I'm the only person I know in my 30s who has a decent retirement account. Most have nothing, a few have some, and there are a bunch who are banking on parental real estate to do it for them.
If my company weren't offering 10% matching on my 401k, I wouldn't be using a 401k. That shit is a scam. And by the time I have to retire, I'm going to need almost $10 million to live the extra years that medicine will allow me to live.
I don't know where the fuck $10 million is going to come from. My best hope is to have a house paid off by then so that I don't have a mortgage when I'm 80.
Unless you think you need $200k/year to survive or you plan to retire in like 90 years, $10million seems like a pretty high estimate. Also, how long you live shouldn't really be relevant.
The danger is that places that don't get cold often get hot. And don't forget about climate change with regard to heat. Some homeless around Houston die every summer when they don't have access to air conditioning.
18-34? Yeah I am pretty financially fortunate and literate and I did not start saving for retirement until 24
And only pretty recently did my budget really have room and a salary big enough that 10% was a chunk of change....
But yeah 1/3 of their age range here generally will not be saving for retirement because they are likely students and/or minimum wage workers. If you make $12/hr at 21 it's basically inconsequential if you are putting $800 a year away toward retirement.
I just punched it into a calculator. $100 a month, 6% interest and 3% inflation, for 40 years nets you $60k of buying power at retirement.
At the same time my student loans were at 8% interest. Guess who cashed out every 401K as I changed jobs every couple of years early in my career. I used it to pay off student loans and purchase my first home.
The sad fact is that it's expensive to be broke. If your debt to income ratio is high, creditors fuck you over. Paying down those student loans has paid me back several times over in lower interest loans for cars and our mortgage
I didn't really start saving money until after I was 30. To be honest I really didn't start making a decent wage until I was 35. To put it into perspective, I put more into my retirement account per year now than I would have in 5 years from 20-35 years old.
I lived like a pauper from 18-33 trying to give myself a good financial baseline.
Most of my peers just made fun of me for being 'cheap' and saying no to expensive vacations, fancy cars, and living by myself.
Now I'm living by myself and comfortable and I can afford some luxuries, they are 'struggling' and all i hear is that it's 'because of your white male privilege'. F them. They grew up being greedy pigs and now they are paying the consequences and I'm living well.
I saved through sacrifice of all material comforts, vacations, frivolous spending, etc. It's now almost completely gone thanks to healthcare costs. I'm not sure I'll ever recover from that, so now I doubt I can ever retire despite my chronic illnesses.