What was your retirement savings at 50, 55, 60

[NW-Bound]

This is how first posts go: ...

Yes. One does not barge into a room full of strangers and asks "Tell me how much you've got".

Well, people do not ask that in a room full of friends either.

 

[cyber888]

Thanks Larro for the heads up! I'm sorry - I should have done an intro, but I just saw this forum today and have no idea about the culture here.

Can you tell me what FIRE means ? As I said, I just saw the forum today and joined today.

This is how first posts go: Hi everyone, I've been reading these threads for years, but decided to come in from the cold. I'm ?? years old and my DW/H is ??. My Megacorp 401k has $??, and my DW/H is $??. We both max it out every month to get the match from said Megacorp. Our taxable accounts have $?? in them, and the tax deferred accounts have $??. We have $?? in cash as an emergency fund. Our income is $?? and we save ??% of that. We will be drawing $?? of SS in ?? years, and $?? pension in $?? years. Our expenses are $?? per month. We are hoping to FIRE at age ?? with a SWR of ??. I want to thank you guys in advance for all the good advice I will get here.

Looking forward to getting to know all of you, .

See, that wasn't so hard.
The amount you spend to live on is the MOST important number you will ever figure. You can not control what you make, but you can control what you spend. The DW and I had about $200K two years ago when I was 50. She is 60 now, and we have around $250-275K. That sounds small compared to most here, until I tell you we live on $30K a year with both of us working. That number will go down when she retires in three years. While at the same time her SS and pension will kick in. We will be almost FI by then, with savings of around $400K.

Raw numbers are just that.

 

[cyber888]

Forgive me, I realize what you are saying is correct .. I thought since people here use aliases, are anonymous, and don't really know each other face-to-face, they could throw in some estimates. Interesting! Even a mask needs to be protected with another mask and another

Yes. One does not barge into a room full of strangers and asks "Tell me how much you've got".

Well, people do not ask that in a room full of friends either.

 

[Willers]

Welcome to the board. I guess you've gotten a good lesson in the culture here...

Since I also believe you can't separate expenses from investments and get a useful number, I'll try to answer your question in a different way without giving absolute numbers out (as I am also hesitant to do).

I am 50 and right now have a little more than 30x my annual expenses in my investment portfolio. I will likely retire when I get to 40x. Some would be ready where I am now but potential healthcare costs are the great unknown and are making me more conservative.

I 2nd the use of FireCalc (and the other retirement calculators from Quicken, Vanguard, T Rowe, Fidelity, etc.) Your situation is unique so do your homework...

Good luck

 

[cyber888]

Thanks for the suggestion. I will look for that survey function.

Welcome cyber888. I think that few people will come out and give you a straight answer as members of the board tend to shy away from sharing absolute numbers. An anonymous poll might yield the answer you seek though.

 

[NW-Bound]

Well, as you can see from the join date of posters, some of us have been here a long time. And though only a few have met another in real life, we have shared enough details of our life that we feel like friends. Friends behind a mask, if you say so, but that's the culture here.

In order for posters to anonymously answer questions like yours, people usually think of a poll. Just recently, a poster asked how many of us had more than $5MM. It was a curious question, all right, but some people answered. I even said that, no I did not have that presently, even if I included my homes and the loose change in my pocket, but I liked to run FIRECalc occasionally because it told me I've got a chance to way way surpass it in the future.

 

[FIREd]

Here are some older polls to get you started:

The average board member is in his 50s:
http://www.early-retirement.org/forums/f28/poll-how-old-are-you-66255.html

And he or she had a net worth in the $1-2M range back in 2011:
http://www.early-retirement.org/forums/f28/net-worth-poll-55244.html

 

[larrytbm]

Guess I don't understand all the responses. I can't give you a simple answer, but I have no problem sharing what I can. I started serious retirement planning at age 43 with a goal of age 55. Can't recall what we had saved at 45 or 50, it wasn't very much, but at least 25% of income was saved each year. But there is more to retirement planning than just savings, a big one for us at age 50 was downsizing our home with no mortgage, lower taxes and lower utility expenses. Another one was various strategies to reduce fed. taxes and generate income sources before SS kicked in. I did retire at age 55 with only $500k, but a pension and SS in the future. It is now 10 yrs later and our investments are at $1M and growing. That is because with the pension and SS, investment liquidations are less than 1% per year.

 

[scrinch]

FIRE = Financially Independent, Retired Early

Welcome. I'm FI but not yet RE. Some of us are still cavemen who haven't yet mastered FIRE.

 

[steelyman]

We are actually a bunch of orangutans who act up but have good hearts. The thing to do is read for a while and post slowly.

 

[MikeWillRetire]

51 with retirement savings equal to about 8 times my anticipated annual spending. Its low, but my plan includes a small pension and social security.

 

[Gatordoc50]

You may be under the impression that everyone here retired early because of LBYM and saving/ investing. Some have, some sold businesses, some with great pensions, some with a few lucky breaks or windfalls, etc.

 

[Major Tom]

We are actually a bunch of orangutans who act up but have good hearts.

I like that characterization

 

[GoodWishes]

I agree that most people would be more comfortable answering this in a poll.

I don't think trying to keep up with the Jones next door is a good way to measure how well you are doing with your retirement plans. As many have pointed out, savings, asset allocation, expenses, SS, pension are among many variables in retirement planning.

 

[tmm99]

50 - 650K ish
54 - >1M

 

[MooreBonds]

FIRE = Financially Independent, Retired Early

Welcome. I'm FI but not yet RE. Some of us are still cavemen who haven't yet mastered FIRE.

Or, if you're Frank Moses and collecting your pension, you're FIRED:

Ernest Borgnine explains what "RED" means to Karl Urban - YouTube
(was supposed to start the clip at 47 seconds...doesn't seem to paste with the bookmark)

..."you know, Financially Independent, Retired, Extremely Dangerous"

 

[HFWR]

Welcome to the board. I guess you've gotten a good lesson in the culture here...

Good luck

We have culture?

 

[HFWR]

Thanks for the suggestion. I will look for that survey function.

Also recommend reading the "stickies", topics in each forum deemed worthy of immortality, and the search function to see past discussions.

 

[HFWR]

Forgive me, I realize what you are saying is correct .. I thought since people here use aliases, are anonymous, and don't really know each other face-to-face, they could throw in some estimates. Interesting! Even a mask needs to be protected with another mask and another

I wear two masks, in case one blows off...

 

[nash031]

Hi. New here. I'm planning to retire early. Just wanted to see how much people saved at age 50, 55, 60 ... Thanks.

People aren't being intentionally combative. They are simply trying to tell you that benchmarking against others solely on a number is close to useless information. You may only have $20k saved at age 50, but if you've been forced to live paycheck to paycheck your whole life to simply feed the family, that's pretty good. Meanwhile, the guy with $5MM in investments who earns $2MM/year is probably not anywhere close to being able to retire without massively downgrading his spending.

Raw numbers without context are meaningless. I know I need about $2.3-2.8MM saved to be FI. That's quite a bit, but it's what I think I need to retire in CA in my 40s based on our spending estimates and other sources of income.

Your number may be a lot lower, it may be a lot higher, you may have a pension, you may not... it's just so hard to glean anything useful out of:

I have $XX saved right now.

It's close to meaningless without context.

That said, welcome to the board. I am 36, so I can't answer your question, but as I said above, by 50 I hope to be FI/RE with roughly $2.3-2.8MM invested (not including home equity).

 

[nash031]

Another little tidbit/rule of thumb I read a long time ago in the WSJ that might be of interest to the OP is a Fidelity "rule" regarding money in your taxable investment accounts. Take it for what it's worth, but it might be more useful than a bunch of random people's personal savings without context:

30: 0.5x salary
35: 1x
40: 2x
45: 3x
50: 4x
55: 5x
60: 6x
65: 7x
67: 8x

So if you make $50k/year, you would "need" $200k in your TAXABLE accounts to be "on track" for retirement at age 50. Again, take it FWIW, which is probably very little.

 

[photoguy]

There's also the boglehead survey Bogleheads • View topic - Improved Net Worth by Age [and plot]. I think my numbers made it into the first version but not this one.

 

[jime444]

Cyber, don't take it personal; some here tend to be a little rough on newbies. I had my "learning" experiences, as well.

To partially answer your question and though might be slight underachievers on this forum, we're light-years ahead of our peers. It is really managing 90% of your spending and 10% of your investing, in my opinion.

We're mid-50's, just at 18x future expenses saved; SS+pensions are 60% of expenses, and right, we're sstill working but not for long.

Thank God(or the deity of your choice).....it's been a really, really long haul.

 

[NW-Bound]

You may be under the impression that everyone here retired early because of LBYM and saving/ investing. Some have, some sold businesses, some with great pensions, some with a few lucky breaks or windfalls, etc.

I thought most did via LBYM, saving, and investing. Like myself.

We have culture?

Of course we do. Even yogurt does.

 

[Larro Darro]

We have culture?

Little Debbie Little Debbie

Southern Culture On The Skids - Camel Walk - YouTube