Turns out, the number might surprise you. According to data from the Federal Reserve and the Employee Benefit Research Institute, just 3.2% of retirees have saved over $1 million.
Your retirement lifestyle and lifespan are crucial factors in determining if this amount will suffice. For those planning to retire at 65 with modest expenses, $1.5 million may be adequate. However, if you aim to maintain your current lifestyle or pursue a more luxurious retirement, you may need to save more.
If you have multiple income streams, a detailed spending plan and keep extra expenses to a minimum, you can retire at 55 on $2 million. However, because each retiree's circumstances are unique, it's essential to define your income and expenses, then run the numbers to ensure retiring at 55 is realistic.
Someone between the ages of 51 and 55 should have 5.3 times their current salary saved for retirement. Someone between the ages of 56 and 60 should have 6.9 times their current salary saved for retirement. Someone between the ages of 61 and 64 should have 8.5 times their current salary saved for retirement.
Your net worth is what you own minus what you owe. It's the total value of all your assets—including your house, cars, investments and cash—minus your liabilities (things like credit card debt, student loans, and what you still owe on your mortgage).
The 4% rule suggests that a $1.5 million portfolio will provide for at least 30 years approximately $60,000 a year before taxes for you to live on in retirement.
Let's say you consider yourself the typical retiree. Between you and your spouse, you currently have an annual income of $120,000. Based on the 80% principle, you can expect to need about $96,000 in annual income after you retire, which is $8,000 per month.
Rich retirees: In the 90th percentile, with net worth starting at $1.9 million, this group has much more financial freedom and is able to afford luxuries and legacy planning.
Immediate retirement: At age 60, an immediate annuity with a $1.5 million investment could provide a guaranteed annual income of $91,500, or about $7,625 per month, for the rest of the insured's lifetime.
By retirement age, it should be 10 to 12 times your income at that time to be reasonably confident that you'll have enough funds. Seamless transition — roughly 80% of your pre-retirement income. This amount is based on a safe withdrawal rate (SWR) of about 4% of your retirement accounts each year.
Retiring at an age as young as 55 is a dream for many Americans. However, turning this vision into reality involves some significant financial planning and maneuvering. For example, you'll need to build significant savings, invest your money, account for early withdrawal taxes and take a lot more into consideration.
By age 40, you should have three times your annual salary already saved. By age 50, you should have six times your salary in an account. By age 60, you should have eight times your salary working for you. By age 67, your total savings total goal is 10 times the amount of your current annual salary.
If you have $400,000 in the bank you can retire early at age 62, but it will be tight. The good news is that if you can keep working for just five more years, you are on track for a potentially quite comfortable retirement by full retirement age.
Just 16% of retirees say they have more than $1 million saved, including all personal savings and assets, according to the recent CNBC Your Money retirement survey conducted with SurveyMonkey. In fact, among those currently saving for retirement, 57% say the amount they're hoping to save is less than $1 million.
The $1,000 per month rule is designed to help you estimate the amount of savings required to generate a steady monthly income during retirement. According to this rule, for every $240,000 you save, you can withdraw $1,000 per month if you stick to a 5% annual withdrawal rate.
This year's study reveals that Americans now think it takes an average of $2.5 million to be considered wealthy – which is up slightly from 2023 and 2022 ($2.2 million).
According to estimates based on the Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer Finances, a mere 3.2% of retirees have over $1 million in their retirement accounts. The number of those with $2 million or more is even smaller, falling somewhere between this 3.2% and the 0.1% who have $5 million or more saved.
Americans expect to need at have $1.46 million on average to retire comfortably, a new survey shows. That figure grew 15% from last year and by more than 50% since 2020.
Yahoo Finance
In 2024, Americans stated that the average net worth they consider “wealthy” is $2.5 million.
Given the financial definitions of asset and liability, a home still falls into the asset category. Therefore, it's always important to think of your home and your mortgage as two separate entities (an asset and a liability, respectively).
"For estate tax purposes all assets should be listed on the net worth statement, including tangible personal property like clothing, jewelry, furniture, cars, collections and art.