Early 40s. I could retire now if I wanted to, but I keep working because if I'm going to dick around with computers all day I might as well get paid for it.
34. My net worth is negative. I don't even know in which country I'll be retiring. Moving from a "currency challenged" country to the US in my 30s meant all the money I saved during all my life became pretty much worthless, I could use to all to buy maybe a car in the US. I don't know how much coming back to it will be a possibility due to my kids starting to develop roots here. They may not want to go back once I'm in retirement age, and I probably won't want to stay away from them and grandkids.
don't think too much about kids staying with you after you retire. As a parent, you won't want to stay away from them but their jobs may very easily take them away from you. Source. 40 and I am staying on other side of earth from my dad.
If you feel like your behind when looking at these other comments (like I did), this tells you the (woefully low) averages as well as how much you should have saved at each age.
Early 30s, nothing at all and I plan to live the next 4 years off <strike>basic</strike> student assistance.
The whole notion of retirement has never made sense to me. I remember when I was 15-ish people said I would understand once I grew up, but nope, it still doesn’t make any sense.
I have spent maybe 48 months working so far. I can bill about 20k a month when I do work. But it’s such a waste of lifetime to do it, I never work more than absolutely necessary.
Run-of-the-mill full-stack + mobile web development + a tiny bit of DevOps. I am decent at understanding and solving business problems, and very efficient (and all around brilliant, let's be honest), but otherwise I don't feel like I'm doing anything special, technically. For the most part. Note 20k is $125/hour at 100% utilization, which I find rather easy to achieve.
I had spent years at $40/h, then upped to $60-70 after joining Toptal, but clients were paying $100+. Knowing who the clients willing to pay that much were, I found it possible to reach similar clients directly, and here I am.
I rather frequently take over really abysmally done work from previous developers. I don't think those developers are generally paid less than myself. So the takeaway appears to be that technical prowess is a minor factor in the whole picture.
It does seem appealing to compress it into a few years, doesn't it.
But I don't think it works for me at this point. First, the math. I believe 20k gross is ~10k after tax where I live. My absolute minimum acceptable lifestyle costs 30k/year. Which leaves the possibility of saving 90k/year. So I get three free years for every year worked. Brings to mind the Ciolkowski equation.
Three years for every year worked, neglecting investments, but also opportunity cost, and the fact that I absolutely detest working for others and even a year of working full-time is a dreadful prospect to me.
Assuming life expectancy of 85 and no state pension, I would need to work full-time for about 13 years, no time-off, optimistically assuming no mental breakdown from all that work. So I end up at 45, possibly bald, with no savings except to fund what I considered the minimum acceptable lifestyle at 32. That is not good.
The opportunity cost. I now work for about 2-3 months / year (and benefit from lower tax at lower income), building a quite possibly successful business venture on the side, and devoting lots and lots of time to my hobbies.
Aging. I would not want to sacrfice a year of my 30s for three years of my 50s.
Dude if you sacrifice two years in your twenties to bank ~300k you can have plenty of time to travel the world while you're young and single or dating someone and live it up.
There's a huge difference between 'sacrificing' a few years if you can milk a decent gig when you're young and throwing way decades of your life being miserable.
What was your financial independence level? I figure not working at all is probably boring... so getting to a point where you have enough to quit when/if you want is probably the goal.
I initially wanted to quit ASAP and was going for lean-FI at $20k/year, but ended up negotiating a sweet deal and working a 2 years longer to get to $60k/year from investments with the 4% rule. I still only spend between $20k - $30k/year so I have plenty of room to increase my budget.
I just quit a few months ago so we'll see how not working for money turns out long term. So far it's been great. I've been pursuing my hobbies, volunteering, and doing some very light consulting (0 - 2h/week). In other words, I still do plenty of things, it's just that I don't get paid for them and can do them fully on my terms.
220k in Roth, early 30s. Should be about 5-15MM USD in the late 2050s with an inflation adjusted rate of return of ~8% and an annual contribution of about $6000, also increasing annually (math works).
This should take me way beyond the point at which the marginal utility of money tapers off. It's really not that difficult to get wealthy(ish) in this country if you think ahead a few decades, but most people are not going to be able to do this. The secret was getting a decent employer match, and living with my parents for a few years to save >100% of my income.
It was either 5 or 6 match into vanguard, which is ok but not great. I saved 105% of my income for a couple years as they paid for all my living expenses including food, although I went shopping to get groceries and cooked for them. Also this was not the tech industry…
I carpooled to work so that was also free. The only thing I spent money on was a couple new iphones and alcohol/dates/entertainment, which was paid with through churning maaaany credit cards.
I’m very grateful for that, and would show them my retirement account every once in awhile to prove that I wasn’t blowing my paycheck on stupid stuff.
The only real problem is that it didn’t really work because housing prices have increased much faster than the market so now I need like 1-1.5MM if I ever want to buy a decent house by Seattle and don’t really have that.
Basically FIRE approach doesn't work in the really expensive parts of the country. You need to be putting a large portion of $$$ income into housing which is not a diversified asset. We are getting 18% YOY growth now, but will not get it for the next 30 years.
Most of my networth came from investing inheritance and gifts from family. I didn’t separate their contributions from my person ones unfortunately, but I suspect on my own, I’d be at around $800k NW. I have received about $1M in gifts/inheritance that has appreciated.
I also add about $100k/yr to my savings from my employment.
I'm 39, and have about ~700k in equity on my primary residence (conservative estimate), and my wife and I have about 700k in various investments/savings accounts, split evenly between retirement accounts and non retirement accounts.
Most of my money came from saving. Never worked for a FAANG or had startup equity hit, but I was doing software professionally at 17 and have saved a chunk almost every year since then.
While I could have afforded an apartment in my early/mid twenties, I ended up living with roommates and saving, then later buying a condo in early 2009.
Then I rented a room out. Always bought used furniture, found deals on cars (I did drive entry level luxury cars), was very careful about splurging on technology or entertainment. I did probably spend too much at bars and whatnot though.
So some of my net worth is due to good timing in RE, but a lot was due to working hard (enough) in my early-mid twenties that I was able to get a decent war chest and then invest it.
35. $3.5M liquid and $4M illiquid pre IPO stock from a previous employer. Started from $0 and got it by working in tech/finance as a software engineer and investing in VTSAX.
Joined as senior software engineer when the company was under 10 employees and got about 1% (took almost no salary). To be fair I did a massive amount of contributions, so the company got a really good deal in my opinion. I was paid $60k a year for a while, when my market rate could have been easily $300k. I shaped the product and execution in a much more significant way than the founders. These guys are now sitting on mid 9 figures, crazy.
Stayed with that employer for the entire grant and left after about 5 years. The company today is worth a few billion dollars, and that value is based on the latest preferred share price, so obviously it assumes everything goes well and it will sell high enough that the liquidation preferences won’t be exercised and everything will convert to common. It could easily still all go to $0, I don’t count on it much.
The liquid portfolio is instead through boring saving, investing and fairly frugal lifestyle.
24 years old, NW is ~300K. That's about 30k in cash, 200k invested into VTI and VT, and 70k in 401k.
I achieved this by becoming a FAANG software engineer right out of college. By my projections, and assuming no major world events occur to knock my plans off course, I should be a millionaire by 28/29 and will be able to retire by my mid/late 30s. However, the more and more I work, the more I realize that I really enjoy what I do, so we will see what happens.
I was somewhat lucky to land on a user facing product team in an important area. But overall I just like computers, I like talking about them, and I like working towards goals with people. My upbringing was also the opposite of techy, so being in a tech-focused environment is honestly like a breath of fresh air. The financial benefit just makes it that much more addictive.
Of course, I am still entry level and my job will shift as I age, so take it all with a grain of salt.
what's the point of this question other than dick measuring? age isn't really a relevant variable as people have had different opportunities, born in different situations, etc.
I'm like 34 and I think I'm worth like £12k. No kids, no waifu, no gf.
I started really late in life but I hope to build a house next year, already got the land and I think its going to be brilliant, after that I'll just continue to work, pay my mortgage, have a nice holiday every few years, drink a few beers and then expect to die alone, just like everyone else, since the beginning of time.
I do care to have that cushion-fund to allow me to get over hard times, other than that I think having death insurance is wise so you can pay for your own gravestone and maybe have an Elvis impersonator sing Amazing Grace. Which is kind of like an odd idea since I tell people they're 'not invited to my funeral' as much as I can.
In the end, it doesn't matter... as long as you've got enough for the odd BBQ with friends, the staycation, the nice steak dinner, laughs and help a friend or family here and there... Enjoy life folks, remember, you can end up in a grave with a million bucks in your bank account any single day of the lord...
Wow everyone that’s posted has some very unique situation going on. Only a few are the normal grind.
Late 20s, about 90k NW. 7 years ago I had about $70 of my own. About 50k of that is my 401k. 5 figure salary in IT but great benefits +pension. However I think I’d kill myself staying here so I might not get to enjoy that.
I plan to retire in South America or Eastern Europe since their food and culture match what I like the most. The US is definitely not the place to retire for me.
I rent, I have a dog, a girlfriend in grad school and I race cars. I build everything myself so the most I’ve spent in one shot is 2K in a turbo and 600 on a welder. Overall I’d say I spent 10k on the car, so not bad (trying to justify myself lol).
I think I’m pretty frugal but I end up spending money on a lot of little things for racing and such. But I don’t have an 80in tv or the latest MacBook. I run Mac on a $300 Thinkpad X1. We cook every night and we buy at Costco or Aldi. We lowered our beef consumption and we drink Kirkland Malbec for $7 (but to me it’s on par with a $20 wine).
Anyway, that’s how I’ve been doing it, low risk, low return, no gifts, no inheritance, no company stock.
Early 40s - dual income household with 2 kids - $3.5M-$4M USD living in an urban suburb. includes investments, house (paid off) and retirement -
Started as a software engineer and slowly moved up seniority - no crazy high salaries, no Faang, no startup equity, cash outs or anything like that. Significant Other does not work in tech and has slowly moved up the ladder job wise as well.
In our 30's we made sure to live a comfortable lifestyle and not work like crazy. In general, we have always spent less that others who make the same, and save / invest pragmatically IMO.
Presently, while we do have periods of hard work, we believe in enjoying life as you go vs. waiting to retire - we take time off often and make sure we spend quality time together and with family / siblings / parents.
Who knows how long we'll be around and who knows how long kids, siblings and parents will be around - and from experience and observation, you never know when personal tragedy may strike.
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[ 4.1 ms ] story [ 91.1 ms ] threadhttps://www.sofi.com/learn/content/average-retirement-saving...
The whole notion of retirement has never made sense to me. I remember when I was 15-ish people said I would understand once I grew up, but nope, it still doesn’t make any sense.
I have spent maybe 48 months working so far. I can bill about 20k a month when I do work. But it’s such a waste of lifetime to do it, I never work more than absolutely necessary.
I had spent years at $40/h, then upped to $60-70 after joining Toptal, but clients were paying $100+. Knowing who the clients willing to pay that much were, I found it possible to reach similar clients directly, and here I am.
I rather frequently take over really abysmally done work from previous developers. I don't think those developers are generally paid less than myself. So the takeaway appears to be that technical prowess is a minor factor in the whole picture.
But I don't think it works for me at this point. First, the math. I believe 20k gross is ~10k after tax where I live. My absolute minimum acceptable lifestyle costs 30k/year. Which leaves the possibility of saving 90k/year. So I get three free years for every year worked. Brings to mind the Ciolkowski equation.
Three years for every year worked, neglecting investments, but also opportunity cost, and the fact that I absolutely detest working for others and even a year of working full-time is a dreadful prospect to me.
Assuming life expectancy of 85 and no state pension, I would need to work full-time for about 13 years, no time-off, optimistically assuming no mental breakdown from all that work. So I end up at 45, possibly bald, with no savings except to fund what I considered the minimum acceptable lifestyle at 32. That is not good.
The opportunity cost. I now work for about 2-3 months / year (and benefit from lower tax at lower income), building a quite possibly successful business venture on the side, and devoting lots and lots of time to my hobbies.
Aging. I would not want to sacrfice a year of my 30s for three years of my 50s.
There's a huge difference between 'sacrificing' a few years if you can milk a decent gig when you're young and throwing way decades of your life being miserable.
I just got an amazingly sweet deal:
- I was remote so I lived out of my backpack in places around the world for many years (pre-COVID)
- I got my work done fast in less than 20h/week most weeks so I had plenty of time to e.g. learn another language to a conversational level
- I was able to save $15k - $20k/month
- I took 1 or 2 months of unpaid leave every year to pursue hobbies
Had I not been able to do that, I would definitely have quit earlier and taken a long break.
I just quit a few months ago so we'll see how not working for money turns out long term. So far it's been great. I've been pursuing my hobbies, volunteering, and doing some very light consulting (0 - 2h/week). In other words, I still do plenty of things, it's just that I don't get paid for them and can do them fully on my terms.
This should take me way beyond the point at which the marginal utility of money tapers off. It's really not that difficult to get wealthy(ish) in this country if you think ahead a few decades, but most people are not going to be able to do this. The secret was getting a decent employer match, and living with my parents for a few years to save >100% of my income.
How did you save >100% of your income at your parents?
I carpooled to work so that was also free. The only thing I spent money on was a couple new iphones and alcohol/dates/entertainment, which was paid with through churning maaaany credit cards.
I’m very grateful for that, and would show them my retirement account every once in awhile to prove that I wasn’t blowing my paycheck on stupid stuff.
The only real problem is that it didn’t really work because housing prices have increased much faster than the market so now I need like 1-1.5MM if I ever want to buy a decent house by Seattle and don’t really have that.
Basically FIRE approach doesn't work in the really expensive parts of the country. You need to be putting a large portion of $$$ income into housing which is not a diversified asset. We are getting 18% YOY growth now, but will not get it for the next 30 years.
I won't be able to retire. :)
Networth: $3.5m USD
——
Most of my networth came from investing inheritance and gifts from family. I didn’t separate their contributions from my person ones unfortunately, but I suspect on my own, I’d be at around $800k NW. I have received about $1M in gifts/inheritance that has appreciated.
I also add about $100k/yr to my savings from my employment.
This situation has made me pro-“Tax the rich”.
Most of my money came from saving. Never worked for a FAANG or had startup equity hit, but I was doing software professionally at 17 and have saved a chunk almost every year since then.
While I could have afforded an apartment in my early/mid twenties, I ended up living with roommates and saving, then later buying a condo in early 2009.
Then I rented a room out. Always bought used furniture, found deals on cars (I did drive entry level luxury cars), was very careful about splurging on technology or entertainment. I did probably spend too much at bars and whatnot though.
So some of my net worth is due to good timing in RE, but a lot was due to working hard (enough) in my early-mid twenties that I was able to get a decent war chest and then invest it.
401k - about 60k. Don't really care about the 401k much, can't touch it for a long time, but ill take the match.
Debt - none
HSA - 9k
Investments - nearly 300k total. mostly crypto, stocks, and about 20% is cash (should probably throw that in too).
No car. No house. No family.
Stayed with that employer for the entire grant and left after about 5 years. The company today is worth a few billion dollars, and that value is based on the latest preferred share price, so obviously it assumes everything goes well and it will sell high enough that the liquidation preferences won’t be exercised and everything will convert to common. It could easily still all go to $0, I don’t count on it much.
The liquid portfolio is instead through boring saving, investing and fairly frugal lifestyle.
I achieved this by becoming a FAANG software engineer right out of college. By my projections, and assuming no major world events occur to knock my plans off course, I should be a millionaire by 28/29 and will be able to retire by my mid/late 30s. However, the more and more I work, the more I realize that I really enjoy what I do, so we will see what happens.
Of course, I am still entry level and my job will shift as I age, so take it all with a grain of salt.
I started really late in life but I hope to build a house next year, already got the land and I think its going to be brilliant, after that I'll just continue to work, pay my mortgage, have a nice holiday every few years, drink a few beers and then expect to die alone, just like everyone else, since the beginning of time.
I do care to have that cushion-fund to allow me to get over hard times, other than that I think having death insurance is wise so you can pay for your own gravestone and maybe have an Elvis impersonator sing Amazing Grace. Which is kind of like an odd idea since I tell people they're 'not invited to my funeral' as much as I can.
In the end, it doesn't matter... as long as you've got enough for the odd BBQ with friends, the staycation, the nice steak dinner, laughs and help a friend or family here and there... Enjoy life folks, remember, you can end up in a grave with a million bucks in your bank account any single day of the lord...
Late 20s, about 90k NW. 7 years ago I had about $70 of my own. About 50k of that is my 401k. 5 figure salary in IT but great benefits +pension. However I think I’d kill myself staying here so I might not get to enjoy that.
I plan to retire in South America or Eastern Europe since their food and culture match what I like the most. The US is definitely not the place to retire for me.
I rent, I have a dog, a girlfriend in grad school and I race cars. I build everything myself so the most I’ve spent in one shot is 2K in a turbo and 600 on a welder. Overall I’d say I spent 10k on the car, so not bad (trying to justify myself lol).
I think I’m pretty frugal but I end up spending money on a lot of little things for racing and such. But I don’t have an 80in tv or the latest MacBook. I run Mac on a $300 Thinkpad X1. We cook every night and we buy at Costco or Aldi. We lowered our beef consumption and we drink Kirkland Malbec for $7 (but to me it’s on par with a $20 wine).
Anyway, that’s how I’ve been doing it, low risk, low return, no gifts, no inheritance, no company stock.
In our 30's we made sure to live a comfortable lifestyle and not work like crazy. In general, we have always spent less that others who make the same, and save / invest pragmatically IMO.
Presently, while we do have periods of hard work, we believe in enjoying life as you go vs. waiting to retire - we take time off often and make sure we spend quality time together and with family / siblings / parents.
Who knows how long we'll be around and who knows how long kids, siblings and parents will be around - and from experience and observation, you never know when personal tragedy may strike.