What do you want to learn, financially?

[fortnightlily]

Feb 7, 2024 11:21:30 GMT -5 brooke77 said:

Retirement.

Is there a way to calculate how much we will need? The retirement calculators are all based off our current incomes. Is there something more nuanced than X times your salary at AGE? My salary is 5 times higher than it was 10 years ago, which seems maybe not normal. I know we are behind, but is there a reliable way to determine how far behind?

It may be more helpful to think in terms of expenses rather than income. How much do you expect to spend in retirement each year, and multiply that by the number of years you expect to live (accounting for any income you still may have beyond just drawing down from savings). Most calculators say between 70% and 100% of your spending today. Because you may no longer have things like childcare expenses, or your mortgage may be paid off, but are you spending more on travel, medical expenses, etc that makes it a wash. Remember, too, that if you have a house and it's paid off, the sale of that house can go toward paying for assisted living or nursing home, etc. for a time.

[midwestmama]

I'd love to explore passive-income opportunities which don't require a huge up-front investment and are not rental properties.

brooke77, agree regarding accurate retirement calculators. Logically you would think they take into account salary/career progression over the years, but they don't seem to. There is no way I can have 5x my current salary saved in my 401k by the time I am 45 (in 3.5 years). I started out my career (2004) at a really low salary, then the market crash of 2008 wiped out half of my 401k balance, and now I am in a middle manager role, so I got a big pay increase 2 years ago when I was promoted. DH and I also plan to have no mortgage going into retirement (and ideally no mortgage for at least 5 years before retirement), so I don't feel like we will even need 85% of our current income (which is the lowest option in my Fidelity 401k modeling).

[fryjack2]

mae0111 Your post reads like a foreign language to me. Ha! I'll come back and read it more closely and google the acronyms. I have Fidelity accounts so will go with them when I start.

[heygrey]

aprilsails, I finally signed up for the credit card tonight. Thanks for the push!