Hellobee Boards

6% is very aggressive in these markets nowadays. and honestly, i think the market will never go back to the 18% returns anymore. so i think 6% is too optimistic.

i would like about $3M at least. but we'll see! we haven't really planned it out yet and our 401k keeps decreasing (because of the darn market!) so....dang market! we may have to invest in other things, like real estate (although that market sux boodie too).....

We each save 15% of our paychecks in 401k and put up the allotted amount into our IRA's each year. This is a big reason I won't be a SAHM (which I'm fine with). I need to be able to continue to put towards our retirement.

Honestly, though I don't think we'll ever be able to retire. The market has already taken half of our money and I just don't see us being able to afford to live without jobs when we hit retirement age. Costs are going up faster than they ever have before - gas, food, clothing - all of the essentials are growing too fast to keep up with. We won't have social security and health care costs will be through the roof. The good news is my husband and I won't have a mortgage (we're paying ours off now and won't buy another house unless we use cash) and we started saving early, so we are building that fund even though the market keeps taking it's share instead of helping it grow.

In my opinion, $878k is not enough to live off of for retirement. You have to take into account how many years you will be alive (you never know you could live to 100)! You also need to plan for health care and a nursing home, if it comes to that. Those get expensive fast and who knows where medicare/medicaid will be in 30/40 years!!

@daniellemybelle: Actually, you'd be better off buying a house and paying it off in 30 years and putting the difference between a 15 and 30 year payment into retirement. It's because retirement investments grow over time tax free, so the sooner you start saving, the more time it has to grow. If you wait 15 years to start saving, your future potential is significantly lower.

The best advice my father ever gave me was "retirement is the only expense in life that you can't borrow for, so it needs to be put first". You can get student loans, mortgages, home equity loans...etc, but once you're retired, you're on your own.

We want at least 7M in the bank for retirement. Hopefully we'll have more!

@Andrea: i agree. that's why i think i was okay about moving to fort worth (when that was in the running).... because it's got really low cost of living. you could buy a $1M house that in jersey would probably cost $10M+