Just curious and not sure if people are comfortable sharing, but thought it would be interesting to discuss after seeing the net worth thread. I am so impressed with how much people have managed to save up and I am just curious how long it took and how they got there.
Please feel free to share as much or as little as you would like.
My Age: 27
Number of Years Contributing: 5
% Saved Annually: 10% for 2 years, 18% for 3 years
Company Match? If so %: 100% of 6% income for 2 years, 3% for 3 years and vested for pension plan
Value of Retirement Savings: $39,000
My DH's Age: 28 (almost 29)
Number of Years Contributing: 3
% Saved Annually: 5% for 1 year, 8% for 1 year, 10% for 1 year
Company Match? If so %: 150% of 3% income for 1 years, 3% match for 2 years and vested for pension plan
Value of Retirement Savings: $10,000
Future Goals:
- Once we finish paying off our student loan debt and car loan in 2 years, I plan on increasing contributions even more to catch up and get closer to maxing it out.
- Also, I would like to diversify my investments and move away from just using target retirement accounts. My goal this year is to work with a financial planner and set up long term financial planning.
ETA: I got over the laziness and just looked up my DH's info. He is a bit further behind than me because of timing of when he started. But he finally opened up a ROTH IRA this year and stopped contributing to his work's crappy return 401k. So he is on the right track as well.
Please share!
Re: Retirement Account Balance and Age
ETA: Goal is to have $150,000 saved by 35. We are easily on track for that.
I didn't include H's information, but he's fully vested in his pension and railroad retirement. He also contributes roughly 6% into a 401(k) that is only a few years old. Future Goals: - We'll hopefully be able to continue our current savings. We each have a 1% auto increase annually for our 401(k) contributions. I'm please with our ROR as of late, so I'll just continue to watch our accounts. I would love to hit $100k before age 35. We'll see if it happens, but as it stands, I'm on track.
Future Goals:
We each plan to increase our percentages every year except this year since we are buying the house.
We also plan to open ROTH IRA's by April 2016 and plan to put in a good chunk of money as well
We are meeting with a financial adviser next month to discuss our options.
TTC since 1/13 DX:PCOS 5/13 (long, anovulatory cycles)

Clomid 50mg 9/13 = BFP! EDD 6/7/14 M/C 5w6d Found 11/4/13
1/14 PCOS / Gluten Free Diet to hopefully regulate my system.
Chemical Pregnancy 03/14
Surprise BFP 6/14, Beta #1: 126 Beta #2: 340 Stick baby, stick! EDD 2/17/15
Riley Elaine born 2/16/15
TTC 2.0 6/15
Chemical Pregnancy 9/15
Chemical Pregnancy 6/16
BFP 9/16 EDD 6/3/17
Beta #1: 145 Beta #2: 376 Beta #3: 2,225 Beta #4: 4,548
www.5yearstonever.blogspot.com
Combined: $505K
Future Goals:
I just became a SAHM this past December, so we are going to look at maxing out my DH's 401K (which is pretty close as is) as well as set up something for me while I am not working. I got lucky and am still doing some of my old job part-time from home, but I don't get in a lot of hours (about 1-2 hours a day). So even though I'm still contributing 10% and getting the 5% match, it really doesn't end up being a lot of money. We are just working on settling into this one income thing and losing almost 50% of our income when we decided I would SAH. We will take a look at retirement for when I am not working when DH gets his next pay raise (should be in the spring).
I almost hesitated posting, because my situation is unusual and not what I would recommend for the average person. But then decided a different perspective never hurts. Unfortunately, I have a serious medical condition that makes it unlikely I will live to or much past the typical retirement age of 63/65. As such, retirement products like IRAs and 401Ks don't hold much appeal to me. I'm much more attracted to investment vehicles that don't have an age limit as to when I can access the money.
I do have about $5,000 in retirement savings starting from when I was 18, 41 now, because my mom opened a Roth IRA for me and I've sometimes done up to the 401K matching for jobs I've had. My current job contributes to my 401K every year, even if I contribute nothing. It's their version of a yearly bonus. They also do a 401K match, I think up to 3%, but I don't contribute anything.
I have no idea about my husband. He's older than me at 51, though I think he has some retirement savings. Good reminder to ask him. He is unemployed at the moment and doesn't contribute anything to his retirement.
Future Goals:
My "retirement" plan, so to speak, is to buy enough rental properties to have the ability to retire from my 7-5 job in about 5 years. Doesn't mean I will, it would just be nice to know I could fall back on just working for myself if I got laid off or I didn't like my job anymore. Once I am to that place, it would be enough for both my husband and I to "retire".
We're pretty simple people and are able to keep our expenses to a minimum. No student loans, I don't have kids. And the positive of all of that is my job replacing income does not need to be super high.
@jessica490, @blondie42107, @vlagrl29...thanks you all! My condition is not something new and I came to acceptance a long time ago. None of us have any guarantees in life. My father unexpectedly died fairly young at 49 and that taught me to relish and enjoy whatever time I have...whether that be one day or one million days.
(I did the math, that last one would make me over 2,700 years old).
For the foreseeable future neither MW or I will be making huge changes to our percentages since we have two young children that we want to put at least through 8th grade in Catholic schools.
My Age: almost 27
Number of Years Contributing: 18 consistent months with occasional random contributions prior to that
% Saved Annually: 10%
Company Match? If so%: My current company (4 months) contributes 8% with no employee contribution required. Prior to that I lost out on my match because I left too soon.
Value of Retirement Savings: $9,500
H: 30
Number of Years Contributing: occasional random contributions in his early 20s; Consistently for about 2 and half years
% Saved Annually: About 14%
Company Match? If so%: 3%
Value of Retirement Savings: I think it is around $50k, but $30k is not invested and is considered our emergency fund.
Further Explanation: H was in National Guard when he was in college with no real living expenses. He was deployed twice and saved almost every bit of his deployment money for retirement and our first home down payment. I am incredibly thankful, because it has helped us tremendously.
Goals: We are gradually trying to save a real emergency fund (separate from H's ROTH), so we can invest that $30k. We should be able to move $10k over at the end of this year. Other than that, we plan to keep chugging away at our current rates. We may have to drop it down a little once we have a child, because daycare is so dang expensive here!
Wow! That is an amazing benefit.
You make a good point about employer contributions. A lot of people talk about it being "free money", but it is only free money if you stay working at a company for whatever their vestment period is. Which, for me, has always been a minimum of 3 years to get some of the vestment. Often much longer than that to get the "full" vestment. As such, I've never actually received a vestment either because for the couple companies whose 401Ks I joined, I was laid off long before I would have been vested.
I just thought about the types of industries I have been working in and realized I went off course somewhere. I work in "lay off" heavy industries...ie most of the work is for specific clients or contracts. Not the best choices for a gal like myself who puts a high value on "job security", lol.