I love the headline, as if retiring with 1M or more is <i>common</i>. News flash, that's the reality of 80% of America. Hell, where I grew up, people mostly just relied on social security. Retirement wasn't lavish, but they still enjoyed it.<p>I get the feeling that financial advisors push high savings / low spending for retirement so hard because they get a 1%+ cut of assets under management, and there's nobody complaining when their client dies with a pile of money. It's one thing to be responsible, but it's easy to over do it.
They should really have a synopsis for non-subscribers. Might help pull in new subscribers-as why subscribe to something if you don’t know what you’ll get? Compounded by the hell of modern subscription cancellation.<p>(I recently got an Economist subscription and it’s way better than expected, but I would have never known has I not bit the bullet…)
"Mr. Jones’s retirement account took a hit in 2008 and never recovered. Spooked by the S&P 500’s 38.49% decline in 2008, he sold his stocks and invested in a stable value fund that earned about 1% a year, said the couple’s son-in-law, Jon Older, a doctor who has managed the portfolio since 2018. Dr. Older moved 35% of the balance into a low-cost stock index fund and the rest into an intermediate Treasury bond index fund."<p>So he missed out on one of the best stock market rallies in history out of ignorance and fear. Ouch.
> She recently bargained the couple’s monthly cable and cellphone bill to $300 from $400 and cut her restaurant budget to $70 a month from $150.<p>I can't believe what some people pay for cable and cellphone service. I pay $23/mo for cellphone service and cut the cable cord many years ago.
Note that many of these folks have much less than $1m in savings though most seem to own houses and one probably has decent income from rental properties. So overall--perhaps not surprising given this is the WSJ, these folks are not exactly scraping by off social security even if they're not "wealthy" either.
Random inflation trivia if these retirees wanted $1M (nominal dollars, as a goalpost) for retirement while headed into their prime earning years:<p>"The Millionaire Next Door" was published in 1996. $1M then has the purchasing power of ~$1.92M today.
$1 million will be a king's ransom compared to Gen X's retirement plans<p>last time I checked known stats on Gen X retirement savings, the national average was under $100k...Gen X is the first generation that is almost entirely dependent on 401k<p>for bonus points, Gen Xers in large cities are more likely renters than owners, so they won't even be able to sell a property to prop up the low 401k balance<p>the Gen X retirement bailout is probably already unavoidable and will be in the trillions<p>everyone says its fine because they love what they do and will do it forever...do they really think there will be a hot market for 67 year old React devs?