Define "Retirement Savings"

[doobeedoo]

I am curious how you, personally, define retirement savings.  And does it make a difference as to whether or not you are "on track"?

[Deleted]

I voted other because I define it as Retirement Accounts + SOME of my Liquid Investments (but not all)

I have some investments that are not for retirement (I am ok selling those or liquidating / accessing them for goals that don't include my retirement.) But I do have specific investment accounts (outside 401(k)s) that are for retirement. So, I add those up for me and H when I think about retirement.

[Deleted]

Our actual retirement savings in 401K and IRAs only.

I'm hoping we'll have other sources (ie- paid off house, inheritances, etc) but we aren;t counting on any of it.

[Deleted]

401K, IRAs, Pensions plus some other investments in non-retirement funds.

[h]

Jan 23, 2013 15:14:59 GMT -5 @shoegal said:

I voted other because I define it as Retirement Accounts + SOME of my Liquid Investments (but not all)

I have some investments that are not for retirement (I am ok selling those or liquidating / accessing them for goals that don't include my retirement.) But I do have specific investment accounts (outside 401(k)s) that are for retirement. So, I add those up for me and H when I think about retirement.

This is how we are.  We do have investments that aren't earmarked for retirement (though we may ending up using them for retirement if they aren't needed for other purposes), but we also have non-401(k), non-IRA investments that we intend to use only for retirement, including money in target retirement funds and mutual funds.

My DH's employer doesn't offer a 401(k), my company doesn't match, we don't have pensions, we are over the income limit for Roths, etc.  If we didn't save for retirement in places other than just my 401(k) and our IRAs, there is no way we would have enough.

[Deleted]

Any money or liquifiable assets that you don't plan to touch until retirement.

So 401(k)s, IRAs, pensions, etc., but also any real estate investment properties that you plan on selling when you retire, and things like cash, investments, inheritances that you have already inherited, etc. if they're earmarked for retirement.

Not retirement savings: the house you live in, your car, your vacation fund and new kitchen fund (even though that money might not get used so you will have the leftover during retirement), investments that you will sell whenever it seems like a good idea whether that's at age 40 or age 70, etc.

When people ask how much we have saved for retirement, I only count 401(k)s and IRAs because those are the only things we have set aside only for retirement.  If we had other investments earmarked for retirement (which wouldn't be a bad idea), I would count those, but we haven't done that.

[Deleted]

Given that we don't have more than $45K/year to save at this point, only money in retirement accounts.

[Deleted]

Jan 23, 2013 15:27:19 GMT -5 v said:

Any money or liquifiable assets that you don't plan to touch until retirement.

So 401(k)s, IRAs, pensions, etc., but also any real estate investment properties that you plan on selling when you retire, cash, investments, inheritances that you have already inherited, etc.

Not retirement savings: the house you live in, your car, your vacation fund and new kitchen fund (even though that money might not get used so you will have the leftover during retirement), investments that you will sell whenever it seems like a good idea whether that's at age 40 or age 70, etc.

Ditto. I consider paying off my home part of my retirement planning, but I don't consider it retirement savings because we aren't going to sell it when we retire-- we still need a place to live!

[Deleted]

I don't consider pensions as retirement savings.

[Deleted]

Technically #2 because we do save for retirement outside of tax advantaged vehicles and we have stock that we are planning to sell at some point to form the basis of our "nest egg" But if someone were to ask me, I'd just tell them what's in #1 because I'd assume that's what they meant.

[downtoearth]

I did #2, but I do think of our rental house as part of our retirement fund also. It's gaining equity without me putting much into it (renters are covering that).

[Deleted]

Jan 23, 2013 15:29:50 GMT -5 @lilly said:

Jan 23, 2013 15:27:19 GMT -5 v said:

Any money or liquifiable assets that you don't plan to touch until retirement.

So 401(k)s, IRAs, pensions, etc., but also any real estate investment properties that you plan on selling when you retire, cash, investments, inheritances that you have already inherited, etc.

Not retirement savings: the house you live in, your car, your vacation fund and new kitchen fund (even though that money might not get used so you will have the leftover during retirement), investments that you will sell whenever it seems like a good idea whether that's at age 40 or age 70, etc.

Ditto. I consider paying off my home part of my retirement planning, but I don't consider it retirement savings because we aren't going to sell it when we retire-- we still need a place to live!u

Tritto 

[regina22]

At this point I just count 401ks/IRAs, but eventually that will change since we're maxing them out. Right now, I'm not including our additional investments as retirement, because we might use as another down payment, or college savings. However, once we have a clearer picture of what our life will be like when we turn 40/50/60, we'll have to start including the non-tax advantage accounts as our retirement just to make the math work.

[sillygoosegirl]

I would personally define it as IRAs, 401(k)s, and other vehicles specifically designed for retirement + any other savings specifically earmarked for retirement (not that we have any of that personally) + investment properties that should generate income in retirement (don't have those either).

Having a paid off house will reduce our expenses in retirement, but I wouldn't consider it retirement saving, since we are also using it right now. I'd only consider it retirement savings if we were planning to downsize our home in retirement and spend the excess equity on other things (which we might end up doing if we really needed to, but certainly aren't *planning* on).

I don't consider our other savings to be retirement savings as we have no intention of waiting that long to spend it.

I don't know about pensions. They are sort of like savings in the sense that it's compensation for your job that you don't get until ages from now, but sort of not like savings because it's largely outside your control. My pension will be worth about $50/month by the time I retire, so mostly I don't think about it at all. If I had one that was supposed to be worth something, I'd have to do more research into what it's really likely to be worth.

[smiley]

We have 401ks and profit plans that are specifically for retirement. We plan to open IRAs in the near future also.

DH owns stocks that we have no set plan for. If we don't need them before hand they will be used during retirement.

[dexteroni]

In addition to the standard 401(k)s and IRAs, we have a mutual fund earmarked for retirement. It's not a retirement account, but our intent is not to touch it until then. DH is in a pension program at work, and they take 10% of his pay to contribute toward it, but we aren't super confident that (a) he'll be at this company long enough to get anything substantial out of it, and (b) that it will be around when the time comes to retire. So the mutual fund is sort of padding our retirement savings in case the pension doesn't pan out for whatever reason.

[MixedBerryJam]

I answered retirement accounts and some liquid assets, but really I consider my house part of my retirement savings, too, because I own it outright and when I sell I will be downsizing and those funds will be considered retirement savings. But until those eggs are in that basket, I thought I'd leave the off.

[cransplash]

Jan 23, 2013 16:00:04 GMT -5 d0ri said:

I don't consider pensions as retirement savings.

Just out of curiosity, why not? (I have a pension, though I don't know even know what it is  )

[M]

About half of our investment accounts are earmarked for retirement. We don't withdraw from them and we only trade the stratgies that has performed well in the past.

We dont have 401ks or IRAs because we are self employed and only trade futures, but I just found out we can open a traditional IRA to trade futures in so we're looking into funding one for each of us. Only problem is it may not be enough to tolerate the risk for a couple years so it will just sit there and Im not sure if its worth the fees

[Deleted]

Jan 23, 2013 20:52:50 GMT -5 M said:

We dont have 401ks or IRAs because we are self employed and only trade futures, but I just found out we can open a traditional IRA to trade futures in so we're looking into funding one for each of us. Only problem is it may not be enough to tolerate the risk for a couple years so it will just sit there and Im not sure if its worth the fees

If futures don't make sense for now, couldn't you just put it in things other than futures?

[Deleted]

Jan 23, 2013 20:34:36 GMT -5 cransplash said:

Jan 23, 2013 16:00:04 GMT -5 d0ri said:

I don't consider pensions as retirement savings.

Just out of curiosity, why not? (I have a pension, though I don't know even know what it is  )

Because of the unknowns and ifs.

1. Who knows if the pension will be there or how the benefits/payment will change. So it's hard to put any value on it.

2. Vested sounds good but the value is still unknown if you decide to leave early.

3. I could see counting on the contributed amount only since you can take it if you leave. But do you know how much it's growing? My previous employer had a formula but I don't think it was comparable to the average annual return of 7%. If I consider the contribution, I would only include the actual contribution with 0% ROR unfortunately. Why? Rules change.

Maybe I'm too conservative. With our pension, I only know what the payments would be if we stay ~25 more years. It would be $75k-100k per year based on current formulas.. But like I noted above, rules can change.

[M]

Jan 23, 2013 20:57:42 GMT -5 v said:

Jan 23, 2013 20:52:50 GMT -5 M said:

We dont have 401ks or IRAs because we are self employed and only trade futures, but I just found out we can open a traditional IRA to trade futures in so we're looking into funding one for each of us. Only problem is it may not be enough to tolerate the risk for a couple years so it will just sit there and Im not sure if its worth the fees

If futures don't make sense for now, couldn't you just put it in things other than futures?

It's an option but we'd have to look at the potential for returns.  We've never funded one before because of the returns we get in our regular accounts but I'm thinking we might be able to benefit when it comes to taxes in the far future.  

[doobeedoo]

Jan 23, 2013 20:57:42 GMT -5 v said:

Jan 23, 2013 20:52:50 GMT -5 M said:

We dont have 401ks or IRAs because we are self employed and only trade futures, but I just found out we can open a traditional IRA to trade futures in so we're looking into funding one for each of us. Only problem is it may not be enough to tolerate the risk for a couple years so it will just sit there and Im not sure if its worth the fees

If futures don't make sense for now, couldn't you just put it in things other than futures?

I would offer some sage advice, but I have no idea what you are saying.

It seems a lot of people on here define retirement savings rather narrowly, which is probably good thing overall; but also a reason why so many feel "behind".

[aspentosh]

Jan 23, 2013 15:15:05 GMT -5 @iheartcosmos said:

Our actual retirement savings in 401K and IRAs only.

I'm hoping we'll have other sources (ie- paid off house, inheritances, etc) but we aren;t counting on any of it.

Yup.

[Deleted]

Jan 23, 2013 22:05:10 GMT -5 M said:

Jan 23, 2013 20:57:42 GMT -5 v said:

If futures don't make sense for now, couldn't you just put it in things other than futures?

It's an option but we'd have to look at the potential for returns.  We've never funded one before because of the returns we get in our regular accounts but I'm thinking we might be able to benefit when it comes to taxes in the far future.  

If you guys are considered self-employed for the purposes of these things, I think you'd each be able to put something like $50,000 into a 401(k) for self-employed people.  The limit is way higher than for those who work for traditional employers.  I'd think that would be a huge benefit.  Also, I'm certainly no investment expert, but since your business and personal investments are currently all in futures, wouldn't it be smart to have *something* diversified in case the futures markets tank?

[SJ]

Jan 23, 2013 22:05:10 GMT -5 M said:

M6- couldn't you open and max a SEP IRA? Or even better maybe a Self-Employed 401K?

With a traditional IRA, you can only put in $5,500 each (but it will be deductible even at your income level since neither of you are covered y an employer plan).

With the two options I mentioned above, you can contribute roughly $50,000 each per year. That adds up very quickly and it is still tax-advantaged growth. I see no downside, even if you can't trade futures right away (not sure what your minimum needed is for your favorite strategies).

[SJ]

I answer the question based on IRA's (whether SEP, Roth, or Traditional) and employer plans.

I am on the fence regarding our HSA, but don't usually count it when answering questions such as "how much do you have in retirement?" or "are you on track for retirement?" because we use it throughout the year.

We are doing other things to build wealth which I'm sure will assist with retirement planning- such as an investment property, taxable investment accounts, etc- but those are in a different "bucket" in my head.

[LoveTrains]

I chose real estate, but that is because I have an investment property that I either plan to sell when I retire or continue to collect rent, at which point the mortgage will be completely paid off so it will have good cash flow.

I wouldn't consider my primary residence to be part of my retirement savings, just my income property.

[scout8]

Jan 24, 2013 8:04:11 GMT -5 LoveTrains said:

I chose real estate, but that is because I have an investment property that I either plan to sell when I retire or continue to collect rent, at which point the mortgage will be completely paid off so it will have good cash flow.

I wouldn't consider my primary residence to be part of my retirement savings, just my income property.

This exactly for us.

[M]

Jan 24, 2013 7:52:29 GMT -5 v said:

Jan 23, 2013 22:05:10 GMT -5 M said:

It's an option but we'd have to look at the potential for returns.  We've never funded one before because of the returns we get in our regular accounts but I'm thinking we might be able to benefit when it comes to taxes in the far future.  

If you guys are considered self-employed for the purposes of these things, I think you'd each be able to put something like $50,000 into a 401(k) for self-employed people.  The limit is way higher than for those who work for traditional employers.  I'd think that would be a huge benefit.  Also, I'm certainly no investment expert, but since your business and personal investments are currently all in futures, wouldn't it be smart to have *something* diversified in case the futures markets tank?

I had no idea it was that high.  We'll definitely have to look into that!  THANKS!

That's what I like about the futures market. We can profit on both sides of the market.  All of our portfolios are extremely diversified across all sectors of the commodity market (ie Indice, Energy, Metals, Currency futures, etc) and each market behaves differently from the others.  I'm a technical analyst/trader, but fundamentally speaking, if S&P goes up, gold should go down so if I'm long both then theoretically I'd profit as long as my risk is smaller than my gains, but the market is not always perfect like that.