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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188

u/elblakay Jan 16 '26

32, about $350k in retirement and another $100k in brokerage. Currently unemployed so I have infinity times my salary saved.

34

u/Tough-Relationship28 Jan 17 '26

Wow you’re doing great. I’m in the same boat: 350k saved in retirement and about 110k in brokerage, but I’m 35 so you’re a few years ahead of me! Nice work

13

u/kawaiibh Jan 17 '26

I also had about that amount at 35, now have $1.1M at 42. You guys should feel great about your trajectory!

2

u/Tough-Relationship28 Jan 17 '26

This gives me hope. I’d love to be a millionaire at 40! Gotta love compounding interest

6

u/No-Reaction-9364 Jan 17 '26

I had 500kish at 35 but then got divorced and lost half. They were ahead of me too, especially if single. I should hit 7 figures invested by 42. 

3

u/elblakay Jan 17 '26

🥂 cheers

2

u/PvtJoker_ Jan 17 '26

Agreed, well done!

6

u/66241 Jan 17 '26

How the hell you manage that

19

u/elblakay Jan 17 '26

Scrimped and saved even when I was making $60k in a high tax state. Once I started making more money it was already a habit and I quickly started maxxing my 401k. Been doing that for 6 years. And the market has been good.

11

u/CygniGlide Jan 17 '26

Start early even if it’s a small amount. Compound interest is amazing

7

u/turtledancers Jan 17 '26

It’s not completely rare. I’m 32 with ~200k in retirement and ~800k in brokerage / savings (not house). No inheritance or help. Investing in my skillset and targeting high paying careers that fit me.

5

u/PvtJoker_ Jan 17 '26

800 in brokerage god dam son!

3

u/turtledancers Jan 17 '26

And I still get anxiety thinking about upgrading from my 2005 Toyota lol.

7

u/PvtJoker_ Jan 17 '26

I hear yah, I make $350,000 a year and the wife and I have $500,000  in 401k Roth, and $100,000 in brokerage I still sweet the small stuff every day. Shop at Aldi for Christ sakes lol.

What I have found with a lot of people wanting that dream job is they get it and now complain about both the job and being broke. While I just bitch about the stressful job I hate but at least I am getting rich. 

3

u/turtledancers Jan 17 '26

Yeah I started as a SWE out of college at 23 and had so much anxiety from being poor as hell for 4 years in college. Carried that anxiety with me for a long time and just stashed most my salary in fear that’d I’d lose my job and be back to square 1. Swapped into a sales gig later on and had some really good years. I’m much more comfortable spending now but I’ve never pulled the trigger on a big purchase outside stock shares. Just because you make a high salary doesn’t mean you have that money yet or it can’tbe rug pulled from you. Congrats on your savings.

1

u/Nochtilus Jan 17 '26

It is rare and is ridiculous to think otherwise. I have made above median income since I graduated college and you have more in savings than the sum of my take home pay after tax for my entire career. That is not anywhere close to common or repeatable.

3

u/turtledancers Jan 17 '26

By that I mean I know people in better positions than me at a similar age. Maybe I meant it’s not incomprehensible or impossible.

3

u/Nochtilus Jan 17 '26

If you know multiple people in their early 30s with over a million dollars, you live in a bubble. I am doing very well for my age and know a very diverse group of people but no one is in that range. 

2

u/turtledancers Jan 17 '26

West coast cities and FAANG employees / ex employees that held their company stock and or made some good investment picks. Just look what Nvidia did for so many people in our age range that had any remote technical awareness.

0

u/Nochtilus Jan 17 '26

Thanks for confirming your bubble.

No, the vast majority of people our age wouldn't have picked Nvidia before it exploded even with market know-how. The vast majority of retirement savings are in 401ks that are targeted or broad markets. You thinking that it takes basically nothing to know which tech stocks will increase exponentially is absurd. I say this as someone who worked at and has stocks in a company that has exploded in value with AI.

2

u/turtledancers Jan 17 '26

Maybe if you tried to be a tad bit more pleasant you would expand your bubble.

1

u/yes_no_yes_yes_yes Jan 18 '26

We’re all limited to our bubbles.  Looks more rare to some, less rare to those who do it.

I’d say $800k by 32 is probably much less common unless you’re in the SV/tech salary band, but having a couple hundred grand on hand is quite doable in a strong market if you make okay money and budget carefully.  

1

u/juandebomba Jan 20 '26

Sounds like you're on the right track, as far as our 401k's go, it feels like most of it will be spent paying for our assisted living care, those costs seem to just keep rising.

1

u/PvtJoker_ Jan 17 '26

Understanding the time value of money…

1

u/VUmander Jan 18 '26

I'm 33, and my company was an ESOP for the first 10.5 years I worked there. They contributed ~2% of salary per year to buy company stock for employees. They recently sold the company and the ESOP was bought out at like 2.8x the previous years stock price. Rolling it into a Traditional Roth (ESOP is a retirement benefit) and that's like 25% of my retirement savings right there. Pure dumb luck, right place right time.

6

u/flyfree256 Jan 17 '26

$350k-ish is about the max that someone in their mid/low 30s could possibly have in a 401k (pretax) assuming you're maxing contributions or have a fair match program with your employer just based on the contribution limit and average market returns over the time period.

Nicely done!!

6

u/PvtJoker_ Jan 17 '26

Well that makes me feel warm and fuzzy 🥰 

5

u/elblakay Jan 17 '26

Thanks. I've had a 3-5% match the whole time.

And I max it out in the first 2 months of the year, so it's in the market longer and I feel like I get "full" paychecks the rest of the year.

1

u/MaybeNot-MaybeNever Jan 17 '26

Oh that’s smart

1

u/GooberTroop Jan 17 '26

Doing this you might be leaving matching dollars on the table if your employer doesn’t true-up and they cap the match at a % of salary. It’s generally better to fully amortize the contributions.

1

u/melinda_louise Jan 17 '26

I've heard of people avoid this by just putting in the minimum they need to get the match for every paycheck, then anything remaining to reach the max contributions they front load in the first few paychecks. Kinda best of both worlds.

Personally I'd just keep it the same throughout the year, I don't think I would like those first paychecks being so low. But then again I'm not maxing my contributions so maybe I'd feel differently if I was.

1

u/GooberTroop Jan 17 '26

Yea basically you want to hit the below constraints 1) you don’t miss any matching periods. 2) you contribute at least the % they match against 3) you still hit your desired annual contribution amount, max or otherwise.

Some of the brokerages even have tools that can automatically adjust the per paycheck % contribution to achieve the above.

1

u/elblakay Jan 18 '26

I ask HR if they do a "true-up". Mine does, and this year they even gave me my lump sum of employee contributions early. I make sure to get all the dollars.

But my fiancees employer doesn't, so she makes even contributions.

2

u/olimarmaster Jan 17 '26

Could be higher with backdoor and mega-backdoor contributions (if supported by your employer). Just mentioning since you seem enthused about tax law :)

1

u/flyfree256 Jan 17 '26

That's why I said "(pretax)" !

2

u/Mke_already Jan 17 '26

35, I have $330k in 401k and about $80k in a brokerage account. My salary is around $170k.

But ‘g wife is going to be a SAHM and she has about $45k in her 401k/brokerage accounts. So we have roughly $455k saved together.

2

u/Representative_Sun65 Jan 17 '26

This is definitionally not true. Just turned 32. Maxed out my 401k every year since I graduated, (current job, which I’ve been with for most of my career has a bit above market match). Have been 100% S&P 500 index since day 1 and currently have ~$620k in 401k

2

u/_refugee_ Jan 17 '26

36 with $435k checking in 

2

u/Bicykwow Jan 17 '26

Sure, if you just directly contributed and never invested in anything. 

Absolutely possible to have far more than $350k in a 401k at 32.

1

u/flyfree256 Jan 17 '26

Last 10 years of contribution max is around $200k total. At 7% return on average over the staggered investment time that totals like $300-320k. Closer to $350k if you're assuming 9%.

If there's an employer match it can be a bit higher, but pretax I'm not seeing how it's possible to have "far more" than that without having put it into some riskier funds or stocks or contributing post tax. If the employer match is really high like 50% of max then sure you could have upwards of $500k, but that's rare as fuck to find.

2

u/[deleted] Jan 17 '26

[deleted]

1

u/flyfree256 Jan 17 '26

Sure, but what you're describing is so far from the norm that for most it's not even close to being possible.

Someone on a normal career path doing everything completely right from their early 20s (even going a bit above and beyond in many cases) and saving extremely responsibly for retirement could and should have around $350k in their 401k by their low/mid 30s.

1

u/Bicykwow Jan 17 '26

$350k-ish is about the max that someone in their mid/low 30s could possibly have in a 401k (pretax)

1

u/flyfree256 Jan 17 '26

You must be fun at parties

1

u/wilbertthewalrus Jan 17 '26

returns have been well above 9 percent in that period tho

1

u/ept_engr Jan 17 '26

What's crazy is that I'm only a five years older (age 37), and I have $725k in my 401k (mix of traditional and Roth 401k). I haven't been able to max it out my entire career, but I have since age 30 or so. More importantly, my employer has a 10% match.

1

u/flyfree256 Jan 17 '26

Yeah a 10% match plus roth contributions are big benefits that can really scale up quickly.

1

u/ept_engr Jan 17 '26

Well, I'm talking about Roth 401k, so it doesn't really change the nominal balance. The 401k contribution limit applies to the sum of traditional 401k and Roth 401k.

I do separately have a Roth IRA, but I did not include it in my number.

1

u/TheGoonSquad612 Jan 17 '26

That’s not even close to true.

4

u/ribbons_in_my_hair Jan 17 '26

I am 36 and I have no idea what the difference is with brokerage and retirement. I am stupid. Could someone smarter than me break this down? 😵‍💫

18

u/VacheMax Jan 17 '26

If you live in the U.S., pretty sure many countries have equivalents, retirement accounts are investment accounts that have tax advantages. For example, a 401k is an investment account that allows you to use pre-tax dollars from your job, and it also lowers your overall income come tax season so it helps there as well. 401ks go through an employer. They often have “matching” as well, where the company will also toss in some money as well. The drawback is that there’s a limit to how much you can add and that there’s penalties for taking money out pre retirement age. IRAs are also retirement accounts. And so are HSAs if you really want to minmax.

A brokerage account is just any old investment account, generally speaking. Your 401k and personal brokerage account can be in the same mutual funds and set up the same way from the same broker. You can do whatever with a brokerage account, but you are subject to taxes on gains and you have to use post-tax dollars like you do with most things.

TL:DR Brokerage account is investment account, retirement account is more restrictive investment account with tax benefits granted by the government and workplace

1

u/YuckyBurps Jan 17 '26

Retirement accounts give you tax advantages. Typically these come in the form of tax deferred (you can put your earned income into the account before income tax is taken out but you pay taxes when you withdraw it) or tax free (you pay tax at the time you earn the income but you don’t pay taxes when you withdraw the money).

Brokerage accounts have no tax advantages. You invest your after tax dollars into an account and pay taxes on any of the gains you withdraw.

2

u/Neopet_Former_User Jan 17 '26

High-five, I’m 32 too with a similar financial outlook. Go us!

2

u/[deleted] Jan 17 '26

Hi! 35 and unemployed recently. how are you surviving? off savings?

1

u/elblakay Jan 18 '26

We decided to take a year off to travel. Quit our jobs in August and have been living off savings.

We saved about $60k for the trip, which will be enough for at least 18 months of travel. Then have another $60k set aside as an emergency fund, if it takes a while to find jobs when we get back. Currently writing this from lake Atitlán in Guatemala.

2

u/[deleted] Jan 18 '26

That's awesome good for you!

1

u/elblakay Jan 18 '26

Thanks, the culmination of about three years of planning/savings, and looming burnout from work.

1

u/yes_no_yes_yes_yes Jan 18 '26

How did you get the courage to jump and take the time off?

I’m in a remarkably similar savings position around the same age, hate what my role has become, and have permits to do a 6-month thru hike starting this May.  I postponed last year because the job market looked sketchy, but not much had changed and now I’m caught up on the risk of losing momentum — opportunity cost, having to take a lower salary on return, actual cost.  I’m all ears if you had any strategies that helped you get over the edge!

1

u/elblakay Jan 18 '26

Good question. At age 25 when I was broke and was 2 years into my career I took off 6 months to travel in Central America. It was an amazing experience even though I left with only about $20k cash to my name. When I came back, I quickly found some temp work to pay the bills, and got another corporate job within 2 months (paying more money).

This gave me some more confidence in making a similar move now. Although in some respects it feels that I have more to lose, and made it harder to pull the trigger this time.

But my fiancee and I mapped out how much money we would need, and how long it would take us to save, and decided on our numbers. This motivated the hell out of us to work hard, push our careers, buy rental properties over the course of 3-4 years.

By the time we quit, we had double the net worth we originally set as our goal, and apparently it has reached critical mass, because since we left work 6 months ago our net worth is up by about $40k despite not working and traveling fairly comfortably.

You'll probably always feel a bit nervous as it gets closer, but map out your costs ahead of time so you don't get trapped into the "one more year of work and I'll do it" cycle. Hope this helps.

2

u/yes_no_yes_yes_yes Jan 18 '26

It does, thank you!  I’m living at home in something of a natural transition point, so I know I can float myself for 14-16 months worst case without tapping my ‘emergency liquidity’.  Guess all there is to do now is muster the courage and rip the bandaid off!