few years as the 401k's were looking too limited.
iloveyoga
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
Approximately 30 years.
gooddog
Recycles dryer sheets
About 14 years. Was lucky, in 2007 caught a video of Peter Schiff talking about the coming market crash and pulled everything to cash. When things crashed, got back in. Lucky timing made it 14 years, would have been longer otherwise.
Ed Waggoner
Dryer sheet wannabe
Here is my 401k story which is a little different. I started my 401k at 22 years old contributing 10% with 50% company match on the 1st 6%, at 32 I realized it was not growing quick enough, so i started buying 4 rental houses every year for 11 years with very little down for around 40k per house. Bought 44 homes, sold 4 for a nice profit for repair money.They needed about 5k each for updating to get them rented. ( did everything myself for the first 10 years) which brought up the property value immediately, giving me instant equity, many now have new windows, HVAC, roofs etc. which came out of rent roll. Now at 56 years old I owe 300k, all paid off in 4 years, they're worth 5 million dollars, generating $430K a year in rent. Property management, repairs, legal fees,taxes and HO insurance cost $150k a year, leaving me a nice yearly income.(I was able to live off the money from the business i started at 34 and use the rent for updating and down payments) I might start selling 1 house a year starting at 60yrs old, live off that and invest the rent roll. I am not sure how to invest the rent roll, I have no knowledge in investing other than real estate.Retiring from my business at 57 and giving it to my older son and living off the real estate with the wife.
Markola
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
Congrats to goodog but don’t try this at home, kids. I had to Google who Peter Schiff is. Looks like he writes a book per year on the coming economic crash. Fortunately, you picked and acted on the right one!
https://www.google.com/search?safe=...j5......0....1.........0i67j0i131.KlsMHICzzKI
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Hit the 7-figure mark
I believe I hit the 1million mark in 2011 (so 22 years), the 2008 bloodbath caused me to postpone retirement until 2015 on my 61st birthday. Been living off the 4% rule for the last 4 years, without dipping into principal. Hoping that keeps working until I collect SS next year
I believe I hit the 1million mark in 2011 (so 22 years), the 2008 bloodbath caused me to postpone retirement until 2015 on my 61st birthday. Been living off the 4% rule for the last 4 years, without dipping into principal. Hoping that keeps working until I collect SS next year
targatom2019
Recycles dryer sheets
I will not be able to tap into my 401k until 10 more years but good to know about the 4%.
Are you still in equity and what % ?
Canoeboy
Recycles dryer sheets
Took 14.5 years from 1990 to 2004 to hit 1 million. Maxed contributions from day one (15%) with 2% company match. Final 10 years contributions capped based on IRS contribution limits, prior to that limited by pay level. Until a few years ago, 95%+ invested in equities, mostly US stock index funds. Saw zero value in bonds until I was 5 years from ER. Still 70% equities in 401K in first year of retirement as I won’t need to tap 401k for another 5-8 years.
Canoeboy
Recycles dryer sheets
CORRECTION - 24.5 years 1990 to 2014. Off by a decade....
targatom2019
Recycles dryer sheets
.Valid not Invalid
Dryer sheet wannabe
Be careful on this, in some plans, maxing out early results in missing the matching funds, as in the federal governments TSP, which is allocated over 26 pay periods.
Jollyquick
Recycles dryer sheets
Much like others here, I didn’t have access to a 401K for most of my early career. The military wasn’t given access to TSP until January 2002.
So my generation of military investors had to make due with IRAs, Savings Bonds and taxable investments.
In my opinion, based on my generation that joined the military in the 1980s, they fall into two categories: 1. Those with at least a million after 20 years of service. And 2. Those who will never come close to a million. The reason for this shocking disparity is that very few actually make it to retirement. And of those very few, not many took advantage of the investing options available.
Too many spent their bonuses and extra cash on fast cars, stereo systems (big deal in the 80s and 90s)...oh and divorce. LOTS of divorce in the US military world and that shite is very expensive!
So my generation of military investors had to make due with IRAs, Savings Bonds and taxable investments.
In my opinion, based on my generation that joined the military in the 1980s, they fall into two categories: 1. Those with at least a million after 20 years of service. And 2. Those who will never come close to a million. The reason for this shocking disparity is that very few actually make it to retirement. And of those very few, not many took advantage of the investing options available.
Too many spent their bonuses and extra cash on fast cars, stereo systems (big deal in the 80s and 90s)...oh and divorce. LOTS of divorce in the US military world and that shite is very expensive!
Somewhere around 15 years for 401k's, but I started earlier, having IRA's as part of the retirement package.
I didn't have access to a 401K early in my career. When it was finally offered, I thought "deferring taxes will be FREE MONEY!" and contributed the maximum. This was the last week of 2004. There was initially no company match. Toward the end, they offered a 2.5% match with a cap at $2000/yr IIRC. I maxed IRAs throughout, too.
Later, Roths were introduced. I projected that my money would be eventually paying more taxes than my salary and increased to all Roth, increasing my contributions even more. I didn't make that great of an hourly wage but had overtime available so I worked long hours to be able to afford over 50% of my base pay going to my retirement. When Catch up provisions became availabe, I increased again to continue the maximum contributions. I wasn't a believer of bonds and was always staying 100% invested into equities. That choice turned out very well, over all.
I retired in 2016 with $1.1M in combined 401K and IRAs. I have not taken any money out, but have been converting gradually to Roth growth, using other funds to pay taxes. I finished converting last year.
We still have a few years to convert my SO's money to Roths. It will stretch out for another 5? years. Health tables steered us to accelerate my converting money to Roth. Now it's SO's turn. At 70, we expect to be fully converted, and will start taking Soc Sec, assuming that rules don't change. SO will break $1M in Roths before 70.5, but usually chose to not max out 401K contributions. We are the odd couple that kept separate finances, both competing and co-operating in expenses. It worked well for us, but is a road less travelled.
I didn't have access to a 401K early in my career. When it was finally offered, I thought "deferring taxes will be FREE MONEY!" and contributed the maximum. This was the last week of 2004. There was initially no company match. Toward the end, they offered a 2.5% match with a cap at $2000/yr IIRC. I maxed IRAs throughout, too.
Later, Roths were introduced. I projected that my money would be eventually paying more taxes than my salary and increased to all Roth, increasing my contributions even more. I didn't make that great of an hourly wage but had overtime available so I worked long hours to be able to afford over 50% of my base pay going to my retirement. When Catch up provisions became availabe, I increased again to continue the maximum contributions. I wasn't a believer of bonds and was always staying 100% invested into equities. That choice turned out very well, over all.
I retired in 2016 with $1.1M in combined 401K and IRAs. I have not taken any money out, but have been converting gradually to Roth growth, using other funds to pay taxes. I finished converting last year.
We still have a few years to convert my SO's money to Roths. It will stretch out for another 5? years. Health tables steered us to accelerate my converting money to Roth. Now it's SO's turn. At 70, we expect to be fully converted, and will start taking Soc Sec, assuming that rules don't change. SO will break $1M in Roths before 70.5, but usually chose to not max out 401K contributions. We are the odd couple that kept separate finances, both competing and co-operating in expenses. It worked well for us, but is a road less travelled.
I am 60% stocks, 40% bonds...I wanted to stay moderately aggressive, knowing I could drop to 3 % withdrawal if the market went south. I have been able to take closer to 6% withdrawals based on the great market returns the past couple of years.
gwraigty
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
My husband doesn't have a million in the 401k either, after 32 years of contributing. This is mainly because we've kept out of the stock market, for the most part. No regrets. Most of that time, he also wanted to contribute only to the company match. A few years ago, I convinced him to start maxing it. Right after that, he became classified as a HCE, so we can't do that anymore.
Anyway, what matters is the total across all accounts.
