Funding retirement

[lisalulu]

Are you fully funding your retirement? By fully funding I mean do you put away enough now that you will have a comfortable retirement without ever increasing your contribution?

We aren't and it really wears on me. We need to at least triple our current contribution.

[velochic]

Yes, but we've been doing this for more than 20 years (dh for more than 30 years) and we are pretty close to retirement. Dh will be 65 in just over a decade, but if he can work longer, he will. Not because we need the money, but because I will kill him if he stays home every day.

[velochic]

Oh, forgot to say that it is a *LOT* easier to start young and be consistent rather than trying to make up for lost time. Even if you can just do a few percent... you start when you start working and you'll have a much easier time reaching your goals. Compound interest is just too good a thing to waste.

[annethcz]

I wasn't sure how to vote- somewhere between Contributing but not contributing enough and Fully funding.

DH is the only one working right now. We have 10% of DH's salary going to his 401(k), but we don't max out the 401(k) each year. He plays around with retirement calculators frequently, and depending on the calculator, and the assumptions made, we fall somewhere between being able to live off interest and leaving millions to our kids and one of us having to work at Walmart when we're 75. The difference between a 4% return and a 5% return is astounding.

So I guess I feel like we're making a good effort. I know that it would be good for us to save more, but I'm also content with our savings rate when compared to our monthly budget. We would have to make significant lifestyle changes to save more.

I don't know if it matters, but we're 33 and 31.

[heatherdeg]

Originally Posted by annethcz

I wasn't sure how to vote- somewhere between Contributing but not contributing enough and Fully funding.

DH is the only one working right now. We have 10% of DH's salary going to his 401(k), but we don't max out the 401(k) each year. He plays around with retirement calculators frequently, and depending on the calculator, and the assumptions made, we fall somewhere between being able to live off interest and leaving millions to our kids and one of us having to work at Walmart when we're 75. The difference between a 4% return and a 5% return is astounding.

So I guess I feel like we're making a good effort. I know that it would be good for us to save more, but I'm also content with our savings rate when compared to our monthly budget. We would have to make significant lifestyle changes to save more.

I don't know if it matters, but we're 33 and 31.

: but we're 36 & 37

And we just two weeks ago scaled back to 4% from 11% for the next two years to pay down our debt from house renovations. After that, we will likely be able to contribute 15%.

[mightymoo]

Yes, so long as we continue contributing the maximum to DH's 401k, we are set for retirement, not counting social security because I don't trust it.

[zoebugsmom]

DP was putting 15% plus his companies matching 5% into his 401k until 3 years ago when I started SAH. Now it's just 5% plus the matching from his company. We figure I'll work part time 6 or so years from now and we'll put most, if not all, of my income into savings/retirement. We also reinvest our stock dividends automatically.

I figure we're doing pretty well for now and we'll be able to ramp up our savings as the kids get older. SAH while the kids are young (almost 5, almost 3 and one on the way) is just more important ATM. I doubt either of us would want to not work at least part time as senior citizens any way.

[TiredX2]

Another person between "fully funding" and "contributing but not enough."

DP is 32 and I am 31 so it's really hard to tell if what we are putting away will be enough.

I lean towards "fully funding" only because we put the maximum amt into tax advantaged plans we can yearly (of course, I SAH, so that means only DP can put $ into a 401K).

[sallyg6]

If we nevery contributed more, I think we'd be comfortable in retirement but....I'd like to be mroe than just comfortable, and we are technically not "fully funding" because we do not contribute teh max to DH's 401K.

[Llyra]

I'd love to be funding my retirement. If I could, I would. But right now I can barely fund feeding my kids and paying my rent, so retirement is going to have to wait. DH does contribute to a state pension system, because he works in the public schools, so he has that, but that's all we have.

[meowee]

We save about 70% of DH's income, up from 50%. We are borderline misers.

[mnnice]

Originally Posted by TiredX2

Another person between "fully funding" and "contributing but not enough."

DP is 32 and I am 31 so it's really hard to tell if what we are putting away will be enough.

I lean towards "fully funding" only because we put the maximum amt into tax advantaged plans we can yearly (of course, I SAH, so that means only DP can put $ into a 401K).

That's not true any stay at home parent can have a spousal IRA (either Roth or regular) if their household income is below the limits.

[MtBikeLover]

I voted fully funding, even though we don't do IRA's. I contribute the maximum allowed in a 401K every year, plus I get company matching. All the models I have run allow me to retire at 55 and still leave a lot of money in the account when we die.

I started contributing when i was around 26. I started maxing out my 401K when I was 29.

[msjd123]

We are contributing enough, but we're also fortunate enough that we'll have state pensions. That eases a lot of the pressure. We're not technically maxing out our other retirement accounts (Roth IRA's and 403(b) accounts, but when you add together our pension contributions and our contributions to our other accounts, it's 18% of our income, and that's about as much as we can handle right now. Our goal is 25% so that we can retire in our early 50's.

[mtm]

dh is fully funded, I sah and haven't done a spousal plan yet. I've got a small inheritance coming up soonish and will likely use that to get started.

[Mosaic]

We're both contributing 18% to 401k currently, and we up that by about 2% per year. It will take us maybe 3-5 more years to max out, depending on how our salaries shift and if they change the maximum contribution. If we continue with today's salaries and today's deferrals, with an average market we should be ok but with a lousy market we'll have just over half of what we need. Of course, those are just estimates based on depressing assumptions of age at retirement and death.

[texmati]

We put the government max in our ira's and 401k's. I've been doing that since I started working, and DH since we got married last year. BUT (and this is a big BUT) I lived with my parents until we married, and we both work and dont have kids.

We figure it will be much harder to max out later on, so we should do it know while it's relatively easy.

ETA- were 26 and have been working for 4 years.

[texmati]

Originally Posted by meowee

We save about 70% of DH's income, up from 50%. We are borderline misers.

Just curious-- is that after tax income or pre tax. On paper it looks like DH and I make a lot, but after you take taxes and savings and retirement and bills out, I still have to eat at wendy's instead of subways cause it's cheaper.

[SusannahM]

We should be able to retire early if we want. So, I put fully funding. We live simply and don't spend a lot, but still have fun. So, our savings rate is really high and it starts to add up.

[meowee]

Originally Posted by aquarian

Just curious-- is that after tax income or pre tax. On paper it looks like DH and I make a lot, but after you take taxes and savings and retirement and bills out, I still have to eat at wendy's instead of subways cause it's cheaper.

Well some of it isn't taxed, like the 401ks and IRAs. The rest is after tax.