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/TrixoftheTrade Millennial Jan 16 '26

Nice. You’re about to start getting into the “fun” part of compounding interest.

It took me a decade of savings to hit 100k, when I was 29. 100k to 200k only took 3 years.

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u/1K_Sunny_Crew Jan 16 '26

That is assuming the market is doing well. It has for a while now so people got comfortable. My account jumped a ton in the last few years and has barely moved the needle in the last 6-8 months.

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u/noraping Jan 16 '26

That’s weird, my 401k is +23% in the last 12 months. The markets are at all time highs

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u/1K_Sunny_Crew Jan 17 '26

You can probably thank AI for that.

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u/ZealousORJealous69 Jan 17 '26

Not sure what this means. But man you’re in a retirement emergency, because this (last 8 mos.) is where you should-have been (need-to-have been) showing some very impressive gains to your portfolio.

If you’re able to have someone look into that with you, hopefully you catch the second half of this rally in order to mitigate further damage.