Retirement Milestones Reached

[corn18]

Heres some data from vanguard with different portfolio allocations from 1926 - 2015. It appears that 100% stocks outperform any other unless im reading this wrong? I wouldnt recommend 100% stocks to anyone looking at retirement in the near future...but someone with 2 decades to go (and hopefully 3 decades before I have to touch 401k)...not sure what the issue is?

https://personal.vanguard.com/us/ins...io-allocations

Recommend a search on bogleheads.org

[rennigade]

delete

[corn18]

lol...good info. Already did...varies all over the place. Some are 90/10 until they reach 50...some are 80/20 till 50, 95/5, etc etc. You just threw numbers out without any meaning thinking no one would cross reference. Its almost impossible to bs anymore...especially with the internet.

BSing. Yup, that was my intent. You have to do a little reading beyond a cursory look. If you have a 100% stock portfolio you can't rebalance and that is the secret of an asset allocation. If you are 80/20 and stocks tank bonds will rise and your asst allocation will go to 70/30. You sell bonds high and buy stocks low to get back to 80/20. That's where the magic happens. Not pure stocks be pure bonds.

Do some more reading.

[rennigade]

BSing. Yup, that was my intent. You have to do a little reading beyond a cursory look. If you have a 100% stock portfolio you can't rebalance and that is the secret of an asset allocation. If you are 80/20 and stocks tank bonds will rise and your asst allocation will go to 70/30. You sell bonds high and buy stocks low to get back to 80/20. That's where the magic happens. Not pure stocks be pure bonds.

Do some more reading.

Thank you for the input and I will look into it. How difficult was that to say the first time? Its difficult to read someones mind...slow down, take a deep breath and next time provide some useful info right off the bat.

[corn18]

Thank you for the input and I will look into it. How difficult was that to say the first time? Its difficult to read someones mind...slow down, take a deep breath and next time provide some useful info right off the bat.

I thought I did but you're right, just saying go to bogleheads was not helpful. Too vague.

[StormRichards]

New Milestone today

Net Worth excluding home: $750k, up approximately $35k YTD

[YULACU]

Wow...these numbers are high. I'll feel accomplished once I break $100k in my retirement accounts.

Single, Age 31. $83k across various retirement accounts as of 12/31/16.

[disneysteve]

Wow...these numbers are high. I'll feel accomplished once I break $100k in my retirement accounts.

Single, Age 31. $83k across various retirement accounts as of 12/31/16.

You're doing great! Remember, we are all different ages with different incomes.

My retirement accounts will be getting a boost starting next week because I'm increasing my hours at my part time job where I have a 401k. For 2016, I contributed about $2,200. For 2017, it will be 4 times that much and then 5 times that much from 2018 on assuming I stay there.

[rennigade]

Wow...these numbers are high. I'll feel accomplished once I break $100k in my retirement accounts.

Single, Age 31. $83k across various retirement accounts as of 12/31/16.

A lot of people say that its harder and takes longer to reach $100,000 than it does $1,000,000.

$83k at age 31 is a lot.

[cypher1]

A lot of people say that its harder and takes longer to reach $100,000 than it does $1,000,000.

$83k at age 31 is a lot.

I agree. Mid last year I hit 100k between 401Ks and Roth, which felt like forever. But was a huge accomplishment for me. I just checked today and those balances are at 123K.

To YULACU post; to give you an idea of range, I'm 35 and I didn't start contributing to 401K till age 27. At that time going with the base company match at around 3%. Throughout the years I slowly increased that contribution currently 10% of gross pay. That does not include Roth IRA contribution (maxed for me is around 5% of gross income).

[disneysteve]

A lot of people say that its harder and takes longer to reach $100,000 than it does $1,000,000.

Through the power of compounding, growth becomes exponential.

It is far easier to get from 100K to 200K than it is to go from 0 to 100K.

Many of us have reached the stage where the majority of the annual growth in our portfolio comes from investment returns, not new contributions.

[Goldy]

Interesting thread.

My wife and I started saving in our 401k's in 2008 on an income of 65k each and I believe we set the contributions at 10%. We gradually increased them for a few years until 2011 or so when I finally realized that it doesn't cost us that much to fully max them which is where they have been set ever since.

I started my Roth when I was 16 and the cap was something like $2000 a year. My wife started hers sometime around 2007ish.

We now have
401k: $303,000
401k: $275,000
Roth: $122,000
Roth: $80,000
Total: $780,000

[StormRichards]

Wow...these numbers are high. I'll feel accomplished once I break $100k in my retirement accounts.

Single, Age 31. $83k across various retirement accounts as of 12/31/16.

I agree with the others that the first $100k did seem like it took forever.

One tip for you that I followed was to increase my 401k by HALF of EVERY RAISE I received. If I got 6%, I increased my 401k by 3% BEFORE the raise actually took effect. That way I would still see an increase in my take home, and I never missed what I never received in my pay.

[disneysteve]

One tip for you that I followed was to increase my 401k by HALF of EVERY RAISE I received.

That's great advice. I've typically done the same with savings. The same goes for bonuses or other windfalls. Save half and invest half. You still end up with more than you had but put more away at the same time.

I'm currently only doing 10% to the 401k but once I settle into the new position and see how much I'm actually making between the two jobs, I want to bump that up. Of course, we are maxing both of our Roths as well so the 10% actually might not be that far off of where we ought to be. And we still have one more year of college to pay for. After the last tuition payment gets made in December, we will effectively get a raise and be able to direct more to savings (and loan repayment).

[lidasa]

Just want to say thank you to everyone for posting this info. It's good motivation for me to see these numbers. We have been saving for 10 years and aren't where we want to be, but things are starting to snowball a bit so hopefully by the time I'm 40 (in a little more than 4 years) we'll have something decent.

Retirement calculators say we are on track, but I don't think that is true...