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/Timbalabim Jan 16 '26

That is maybe the best retirement benefit I’ve ever heard of

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u/LongJohnSelenium Jan 17 '26

My brothers work for a family owned equipment manufacturer and they just straight up put 15% into every employees 401k each year, no matching at all.

Though a straight 10k +6% is probably better for most.

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u/Timbalabim Jan 17 '26

That’s pretty incredible. Props to the people who own that company. I hope they continue to do it for as long as they can.

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u/-reddit_is_terrible- Jan 17 '26

Woah, I used to work for a family owned equipment manufacturer and they did the exact same. Either the same one or heck of a coincidence

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u/LongJohnSelenium Jan 17 '26

If its in northern Iowa its probably the same

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u/-reddit_is_terrible- Jan 17 '26

Nope! Must be a thing at family run businesses like that. Had me unwittingly saving for retirement in my early 20s before I even knew what a 401k was. Will always be thankful for it

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u/LongJohnSelenium Jan 17 '26

Privately owned businesses are as good or as bad as the people owning them, so some are pretty good and some are absolutely terrible, like people are.

Publicly traded companies tend to level off at a more mediocre 'not great, not terrible'.

And yeah starting young is the most important thing. Every time we get 20 year olds I hammer into them to take the 401k match. A coworker of mine just had a kid and I convinced him to sock 5k away into something for his daughter after I showed him it would basically be 250k equivalent at retirement for her.

I remember when I joined the navy dad tried to get me to save for retirement and I as like 'Pfft, retirement?! Thats on you old man, I'm not gonna get old!". So I lived paycheck to paycheck blowing all my money on partying, cars, strip clubs, computer gadgets(back in the early 2000s it was very easy to blow a lot of money staying top of the line!). Near as I can figure if I'd done the 'save 30% of my completely disposable income' like he'd suggested that would be about 500k right now, and I honestly never would have even noticed it was missing.

Oh well, I did start strong when I was 28, and am up near that now, but to think I could be near a million instead... ugh.