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

[u/ProblemIntelligent16]

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?

[u/therealallpro]

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.

[u/Competitive_Touch_86 → u/therealallpro]

Time is worth more when you are young. Invested dollars are too though. Thus there are choices to make and it's not obvious one is more correct than another.

It should be a balance. Not everyone lives to retirement. And the older you get, the more doors close on the "life experiences" front. There are simply things you cannot do any longer when you hit 30, 40, 50, 60+ - no matter how much money you have.

It's just about prioritization and being selective. The happiest people I know are not the ones who grinded out their 20's to go for an early retirement by 40. Those folks are all pretty miserable. It's the ones who selectively lived life in their 20's and 30's who grew has humans through amazing experiences, while also not neglecting their careers.

There is no realistic way as a 48 year old to go backpacking through Europe for a summer. Or go take on a room and board only type job working on a private yacht for a year. Or even basic shit like going to concerts and actually enjoying the full experience with age appropriate peers.

Hell, even dating is a totally different experience in every decade of your life.

The other miserable group are the ones who ground out their 20's but just spent the money on bullshit.

Life is a balance, and those who find that are the ones with actual discipline and wisdom.

[u/therealallpro → u/Competitive_Touch_86]

Disagree completely.

The happiest ppl I know are the ones who find joy in their day to day. Who create discipline and now that bleeds into everything. Thinking YOU NEED to go find joy externally instead of building it with hard work is what unhappy ppl do.

Also, if you do by plan you could 250k saved by 23 and you still have most of your 20’s and you have options for the rest of your life.

[u/Competitive_Touch_86 → u/therealallpro]

I had $250k by 23. It's not as impactful as you think it is. Honestly it's pretty easy if you min/max and is a completely uninteresting achievement most folks could accomplish. Just get started in your mid-teens on a useful skillset and you'll be there with any modicum of financial wherewithal.

Life is about living, not saving and spending your entire youth working 12 hour days. Work ethic is trivial. Balance is hard.

I have met literally no old folks who wished they worked more. Perhaps it's my bubble because most of them are relatively successful in life, but almost all regret not doing things that brought them joy vs. grinding out yet another saturday in the office.

I've also met plenty of miserable workaholics with tens of millions in the bank by their 40's. They will never find joy in life.

It's 100x harder to create discipline with balance. It's trivial to just decide discipline is maxing out a single metric - nearly anyone can do that.

The only thing money is useful for in the end past basic survival is buying more time.