Good morning. New to this site.
While I'm only 35 i'm thinking about my financial future and how to appropriately fund for retirement, college, paying off my home, etc....i've always been pretty good with saving but figure now is a good time to start getting a better picture of where things stand.
A couple things i've read said a good target is for 80% of your income in retirement. To me that seems high.
I would be very happy to retire at the standard of living I have now. That said, My wife and I currently save ~12% of my salary in our 401k's. We put ~3% of our salaries into 529's. We put ~12% of our salary towards our mortgage and we still manage to save another 5-6% into shorter term savings (that may go to retirement or may go towards home renovations, vacations, braces, whatever).
These expenses make up about 1/3 of our income and presumably will not exist when I retire. As such i'd think 65-70% of our current salary would be a better target. Am I correct? Or am I missing something?
Obviously it's still better to save than not to save (no need to spend money just for the sake of spending money) and i'm generally happy with our lifestyle at our current budget. But when I start thinking about if i'm saving enough for retirement, or if i can fantasize about an earlier retirement, it's nice to know if i'm using the right numbers in my analyses.
All thoughts/advice/feedback are welcome.
Thanks
While I'm only 35 i'm thinking about my financial future and how to appropriately fund for retirement, college, paying off my home, etc....i've always been pretty good with saving but figure now is a good time to start getting a better picture of where things stand.
A couple things i've read said a good target is for 80% of your income in retirement. To me that seems high.
I would be very happy to retire at the standard of living I have now. That said, My wife and I currently save ~12% of my salary in our 401k's. We put ~3% of our salaries into 529's. We put ~12% of our salary towards our mortgage and we still manage to save another 5-6% into shorter term savings (that may go to retirement or may go towards home renovations, vacations, braces, whatever).
These expenses make up about 1/3 of our income and presumably will not exist when I retire. As such i'd think 65-70% of our current salary would be a better target. Am I correct? Or am I missing something?
Obviously it's still better to save than not to save (no need to spend money just for the sake of spending money) and i'm generally happy with our lifestyle at our current budget. But when I start thinking about if i'm saving enough for retirement, or if i can fantasize about an earlier retirement, it's nice to know if i'm using the right numbers in my analyses.
All thoughts/advice/feedback are welcome.
Thanks