San Diego (and all its suburbs), Los Angeles (and all its suburbs), San Francisco, etc. etc. etc. Basically any major city in wealthyish states.
its not controversial, its just that there’s a variance in cost of living, based on where you are in the US. Last I heard, a few years ago, one million was the absolute minimum that you needed.
Try Googling “How much do I need to retires on?” and see the answers that you get.
Our savings factors are based on the assumption that a person saves 15% of their income annually beginning at age 25 (which includes any employer match), invests more than 50% on average of their savings in stocks over their lifetime, retires at age 67, and plans to maintain their preretirement lifestyle in retirement (see footnote 1 for more details).
Based on those assumptions, we estimate that saving 10x (times) your preretirement income by age 67, together with other steps, should help ensure that you have enough income to maintain your current lifestyle in retirement. That 10x goal may seem ambitious. But you have many years to get there.
The issue being discussed is not of someone can move or not, is if a million dollars is enough money to retire.
The argument I’m putting up is that in most places a million dollars is not enough, that you would have to relocate to places that have very inexpensive cost of living and the quality that goes along with it.
For some reason people keep assuming I’m talking about the ability to move or not.
I guess it boils down to “do you own your own house and have you finished paying for it?”
Because if the answer is no, the question is entirely geographical. You could need ten times the amount to retire.
Once you own your own bricks and mortar, the equation balances out a lot more. Things like electricity and food tend to cost a similar amount no matter where you are in the country. I’d say a million in liquid assets, with no debts, would be enough to retire on in most places, as long as you don’t have any ridiculous outlier outgoings.
1 million dollars would only support a family of four living a lifestyle equivalent to the poverty line for 16 years. Sure that’s a long time, but that’s not forever, it’s not generational wealth and it’s not a luxurious lifestyle.
This example of course is if they don’t work, but that’s kind of the point. A household with a million dollars in the bank doesn’t just mean they can retire and live off of that forever, unless they are old, in which case they worked all of their life to have that money and are only retiring in old age.
There is a huge difference between someone who saved $1 million through retirement plans over their working life and someone with a $50 million dollar trust.
The first case is absolutely lower middle class. You need more than a million dollars if you want to retire at 55 for example and have an annual retirement income of 50k.
If you create a 401k when you are 18 making 15k a year, putting 10% each month and expecting a modest 4% return And an annual salary increase averaged out to 3% (putting you just under 100k salary by the end of your working career in your 60s) you will have over a million in your retirement fund by the time you retire, that’s with no employer match.
If you are slightly more successful, and manage an averaged out 5% annual salary increase (remember average, sometimes you might jump up higher, and some years you may not get any salary increase) you will end up with 2.5 million.
I wouldn’t consider someone who worked their entire life, saved what they could, got some pay raises from things like getting degrees and promotions, and finishing their career with a salary around $100k to be anything but middle class.
since when are millionaires considered “lower middle class”
In different States in the US you need a whole lot more money to retire on than in other States.
You can retire off a million dollars of assets easily
The hell you can, not in certain regions of the US. Don’t know about the rest of the world.
You can you just have to redefine what easy means. Get some land in the deep south, put a trailer on it, and sign up for every government benefit.
Yep. Be smart, and live within your means.
maybe not san fransisco but in most parts of the us you can retire off $1m can’t believe this is controversial
San Diego (and all its suburbs), Los Angeles (and all its suburbs), San Francisco, etc. etc. etc. Basically any major city in wealthyish states.
its not controversial, its just that there’s a variance in cost of living, based on where you are in the US. Last I heard, a few years ago, one million was the absolute minimum that you needed.
Try Googling “How much do I need to retires on?” and see the answers that you get.
Fidelity says the following …
And even they call that formula “ambitious”.
You can move. Nobody is tethered to their place of birth.
Doesn’t even have to be a shithole.
The issue being discussed is not of someone can move or not, is if a million dollars is enough money to retire.
The argument I’m putting up is that in most places a million dollars is not enough, that you would have to relocate to places that have very inexpensive cost of living and the quality that goes along with it.
For some reason people keep assuming I’m talking about the ability to move or not.
I guess it boils down to “do you own your own house and have you finished paying for it?”
Because if the answer is no, the question is entirely geographical. You could need ten times the amount to retire.
Once you own your own bricks and mortar, the equation balances out a lot more. Things like electricity and food tend to cost a similar amount no matter where you are in the country. I’d say a million in liquid assets, with no debts, would be enough to retire on in most places, as long as you don’t have any ridiculous outlier outgoings.
Then… don’t live in the most expensive places to live in the USA? All those places are NOTORIOUSLY expensive.
The topic being discussed was if one million dollars is enough to live in expensive areas of the country.
If you move away from expensive areas of the country, then the dollar amount needed to retire becomes less.
this was the original statement being discussed
1 million dollars would only support a family of four living a lifestyle equivalent to the poverty line for 16 years. Sure that’s a long time, but that’s not forever, it’s not generational wealth and it’s not a luxurious lifestyle.
This example of course is if they don’t work, but that’s kind of the point. A household with a million dollars in the bank doesn’t just mean they can retire and live off of that forever, unless they are old, in which case they worked all of their life to have that money and are only retiring in old age.
There is a huge difference between someone who saved $1 million through retirement plans over their working life and someone with a $50 million dollar trust.
The first case is absolutely lower middle class. You need more than a million dollars if you want to retire at 55 for example and have an annual retirement income of 50k.
If you create a 401k when you are 18 making 15k a year, putting 10% each month and expecting a modest 4% return And an annual salary increase averaged out to 3% (putting you just under 100k salary by the end of your working career in your 60s) you will have over a million in your retirement fund by the time you retire, that’s with no employer match.
If you are slightly more successful, and manage an averaged out 5% annual salary increase (remember average, sometimes you might jump up higher, and some years you may not get any salary increase) you will end up with 2.5 million.
I wouldn’t consider someone who worked their entire life, saved what they could, got some pay raises from things like getting degrees and promotions, and finishing their career with a salary around $100k to be anything but middle class.
I believe we are talking about retirement, not supporting a family.