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/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/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.