Hellobee Boards

I feel like I have very little but when we meet with our FP once a year he shows me on paper how I will get to that magical number in my retirement years - I trust him!

OOPS. I also voted, but I'm not 35 yet. SORRY. I can't read, apparently.

1. I'm terrible at math but I would like to think by 35 I will have at least that much put away?!

2. No, I don't think we're on track, I think there are always ways to improve and be more 'on track'.

3. Out of my friends? Half and half. I have few friends and a couple of them are completely frivolous and the other half are frugal. DH's friends seem to be much more well off, and I would imagine they are all doing ok with their retirement plans. But I am seriously basing my opinion of that on the types of lifestyles they live. No proof!

ETA: 4. No, we have never dipped into our retirement funds and don't ever plan to.

My husband is almost 35, and I'm 27 and this is on my mind constantly. What a stress.

Without talking numbers... I feel like my husband's retirement situation is great because he has a 401k with employer match and he has been working for almost 10 years (he is 30) and contributing that whole time.

My situation is not as good because I only worked 6 years (started work later due to more school + I took the last year off) and I have never had a 401k or employer contribution to retirement. So even though DH and I put equal amounts into our retirements (his 401k and my IRA) for the 6 years I was working, he was getting a lot more out of it than I was + he has more time.

So looking at us together I'd say we've done okay but could probably do a lot better. As for our friends, I think most of them have probably done as well or better than us on savings. My work/benefits situation was sort of crappy and most of my friends have jobs making more money and/or with benefits.

We've never borrowed from retirement.

My employer pays in 22% on top of what I put in... So I skew really differently. Plus, in general, I'm about 10 years older than the group.

@Anagram: My husband and I are in a similar situation to you and your husband.

Our numbers are good when taken together, but are skewed when separated though as my husband is older and has been working/contributing longer (and his employer matches extremely generously, as it was a former pension plan turned retirement savings) and DH is very risk adverse with his retirement savings: his only real vehicle for retirement is his 401(k) and saves aggressively in that with low-moderate risk accounts.

I am less risk adverse, and I diversify my retirement plan between my 401(k) and other investment vehicles/plans (mostly, real estate). I also have a higher risk tolerance for my 401(k) investments, so I took a bigger hit in the recent recession, but I’m okay with that. My employer matches 10%, as long as I continue to work here (which I plan to do!!) and save, we should be fine.

Fingers crossed.

ETA: We have never dipped into our retirement accounts and would not, barring catastrophic need.

We have only recently started to make the "right" financial choices but have been able to get some good retirement savings going. I'm hoping to retire in 9 years, I see no reason to wait till I'm old if I can do it now so we are very conscious of this and working hard to put everything away that we can.

I don't talk about retirement accounts with my friends, I have been curious about it but it just doesn't come up. My gist is that most of them have not saved a whole lot.

2) I think we are generally on track. Some guys calls me once in a while to review my stuff. I am risk adverse though so I'm not making bank on my 401K/IRA/invested savings. But now that we have LO#1 and knowing we want to have another one in the future, I def have to be more aggressive with our budget to make sure we stay on track!

3) A lot of my friends are much more well off than us, but we don't really talk about finances so I don't actually know how they're doing. Being in the Asian circle though, most of us had parents that drilled "save $" into our heads since we were young! I do have some friends that I KNOW are def not on track, still paying off debt, etc.

3) Never took money out of any of those accounts for anything

2) We are definitely on track. We really prioritize our retirement accounts and put as much in as we can. It helps that we're both engineers and are paid well and our companies do some sort of matching.

3) Many of my friends are also engineers, so they are doing well, though I think the majority are NOT doing as well as we are because they haven't made it as much of a priority as we do. Many are just contributing the minimum amount to get our company's matching. But that's still going to get them a decent amount of money as an engineer.

4) No, we haven't had to use our retirement money for anything and hopefully *knocks on wood* we never have to.

I'm in a 100% matching program up to 10% of my income, so I think I'm on track. Though, honestly, I have no idea how much is in there. I should probably get on that.

(1) I'm not yet 35 but my DH is over 35. Each of the companies we go through for retirement savings sends us alerts with our quarterly statements saying whether or not we're on track, and ours always says we're on track (when I first started saving it said I wasn't on track so I upped my contribution). DH has a lot more in his than I do because he's been working a lot longer than I have (and makes a lot more than I do), but he also says he never plans to retire because he would get bored lol.

(2) Our friends are all very responsible when it comes to saving, so I'm sure they're adequately saving for retirement.

(3) We haven't had to dip into our retirement savings.

@Adira: I can see where it makes sense that you need something like 8x your salary at 65. But I don't think it makes sense at all to say you only need say 1x your salary by 35. To have only 1x salary at 35, it sounds to me like that person would be playing catch up from then to retirement.

DH and my average age is almost 35. We have been maxing our 401k since we started working at 21. He's been doing Roth since then also, and I was late with my Roth and didn't start until 27. Our though process was to shove as much into retirement as possible early on - compounding growth - and if we ever needed to reduce contributions, there is already that much more in there to continue to grow. Our goal is the ability to retire early and I believe we are on track.

@PurplePumps: I think that guideline assumes that you keep saving at that level.

Heck no. I've been laid off twice and been at 6 jobs in the last two years. Before that the job I was at for almost 4 years stopper matching 401K because of the economy. So while I have money in IRA and mutual funds its no where near that figure and I don't think we'll be there by 35.

I'm ok with that for now. In a few years when other more important things are taken care of well start being more aggressive about retirement.

I'm 26 and just started my own retirement account yesterday....i'm self employed.

My husband is 31 and he has been contributing to his 401k since he was 18. he has over the amount that is recommended.

@Rainbow Sprinkles: I'm 27 and just started last year when I was 26. I don't contribute much but it's a start!

DH & I are over 35 & doing well, I think. The bulk of our savings are mine & I've always tried to put as much into my 401k as possible to get the very generous matches my employers have offered.

I have no idea how our friends are doing, but most I'd guess most are worse off than we are.

We haven't ever touched our retirement accounts & have no intention until retirement.

1)If you are not yet 35, will you have more than 59,000 in retirement accounts by the time you are 35? If you are 35, how much do you and your spouse have combined?

My husband and I are both over 35, we have more than $59,000 in our individual "pots." According to Adira's 8X by 65, we're a little better than on track, but not by much.

2)Generally speaking, do you feel you are on track for retirement, or are there areas you'd like to improve?

I feel like there is always room for improvement, I get very stressed about money and running out of it.

3)I know HBers tend to skew a little better on these things than the "average" American. So from what you know, does it seem your circle of friends/coworkers are adequately planning for retirement?

I would guess that most people are generally saving, but probably not enough. There are probably outliers, like one or two that have saved a lot and one or two that have saved nothing.

3)Have you ever had to use money from your retirement account for other purposes? (home downpayment, stop gap measures during unemployment, etc).

No, we have not.

1) DH and I are not 35 but we've prioritized retirement savings since we were 18 so we're in the last poll category. One of the major reasons I work is to keep on track with our aggressive retirement savings (vs. current expenses).

Follow up questions:

2)I think we're definitely on track. We started young and DH ended up in a job with a nice pension. We're still saving in case that pension doesn't pan out but we should be good. If I was on my own I would not be doing so well. My company caps the % of my income I can put in a 401k (below 401k contribution limits) and does not match.

3) No, most of my friends have no retirement accounts and they do not have any immediate plans to start saving. Homes are really expensive here and most people are trying to save for those or make it on a single income with a family instead of saving for retirement. We have similar spending habits so I think they would be shocked to know what we have saved.

3) I had a $3,000 pension (whoop, whoop) that I cashed in when I left my last company. It was probably a really stupid move but we were buying a house and I didn't want to track that $3k for the next 30 years. We didn't need to do it and I regret handling it so flippantly but I don't think it will make a difference in the end.

For those of you who talk about your husband's savings being separate from yours, how does that work, or what's the reasoning/thinking behind it? Employer pension plans aside, i see retirement savings strategy as something that's discussed and planned together. Or were the comments referring to pre-marriage?

1) I am not yet 35 but we have more than that amount.

2) We are definitely on track for retirement. Some may say that we over save, but nothing is guaranteed, especially public defined benefit pensions.

3) It is split -some are ready, some are not. I also don't think people don't save due to extenuating circumstances, but because they don't see the urgency in saving now. When i was living on my own, i was saving more than friends living at home.

3) No, thankfully i have not had to dip into my retirement savings. I almost did one time when i was young (to pay off a credit card bill) but my financial advisor talked me out of it.

@lawbee11: I think that's a great alert - i'm wondering, if you got a notice that said you weren't meeting your retirement goals, would that discourage/encourage you to save more?