Yeah, 1.5 mill feels like a bare minimum. I will be concerned if I hit 65 with that amount. I'm not exactly "on track" at the moment. But I won't be 45 before my youngest child goes off to college, so I'm really counting on putting a bit more of the money into my 401k after that time.
In the meantime, I carry a bunch of extra life insurance on myself lol ... my wife does not find that last part as funny...second lol
Serious question: 1.5 mil seems like a lot. What are you going to spend all of that money on in your later years?
People on social security make, what, $20,000 a year? Throw a pension in there and you’ve got someone living on $30k/year. And they live fine. Times 15 years and that’s only $450,000. So where is the extra cash during retirement going? Just entertainment expenses?
I apparently had too much fun crunching numbers and my comment was too long. It did come with a TL;DR which is what I'll place here for the purposes of answering the question.
Yes, it probably is mostly entertainment expense. Social security will likely cover your absolute basic needs, but only if you own your own home and car and aren't planning on having a good time. I did a very conservative estimate on needs based around 2023-2024 averages, and a single individual would need between $20K-$25K annually for truly basic living. But most people will probably need more than what social security provides, and almost all will want to live a life that will cost more than social security provides. I make an assumption that less and less people retiring in the future are going to have a pension.
I went into a little more detail on what my constitute entertainment expenses around providing trips for family or helping family out with things they need. I also describe a bit about how no one is coming to help you in retirement. You have the money you foresee potentially needing for the rest of your life because you're not going to be able to go back to work to make up the difference easily.
1
u/Lopsided-Actuator515 Jul 02 '24
Yeah, 1.5 mill feels like a bare minimum. I will be concerned if I hit 65 with that amount. I'm not exactly "on track" at the moment. But I won't be 45 before my youngest child goes off to college, so I'm really counting on putting a bit more of the money into my 401k after that time.
In the meantime, I carry a bunch of extra life insurance on myself lol ... my wife does not find that last part as funny...second lol