401k balance survey from polled working Americans.

GamblingMan

Dryer sheet wannabe
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401k balance survey, but from polled questions as opposed to a retirement broker reporting account balances, which may or may not obscure total retirement assets when spread over different firms.


"Among those who are saving in a 401(k), the largest proportion of Americans (28%) have a balance of between $50,001 and $100,000, a new GOBankingRates survey found. The survey polled 1,000 working Americans ages 21 and older who are employed and have been in their current role at least one full year about their 401(k) balances and saving behaviors. Surprisingly, 401(k) balances didn’t vary as much by age as one might expect."

Methodology at end of article.
 
Interesting. It seems DW and I are above average, but average is distressingly low.
Maybe I can worry less,
 
So many younger people not saving for retirement are going to be in for the shock of their lives come retirement age. I consider myself an average "baby-boomer" who had an average job for 35 years. All you have to do is start early and save or invest a small amount each month, even a hundred dollars or so. That hundred dollars or so each month will make you a wealthy come retirement age if you play the game right. Those 35 to 40 years are the only way of doing it for most people, there's no way to recoup those lost years of saving.
 
There was a Fidelity survey posted last week stating ‘Gen X4savers in their plan for 15 years saw savings jump 6% from last quarter, with an average balance of $586,100 (compared to $554,400 last quarter), which bodes well for this generation as they approach retirement years.’ Here’s a link to the thread on this forum Link
 
So many younger people not saving for retirement are going to be in for the shock of their lives come retirement age. I consider myself an average "baby-boomer" who had an average job for 35 years. All you have to do is start early and save or invest a small amount each month, even a hundred dollars or so. That hundred dollars or so each month will make you a wealthy come retirement age if you play the game right. Those 35 to 40 years are the only way of doing it for most people, there's no way to recoup those lost years of saving.
My thinking is $100 a month is no where near enough. $1,200 a year at 10% for 35 years is $358,000, after 35 years of 3% inflation, that has the buying power that $127,000 does today. That is a about 1/2 of the mean net worth of 65 year olds today.
A pet peeve I have is, I see a lot of these surveys about what balance Americans have in their 401ks. Neither my wife nor myself ever had a 401k, I'd rather see net worth surveys. There are lots of other saving vehicles, IRAs, Roth IRAs, SEPS, and HSAs for a few, and what about federal, state, county workers and teachers with their varied retirement vehicles. OK, rant over. :)
 
All this handwringing over "the youngs they don't save" - welp, neither did I and I turned out ER'd at 46.

When I was 35 I'd have been in that 50-100k bracket too. But I had a house, a good job, little debt, and a good savings account - and I didn't even have to save for kid's college and raising children, or buying a house in THIS market.

The retirement savings trajectory came later. They have time.
 
I wonder about this, as they say "401k". I have $0 in 401k, it was all moved to IRA. Maybe semantics? I would be more accepting of the results if it said "in retirement accounts"....

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Flieger
 
All this handwringing over "the youngs they don't save" - welp, neither did I and I turned out ER'd at 46.

When I was 35 I'd have been in that 50-100k bracket too. But I had a house, a good job, little debt, and a good savings account - and I didn't even have to save for kid's college and raising children, or buying a house in THIS market.

The retirement savings trajectory came later. They have time.
Countering your anecdote with my own: I'm extremely happy my wife and I saved early and often. She's a civil servant and I run a small nonprofit I started. Our income will never be amazing. But our networth is better than most.
 
When I was 35 our net worth was zero, at 40 our net worth was $70,000. That's all our retirement savings and the net worth in the house we owned. We saved like crazy, got a few lucky breaks and our net worth was a million dollars ten years later. We are looking at a very comfortable retirement. They still may have time.
 
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Sort of sad but really not that meaningful from my POV. Example, I just rolled over a pretty large (to me anyway) chunk of money from my 401k to my tIRA. My point is, a 401k is just one leg of a multi legged stool in retirement planning. e.g. most (or many anyway) have a 401k, tIRA, equities, cash accounts, property, etc etc.
 
Even though we were a tech company, our company was informally very money oriented. People would comment that it was the only place they ever worked where the janitors read the WSJ every day. Seminars were held at lunch on stocks etc. and markets were a common topic in the cafeteria.

Before 401k began, we had a very market based pension and afterwards, it was drilled into us young'uns the benefits of joining. They even provided one of the most generous company matches.
 
My thinking is $100 a month is no where near enough. $1,200 a year at 10% for 35 years is $358,000,
A pet peeve I have is, I see a lot of these surveys about what balance Americans have in their 401ks. Neither my wife nor myself ever had a 401k, I'd rather see net worth surveys. There are lots of other saving vehicles, IRAs, Roth IRAs, SEPS, and HSAs for a few, and what about federal, state, county workers and teachers with their varied retirement vehicles. OK, rant over. :)
I wish we had started with $100 a month 35 years ago... hell even 10% a paycheck.... but $17 was a lot of money back in those days. When we got on the state train, they took 6%. No matching any 401K.
The problem with the NW equation is trying to put it into numbers... Pensions and SS are mostly looked at as an income stream, not NW. After all my reading on this great forum, I have come to the conclusion I won't ever know, or truly want to know my Net Worth.......
Its seems to be the value of your estate after funeral expenses..................
 
All this handwringing over "the youngs they don't save" - welp, neither did I and I turned out ER'd at 46.

When I was 35 I'd have been in that 50-100k bracket too. But I had a house, a good job, little debt, and a good savings account - and I didn't even have to save for kid's college and raising children, or buying a house in THIS market.

The retirement savings trajectory came later. They have time.
Same here. I was curious to look it up. When I turned 35, I had about $57K, across three retirement accounts. Only $24K of that was with my current employer at that time. $9K was with my old Boeing account, which was still in a 401k, and about $23-24K was in the account with my second employer. Can't remember if it was still a 401k or had been rolled over at that point.

That was back in 2005, so $57K went a bit further in those days, but adjusting for inflation, is still most likely within the "$50-100K" bracket. I was pretty well-stocked in the after-tax department though, and also had a Roth, so total invested assets were more like $191K.

But, it snowballed quickly from there. By the time I turned 45, I was up to around $1.032M, and about $398K of that was job-related retirement accounts (4 of them now, as I switched employers again)

And now, about 3.5 months shy of 55, the job-related retirement accounts are up to around $1.474M. Total invested assets are around $3.614M, but that's been boosted by two inheritances and the sale of a house, so it's been more than just me squirreling money away and compounding/market returns.

Still, it shows just how fast things can really snowball in the later years. If you're lucky/fortunate, I guess. I imagine that it can also go in the other direction pretty quickly, too!

I really don't envy these younger generations, though. For instance, I have a younger acquaintance, about to turn 30, who makes about $60K per year. He gets paid once a month, and his take-home is about $3200. He's still living with his parents, but getting anxious to get out. He was looking at apartments, and just about anywhere he thought he wanted to live, started at around $2100/mo for a 1br/1ba. There were cheaper places around, but in less desireable neighborhoods, for around $1800.

I told him that if I was him, I'd try to stay at home for as long as I could, and keep building up some savings, so he could get into a small condo or townhouse. And, in his defense, he is saving for retirement. He told me he's putting in 5%, and his employer does a 5% match. But, when I asked him how it's invested, that's when I got the blank stare and "I don't know" :(

Now, this guy is just one data point, among millions. And I know there are a lot of people his age doing better. But there are also a lot of people, doing worse!
 
I really don't envy these younger generations, though. For instance, I have a younger acquaintance, about to turn 30, who makes about $60K per year. He gets paid once a month, and his take-home is about $3200. He's still living with his parents, but getting anxious to get out. He was looking at apartments, and just about anywhere he thought he wanted to live, started at around $2100/mo for a 1br/1ba. There were cheaper places around, but in less desireable neighborhoods, for around $1800.
I've come to the firm conclusion that, as John Edward's once quipped "There are two Americas"

I can only go by my 7 nieces and nephews split among DWs two different siblings. They're all in their early thirties.

One group is barely getting by, struggling to stay above water, literally paycheck to paycheck. One car breakdown away from disaster.

The other 4 are making mid six figures, own their own homes, vacation internationally with the kids twice a year and so on.

I just don't get it.
 
Way to narrow to go by 401k or even just considering retirement accts. - some people have pensions or annuities also in addition to taxable accts.

We are fortunate to have:

almost 7 figure balance in IRA's,
over 7 figure balance in taxable investment accts.
low 6 figure balance in cash value of life insurance
mid 6 figure balance in high interest savings accts.

According to the pollsters we would have nothing saved in our 401k's!
 
I've come to the firm conclusion that, as John Edward's once quipped "There are two Americas"

I can only go by my 7 nieces and nephews split among DWs two different siblings. They're all in their early thirties.

One group is barely getting by, struggling to stay above water, literally paycheck to paycheck. One car breakdown away from disaster.

The other 4 are making mid six figures, own their own homes, vacation internationally with the kids twice a year and so on.

I just don't get it.
This does seem more common. It's a head scratcher and a bit scary. Seems for decades people have talked about a shrinking middle class. I don't like it when I can see it in society.

In my extended family, you can see it on the ambition / income side. A layer deeper, I really see it on how compounding is so negative on debt and so helpful on savings. I don't know to explain it to the continual debtors. I swear my SIL has paid for every piece of furniture 3x as they are never prepared to pay off the balance when it comes due. Even her side hustle is cash flow negative.
 
I've come to the firm conclusion that, as John Edward's once quipped "There are two Americas"

I can only go by my 7 nieces and nephews split among DWs two different siblings. They're all in their early thirties.

One group is barely getting by, struggling to stay above water, literally paycheck to paycheck. One car breakdown away from disaster.

The other 4 are making mid six figures, own their own homes, vacation internationally with the kids twice a year and so on.

I just don't get it.
Attitude and effort?

I have 2 - DD's (ok, that does sound funny).

Oldest has Finance degree, works in professional recruiting, makes 6 figures and saves a lot but she is married to another college grad also making 6 figures so they have plenty to live and save. The 2 of them have retirement savings well above the article finding above, but still travel and live a fun life. She recently flew to Canada to see a (gag) Taylor Swift concert.

Youngest decided she was smarter (from a very young age :cool: ) and the day she turned 18 gas us the single finger salute and left with a bag on a stick over her shoulder. While going through the school of hard knocks she had our granddaughter, and got her GED, struggling along the way. She now is a GM at a car painting nationwide chain making 6 figures base plus bonuses, that on W2 pays more than her older sister. Married another non college grad working in warehouse management also paying 6 figures. All of this in the "repressed" South. Unfortunately, my youngest unfortunately is still hard headed and I have yet to convince her about the importance of saving for retirement. Even telling her not to count on anything from me since "my plan is for my last check to bounce" hasn't helped. She just called my wife and asked her if we were having financial issues. :LOL:

Flieger
 
1,000 is the standard “magic number” for surveys to be considered a representative sampling regardless of the topic.
But the title says "at every age", so even looking at say age 25 to 65, that's 1000/40 = only 25 in each age group .
 
All this handwringing over "the youngs they don't save" - welp, neither did I and I turned out ER'd at 46.

When I was 35 I'd have been in that 50-100k bracket too. But I had a house, a good job, little debt, and a good savings account - and I didn't even have to save for kid's college and raising children, or buying a house in THIS market.

The retirement savings trajectory came later. They have time.
At 33, our net worth was zero. We retired 27 years later. Life is long, and full of twists and turns.
 
At age 32, our net worth was zero, at age 34, we had just purchased a modest house (20% down payment, nothing to spare) I had approximately $4,000 in retirement savings.
 
At age 32, our net worth was zero, at age 34, we had just purchased a modest house (20% down payment, nothing to spare) I had approximately $4,000 in retirement savings.
At 32 our net worth was significantly negative. I was just shy of 29 when I finished residency and went into practice. Not quite 30 when we bought our house. So at 32 we were barely into repayment on a 128K mortgage and over 100K in student loans. We were flat broke at 32. I retired at 59 with over $3.5 million.
 
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