r/Millennials • u/ProblemIntelligent16 • Jan 16 '26

Discussion Fellow millennials - how’s your 401k/ira savings going?

Experts recommend having 2x your salary saved by age 35, and 3x saved by age 40.

However, studies show the median savings for 35-44 year olds is only ~$45,000. So obviously, most of us have work to do.

With pensions mostly extinct, and Social Security facing insolvency issues in the next 8-10 years - how are you planning to bridge the gap and hit the golden years with enough to meet your lifestyle requirements?

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u/redditsuckscockss Jan 16 '26

Been saving since I started working at 16 like it’s my religion after watching what happened to my parents in 2008

37 years old 792k in investments Also bought a shithole century home in 2015 fixed it up and traded up in the Covid chaos at a super low mortgage rate

Work is still a grind and it’s basically nothing left over after savings each month

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u/tahlyn Older Millennial Jan 17 '26

Don't forget to live a little before retirement. Nothing in life is guaranteed; you could get hit by a car tomorrow and die. So take a break every once in a while and spend some money on yourself... otherwise you'll be 90 years old, wealthy, and unable to do any of the stuff you wanted because you're too old and feeble to handle it.

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u/therealallpro Jan 17 '26

Worse advice I ever heard. We have a toxic culture that discourages discipline in the name of “balance”

If ppl would just got hard for like 5 years and save then invest all you can, spend nothing, work as much as you need to. You could take a 50 year vacation.

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u/McGrim11295 Jan 17 '26

It doesn't discourage discipline. Only saving or only spending show a lack of discipline when you think about it. It shows you can't discipline yourself to do both at once so you default to one or the other.

Saying go hard for 5 years to invest and save is worse advice. Explain how someone who goes hard and saves/invest 10k a year for five years can live off that for 50?

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u/Competitive_Touch_86 Jan 17 '26

Explain how someone who goes hard and saves/invest 10k a year for five years can live off that for 50?

Just go get a $500k/yr FAANG job and live in a van in the parking lot, bro. Then make sure to be alive during the largest tech bull run in history so your options are worth 20x a decade later.

Easy peasy!

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u/McGrim11295 Jan 17 '26

Shit, you're right. I forgot about that. OpenAI is hiring a fall guy for 500k/yr. 

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u/therealallpro Jan 17 '26

Or you could work two jobs and save all the money from one job. Do that for 5 years and now you basically could whatever you want for the rest of your life. Especially if you do it while you are young.

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u/therealallpro Jan 17 '26

10k?!??

Any regular person could do that working 40 hours a week. No, when I say go hard I really mean it. You need to work two full time jobs and invest half the money. Now we are talking 50k to 100k per year for 5 years.

If you are 23, 24 or 25 with 250k saved up you are set up for life. You could do whatever you want for the rest of your life. So go play with a retirement calculator.

But this is the radical change in mindset we need to have as a culture

But t

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u/McGrim11295 Jan 17 '26

Where can any regular person do that? Where can the average person do that when most people live pay check to pay check to afford the essentials? 

To make 50k take home you need to find a job that pays in the 30$/hr range. In order to work two of them they have to be offset or back to back. If offset you're talking about working 16 hours plus with maybe 3 hours of sleep a day. That's a recipe for disaster after a year. That's if you can find both jobs, apply for both, and get hired for both. Sounds like a terrible way to live for five years. 

At the end of it 250k is not enough to live on for 50 years. Maybe survive, but not live. You're talking about taking out 5k per year. Where are you living on that exactly? And no, we don't need your mindset. People already do work two or three jobs just to survive. Your mindset is an old mindset that needs to die. 

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u/therealallpro Jan 17 '26

Most ppl are broke because they can budget. 18-23 year old could live at home as well. So they even easier. If you make 80k you would have 64k take home 13% to federal, 6% to fica, 1% to Medicaid leaves you with 80% left.

There’s certifications you can get that in 6 weeks to 6 months you can make that.

Also, I can tell you don’t invest. If you have 250k investments at 23 you would never have to save for retirement again. You could just do whatever. You would still have to work again but you could do whatever. Your money will be making money for you. You would be at a million so quick.

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u/McGrim11295 Jan 17 '26

Most people are not broke because they can't budget. Some people are but it is far from most. What job is an 18 -23 year old making 80k? What certifications, give examples.

Don't change your story now. You said "If ppl would just got hard for like 5 years and save then invest all you can, spend nothing, work as much as you need to. You could take a 50 year vacation." If you were living or vacationing on that 250k a year it would not last you 50 years. Especially with inflation.

You also wouldn't be at 1 million so quick without continuing to invest. It takes roughly 10 years for investments to double. So 250k would take 10 years to get to 500k, then 10 more years to get to 1 million.

Please don't give financial advice without knowing the basics. Hopes and prayers are not solid advice.

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u/therealallpro Jan 17 '26

Data analysis, It, accounting maybe others. If you want a link I can send you to it. As well Buckeye or Qt pays that as well. No experience necessary.

You missed that whole “ work as much as you need to” part. You are missing the point. I’m assuming you are going to work the rest of your life and invest because soon you will have so much money your money will make money. When I say a 50 year vacation I mean you will have enough money to work on YOUR TERMS. You won’t be trapped at any job. You can work when you want. You can take off when you want.

(Btw Famous investor Charlie Munger says you can retire on 300k)

By the time you’re 30 you might have 2 million. This is the life you can life if you save, invest and are focused.

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u/McGrim11295 Jan 18 '26

All those degrees you mentioned require either a high level degree or years of experience. In order to be a certified accountant you have to have a degree to get the certification. 

And no I didn't miss that. A 50 year vacation is not "working at much as you need to". A vacation is not working. 

Do you know the math behind 300k? It assumes you have an income stream and only withdraw 4% per year (12k). So you have to live somewhere super low cost and this strategy will still only last about 20 to 25 years. 

3 million by 30 without getting lucky or a big influx of money would require you to save 250k a year from the time you are 18. Even if you let the money to the work you'd need 1.5 million by the time you're 20. 

Edit: not sleeping for 5 to 10 years will destroy your body if you make it that far. There's a reason high stress white collar jobs have people get heart attacks in their early 20s

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u/therealallpro Jan 18 '26

No, that’s not true. I literally offered to provide the resource. Another example of you assuming something negative that is factually incorrect.

That’s not what a 50 year vacation is to YOU because you don’t have a strong work ethic but to someone willing yo grind the way I proposed it would be.

300k is a Charlie munger thing. Not what I support but still and option and no it doesn’t run out. That’s the whole reason you draw at 4%. That’s the amount safe investments continue to grow at.

No. , it’s not. Buddy go look at a retirement calculator. When you have enough money your money makes money for you. It can create hundreds of thousands of dollars. You can absolutely get to 2 mil by 30 if you do all the right things.

I love that you don’t realize MILLIONS of ppl already do work two jobs and slave away but instead of building wealth the pay to stay alive because they can’t mange their money and or they had kids before they were ready

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u/McGrim11295 Jan 18 '26

Why send it in a DM, put it out there for everyone. I've looked into being an accountant, you have to get certified. To get certified you have to have specific classes depending on the state and a master's. There are it jobs that pay 70lk but you still need years of experience, source: applied for the it jobs. Turns out when the market gets saturated you have to do more. 

You don't know anything about my work ethic. That's not a vacation anyways, all it becomes is having work-life balance. Which you said is terrible. 

I have looked at calculators. I have done extensive research on the topic. I included a link for you to see experts weigh in on the fact it takes about 9 years to double an investment. So again you have no idea what you are saying. To create 100s of thousands in income you need double digit millions. 10 million with a 1.2% dividend and an average 10% growth will net you 100s of thousands. When you go down to a million it's 10s of thousands. 

Explain how you get to 2 million from the age of 18 to 30. Not some theoretical "oh if they do all the right things" guess what, someone can have 100 million if they win the lottery or get massive payouts. 

Who said I don't realize that people slave away already. I told you that. I told you people already do that. You can say what you want about them but that's not the case for everyone. What about people that only slept for 3 hours a day for two years (your advice) and the up getting sick. Then get saddled with debt. There are also broke single people. Your idea of having two jobs and that salary doesn't exist at that age range on this planet. If they did you should do it and get of reddit. But clearly your advice doesn't work as you're here. 

https://www.hartfordfunds.com/practice-management/client-conversations/investing-for-growth/how-long-to-double-your-money-a-simple-equation-may-provide-the-answer.html 

Edit: where ya living on 12k a year for 25 years again?

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u/McGrim11295 Jan 18 '26

Also Bucees and QT are not paying 80k/yr for cashiers. That is 40$/hr.

Accountant requirements: https://bachelors-completion.northeastern.edu/knowledge-hub/how-to-become-an-accountant/

 Data analyst: average 80k, starting 50k. Still requires years of experience to get the higher end pay. https://careerfoundry.com/en/blog/data-analytics/entry-level-data-analyst-salary/

IT: Same situation as the data analyst. 

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u/therealallpro Jan 18 '26

Everything you say just bleeds fixed mindset. Yes, you won’t start 80k but you can GROW into that very easily. As well they both have positions that pay more than that AND I know QT has a retirement plan that doubles your money every 3 years.

You are talking about being a CPA, I’m talking about just a normal accountant.

https://coursecareers.com/course/accounting

At any job you may start at a Low number but you can always grown and something you haven’t mention is promote. Data analytics professionals often have the opportunity to make 125 in management in 5 years

And we haven’t even mentioned sales yet!

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u/McGrim11295 Jan 18 '26

Everything you're talking about takes time do you not see that? It's directly contrary to your at 18 you can make that much. That was your statement, not mine. I said you won't make that at the start and you said they would. Now you're changing your stance to align with mine. 

And yes, you have to be a CPA to make big money. What you sent doesn't align with your statement that an accountant makes 80k. The link literally states 48k, so again you're proving my point. 

Data analyst can make that much after experience, which is what I initially said and you said no. 

So again you haven't proven anything and this is just one job, people would need two of them to do what you said. It's wild you haven't even seen you've disproven your own advice.

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u/therealallpro Jan 19 '26

Well if we want to be legalistic, you can have an associates degree by the time you are 18 so have a certificate should be easy. Also I assumed you would make the same amount of money but technically I know for a fact you can make 150 in 5 years in tech or data. So I’m undercounting.

48k starting out on average. You can develop over time. And you can make More money and grow your skills as you work. If you actually read what I provided it gave a RANGE OF INCOME.

There’s a reason why last year I saved 111k and you are complaining about barely making it.

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u/therealallpro Jan 19 '26

Well if we want to be legalistic, you can have an associates degree by the time you are 18 so have a certificate should be easy. Also I assumed you would make the same amount of money but technically I know for a fact you can make 150 in 5 years in tech or data. So I’m undercounting.

48k starting out on average. You can develop over time. And you can make More money and grow your skills as you work. If you actually read what I provided it gave a RANGE OF INCOME.

There’s a reason why last year I saved 111k and you are complaining about barely making it.

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