Retirement Savings -- Countup

[Randomsaver]

Apr 2021

401K Retirement Savings: $ 116K
IRA Retirement Savings $ 27K
Early Retirement Savings: $ 296K

It's been awhile guys!


401K Retirement Savings: $ 243K
IRA Retirement Savings $ 50K
Early Retirement Savings: $ 0K

I'm going to kick off anew my Early Retirement (ER) Savings. ER Savings was 2-fold for me. The first fold is for the retirement house (or condo) budget. That was purchased and fully paid.

But this brought me to 0 which then now kicks off the second fold -- the cost of living budget to retire earlier than 60. I am currently 51.

Join me in savings count-up!

[Randomsaver]

401K Retirement Savings: $ 247K
IRA Retirement Savings $ 51K
Early Retirement Savings: $ 17K (I put all my bonus, refund, and a few Ks from other savings accounts just to give this a big kickstart)


Going to track also my Monthly Retirement Check Amounts.

If to retire starting 2025 (actual withdrawal can only start in Jul of 2031):
401K : $ 1.22K
IRA : $ 0.30K
SS : $ 1.47K

[disneysteve]

SS : $ 1.47K

What is this number? Is SS for Social Security? If so, how did you go about assigning a value to it?

[kork13]

What is this number? Is SS for Social Security? If so, how did you go about assigning a value to it?

I assumed it's from the SSA website, where they give you an estimated payment amount

[Randomsaver]

What is this number? Is SS for Social Security? If so, how did you go about assigning a value to it?

I have Empower account for my 401K from my company and because of that, they have access to historical % of salary info. Once they have that, they can calculate the gross salary and from that, can calculate the annual SS contributions. It would require an input in their model from me of number of years of distribution so the monthly amount changes each time I play around with age (e.g., 85-90). And since their model allows for current age to future age, by inputting my age of next birthday, it gives me a start of year monthly check amount.

I like doing it this way as time moves forward because it is pure amount, that is, no estimate of inflation which is what we get when we project earnings on future years.

[Randomsaver]

I assumed it's from the SSA website, where they give you an estimated payment amount

Separately, I tried this also from SSA website and the amount I got is $1,600.

For the "Future Retirement Date" entries, I inputted a "01" and "2025", indicating no more contributions after this year. That will cut off projecting with future earnings. And then used current dollars (not inflated dollars). Then I inputted the actual earnings on the page they have after the initial estimate.

So they're fairly close. I bet had I used "04" and "2024" as my entries for retirement date, that $1,600 check would drop to $1,500 which is in the territory of Empower's estimate of $1,470.

https://www.ssa.gov/OACT/quickcalc/index.html

[Randomsaver]

The only difference is with Empower, it adjusts automatically each 401K contribution that passes whereas in the SS website, one has to manually calculate each time.

[Randomsaver]

Surprisingly the SS website did not ask for my input on how many years to calculate. I wonder what age they used. My guess is age 85. Anyone know?

[Randomsaver]

Oh so now it's making sense why SS is higher ($1,600 v $1,470) . SS used 82 for me as for my life expectancy based on the calculator for longevity. No wonder their retirement calculator asks for birth date.

https://www.ssa.gov/oact/population/...%20you%20enter.

[disneysteve]

As many times as I’ve gone to SS and played with the numbers and different ages to claim benefits, I still don’t really include that in my mental accounting of what we have and what we need. I guess because FRA is still 7 years away so unless we claim early, it’s irrelevant for a while. We need our portfolio to comfortably cover us for 7-10 more years.

[Randomsaver]

As many times as I’ve gone to SS and played with the numbers and different ages to claim benefits, I still don’t really include that in my mental accounting of what we have and what we need. I guess because FRA is still 7 years away so unless we claim early, it’s irrelevant for a while. We need our portfolio to comfortably cover us for 7-10 more years.

Correct, it's an estimate but it's nice to track the estimate early as it true ups to one's designated retirement date.

[Randomsaver]

401K Retirement Savings: $ 252K
IRA Retirement Savings $ 51K
Early Retirement Savings: $ 17K

My Forecasted Monthly Retirement Check Amounts, if to retire starting 2025 (actual withdrawal can only start in Jul of 2031):
401 : $ 1.23K
IRA : $ 0.30K
SSI : $ 1.47K
Tot : $ 3.00K

[disneysteve]

Correct, it's an estimate but it's nice to track the estimate early as it true ups to one's designated retirement date.

Oh it's totally important. It wasn't a factor in when I could retire, though, since I was planning to retire long before collecting SS, so in that sense it didn't matter. Now, though, I do know how much it will be depending on when we collect. If we do FRA, it gets us over 65K/yr. If we wait until 70, it goes up to over 70K/yr so it will certainly be significant at whatever point we claim it.

[Randomsaver]

Here's a question, the SS check amount, does it change over time or is it fixed forever from first drawdown? I ask because a $2K check in 2030 for example is not the same $2K in 2050.

[Like2Plan]

Here's a question, the SS check amount, does it change over time or is it fixed forever from first drawdown? I ask because a $2K check in 2030 for example is not the same $2K in 2050.

There is an annual COLA.