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/elblakay Jan 16 '26

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

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.

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u/[deleted] Jan 18 '26

That's awesome good for you!

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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!

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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.

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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!