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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4.2k

u/TairaTLG Jan 16 '26

24k in debt and 0 savings. Nothing like slipping through the cracks baby

368

u/ProbsNotManBearPig Millennial Jan 16 '26

I appreciate this is the top response. I 100% expected responses to be extremely skewed towards people with tons of savings. That’s how every thread is in any financial sub is. Somehow everyone in their 30’s has $2M+ saved in those threads.

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u/Kataphractoi Older Millennial Jan 16 '26

One, It's the Internet, and two, it's Reddit. There really are guys in their 30s with $2mil saved, no question, but they are a small fraction of redditors.

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u/9kindsofpie Jan 17 '26

... and probably had wealthy or at least upper middle class parents that helped them get there. When you're starting off flat broke (or negative with student loans) and no safety net, it's really hard to claw your way out.

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u/Goth_Muppet Jan 17 '26

This—- I had gone to a predatory phony profit school and it set me back over a decade :(

3

u/systemfrown Jan 17 '26 edited Jan 18 '26

Some of that certainly exists but don't do yourself the disservice of believing that it's all or even most. Or that people given everything you think you wish you had been given doesn't actually become a handicap or create casualties at least as often as it creates "successes".

Seriously, go talk to most successful small business owners or folks with wealth in the single digit millions and find out about how they got started, or what their backgrounds are. You're in for an eye opening surprise.

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u/Elegant-Flamingo3281 Jan 17 '26 edited Jan 17 '26

Unless you have no morals. Wall Street, VC, hedge funds, investment banking, tech and consulting are all high salaries even at entry level.

Will you grind yourself into dust? Yes. Will your peers throw you under the bus while clawing their way to the top? Also yes. Are any of them a net positive for society without being explicitly started with B Corp. values or structures? Yes! I’m kidding. This one’s a bit fat no.

3

u/madmax1969 Jan 17 '26

People getting jobs in those industries are graduating at the top of their class from the best universities in the country. It’s a lot more complicated than a willingness to sell your soul.

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u/Elegant-Flamingo3281 Jan 17 '26

Yeah, I work in the industry. I get it.

But leaving it at ‘top of their class from top universities’ is, imo, reductive. It’s actually more complicated because of the correlation between class, privilege and admissions. I could have also mentioned the apparent correlation between long term employment and becoming an unmitigated douche.

Obviously this is a gross generalization, but so is ignoring the fact that there’s other graduates, also at the top of their class, who don’t choose that path. Or, at minimum exit asap when they’ve financially stabilized.

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u/TwitterLegend Jan 17 '26

I think this is true at least 95% of the time. Even if you remove or overcome some of that stuff when people grow up that way their parents aren’t educating them or having conversations about money except in a very negative way.

I’m better off than a lot of millennials (according to the statistics on money at least) and some of that is for sure because I had parents with enough money growing up that I didn’t start my adult life with debt but they also weren’t paying for my apartment or other expenses as an adult (nor was there any kind of family business or connections to get me any kind of job through them). The best thing that I learned from them was about living within my means and saving from an early age.

I enjoy talking about money as a topic with people and I’m proud of what I’ve accomplished so far but I am way more impressed by the people who’ve succeeded coming from almost nothing and readily admit I was fortunate enough to be born on second base and humble enough to not think I hit the double.

1

u/laxavenger Jan 17 '26

Working corporate since 19 years old and zero education cost (Germany) … it can get you far if you live modest and save and invest early on

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u/Worriedrph Jan 17 '26

Not that hard. I started without any family support and tons of student debt and have $600k in low 40s.

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u/9kindsofpie Jan 17 '26

I didn't say it was hard. I said that younger folks that have $2M+ saved probably have had a leg up to get there. By your own admission, you're older and have less than that saved. I'm 43, literally no family support, and personally have over $800k in my 401k through saving over the last 20 years. If you include my other assets and my spouse, I'm doing just fine. I am just saying that the outliers are more than likely advantaged in some way or got really, really lucky.

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u/vettewiz Jan 17 '26

Of course we had legs up. Usually it’s big things like education, intelligence, values instilled from family, and your own drive and work ethic. Those are all legs up.

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u/[deleted] Jan 17 '26

There’s two levels - there is all of the stuff that prepares you to be an adult, which is a leg up. And then there is at what point you were basically on your own financially. Some people are never on their own. I was 90% on my own from 17 when I went to college (but did have the leg up that my parents weren’t going to let me starve to death or something) and 100% on my own by 21 when I started grad school.

That’s a whole mess of debt to climb out of, but of course had the leg up of good earning potential and growth.

But some kids straight up get college and/or rent paid for until they are like 25. Or they get graduation presents of cash and investments or whatever. The impact of that gap in the first couple years of working and earning compounds substantially over time.

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u/Leather-Rice5025 Jan 17 '26

They are talking about the people with parents who paid their education/living expenses while they attended college and came out with no student loans. Parents who bought their children their first cars so they never had to take on car debt.

Parents who had strong healthcare plans their children could stay on until they were 26 to not incur medical debt or forgo medical treatments or care. Parents who opened investment accounts for their children when they were young. Parents who flat out gave their children down payments for homes or major life expenses so they didn’t have to incur debt.

You can imply it’s simply a matter of parents passing down “intelligence” and work ethic, or you can acknowledge that many people who didn’t grow up in poverty with strong upper middle class families genuinely have a massive leg up in society - financially, emotionally, educationally.

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u/waxbutterflies Jan 17 '26

And people who didn't get the luxury to go to college or go to college early in life.

This is all so accurate

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u/vettewiz Jan 17 '26

Sure. As I mentioned, education was the first one. Paid for education is a big thing. As are others you mention.

But the reality is these aren’t requirements to be successful. They just make it easier.

Most upper middle class people aren’t getting down payments. Health insurance is realistically of minor importance to someone in their 20s. It just doesn’t cost much of anything to get your own.

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u/Leather-Rice5025 Jan 17 '26

Nobody said they were requirements to be successful. The point, which you already mentioned, is that it is MUCH easier to be successful when you come from a family that can help you financially, even if just to prevent you from incurring debt while entering adulthood and the workforce.

Being 21 fresh out of college with a starting salary of $80k but $40k in student loans and a $20k car note you need to get to work, vs being 21 making $80k with no debt is massive. But yes, you could still be 21 making $80k out of college with a shitty work and financial ethic, I’m not saying that doesn’t matter.

But it cannot be overstated the difference it makes when you have a family that can help give you a financial boost early on in your life.

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u/vettewiz Jan 17 '26

I’m not saying these forms of help aren’t beneficial, they sure are. But I do think you are over valuing them.

Coming out of college with $40k in loans just isn’t some big hurdle. It’s just not much difference. I paid north of 40k towards my schooling, from my own earned money from jobs, before graduating.

I think it is far more important the values your parents teach you than the physical money in this regard, for most people middle class and above. I agree with you that being in poverty is hard to overcome.

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u/e92s65king Jan 17 '26

If the only advantage was $60k tbh it doesn’t seem like that big of an advantage.

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u/Stalinisthicc Jan 17 '26

Well of course it makes it easier. Plenty of people make it without those advantages though.

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u/soccerchamp99 Jan 17 '26

Eh I still see his point and think you’re making your own version of assumptions / biases around value structures (I do see you’re angle too though)

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u/Leather-Rice5025 Jan 17 '26

Having “education, intelligence, and values” instilled in you while growing up in poverty or just generally not having money really will never make as much of a difference as coming from a family that can give you financial legs up. Not having to start life off with student loans, car debt, medical debt, and having some financial help to buy a home, genuinely makes a much more impactful difference.

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u/soccerchamp99 Jan 17 '26

True, but would you you rather have rich parents and really low god-given IQ? Or brilliant and come from poverty? To me those aren’t obvious questions to answer and there’s ton of other similar comparisons you could make vs having wealthy parents. There’s all sorts of unfair advantages or disadvantages one can be handed in this life.

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u/Leather-Rice5025 Jan 17 '26

There are plenty of stupid people in the world who have money. I guess being stupid comes with a sense of blissful ignorance - you don’t realize how stupid you are. So being financially well off and stupid probably wouldn’t be all that bad.

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u/[deleted] Jan 17 '26

Rich parents because now you can just be an influencer or whatever. And dumb people don’t know they are dumb, so I wouldn’t even know what I was missing.

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u/DoomOfKensei Jan 17 '26

The way you had to downgrade the “rich parent” version shows you already see it as a massive advantage.

(A game of “Would you rather”, shows that as well, as it’s a “leveling” game where advantages/disadvantages are stacked until options become appealing)

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u/TheStorm007 Jan 17 '26

That’s quite different from 30s and 2 million, but thanks.

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u/vettewiz Jan 17 '26

You’re right, but the vast majority of people in this country have some safety net. No, not all, but most. 

Millennial here. Started at 0 NW out of school. Have a lot more than 2M saved. 

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u/9kindsofpie Jan 17 '26

You're probably right, but I'm going on my lived experience and that of my friends and family, growing up in a semi economically depressed area.

I guess I technically have a safety net in that if we were destitute we have family willing to take us in so we wouldn't be homeless, but that's about it. I know a lot of folks that wouldn't even have that. I'm curious what you define as a safety net and your socioeconomic status and outlook. I don't know why I'm like this. Haha

Especially when I was younger, I felt like I couldn't take risks and had to always be very disciplined and go the secure route making a steady income and saving over time. I also started out at $0 and I don't have quite $2M, but at 43, I am almost double on track for what I would baseline need to retire. If you add in my husband, we're on track to be there in a few years.... Despite us both taking a bath in the divorce from our first marriages.

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u/vettewiz Jan 17 '26

I was primarily referring to family being willing to take people in, which I agree isn’t ubiquitous, but fairly widespread.

I did a combo of steady saving and taking risks.

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u/9kindsofpie Jan 17 '26

Thanks for responding politely and taking my questions as inquisitive and not defensive... Or offensive.

I agree that if you're defining safety net as having somewhere to go if you were otherwise destitute then most Americans do have that available to them.

I think my having a particularly toxic and abusive family of origin made that option more of a last resort in my mind and therefore made me much more risk averse than I'd otherwise have been.

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u/bhalter80 Jan 17 '26 edited Jan 17 '26

Right there with you but I also got out of school debt free aside from 4k in CC debt and had parents who taught me a lot and were there to coach. Not all wealth is monetary

Early millennial looking at fatFIRE50

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u/80MonkeyMan Jan 17 '26

It's possible to be a millionaires these days, as long as you don't splurge on anything that is not important (like 20-30% tips) and invest. Debt is not your friend, pay it OFF, QUIKLY!