How many years did it take for your 401k to hit 1 million ?

[Murph]

Quote:

Originally Posted by vipertom1970 After 24 years of MAXING out my 401K with company matching .20 per $1.00 I finally reached over $1,000,000. I am just curious to see how long it took you guys with 401k to hit 1 million dollars. I think the average is around 21 years if you max out every year.

20 years. I didn’t start maxing until after that, and then it got to 1.5M after another 9 yrs. ESOP helped.

[Monterey298sc]

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.

[Pointby2]

Never hit one million in my 401K. But I changed jobs and rolled my first one to a broker. But, even today the combined total is still shy of one million after 40 years of saving.

[Hibernian]

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.

[meekie]

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.

[Dynaflash]

I started to contribute in 1985. Finally hit 1 million in 2016, so 31 years but when I first started I was only putting in 2% and bumped it up year after year. It was the best I could do at the time.

[HMMY]

20 years. Was at the last job for 16. Always contributed max. Always got a match. 80/20 until I retired. Now 401k is 95% bonds.

[iloveyoga]

Approximately 30 years.

[badatmath]

You ask this like you assume we all have a million. I been maxing over 20 years and I do not. Employer match is trivial and at least one year we did not get it.

[Dogberry]

Started investing at 25. My accounts IRAs and savings touch the $2 MM mark recently. Have been retired for a year, 59 now.

[gooddog]

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]

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]

Quote:

Originally Posted by gooddog 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.

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=a...31.KlsMHICzzKI

[Joe1954]

Quote:

Originally Posted by vipertom1970 After 24 years of MAXING out my 401K with company matching .20 per $1.00 I finally reached over $1,000,000. I am just curious to see how long it took you guys with 401k to hit 1 million dollars. I think the average is around 21 years if you max out every 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

[Ger0n1mo]

I was almost there until the dip in 2008-2009. I suspect it took around 30 years to hit $1M and about 9 more years to hit 2.5. Like they say, the first million is the hardest.

[targatom2019]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Joe1954 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 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 % ?

[twigor]

Thirty years for me to hit $1M in the 401K. However first 12 years my savings rate was 6 percent. The last 15 years was at the maxed out allowable amount. Retired at 56 and never looked back.

[Canoeboy]

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]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Canoeboy 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.

CORRECTION - 24.5 years 1990 to 2014. Off by a decade....

[targatom2019]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Canoeboy CORRECTION - 24.5 years 1990 to 2014. Off by a decade....

I was thinking how did you beat me or blew away the average by 10 years 😂.