Are you saving enough for retirement? For a lot of us, it’s hard to say—but we can look at how our savings compare to other people in our age group.
As Investopedia explains:
A June 2018 report from the Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies looked at a nationally representative sample of 6,372 workers, age 18 and up, and broke down their retirement savings by generation. It found that Baby Boomer households had estimated median retirement savings of $164,000 as of 2017, while Generation Xers had $72,000, and Millennials had $37,000.
I’m an “Old Millennial” (born in 1981) and I currently have $90,960.73 in my various retirement accounts—although $3,445.87 of that is in a health savings account, which can technically be used for retirement if I don’t spend it on healthcare first.
The Transamerica study suggests that my retirement savings might be higher than my generation’s average for two reasons: my annual income is over $50,000, and I have a graduate degree. (The more education you have, the more money you are likely to save for retirement—or so the study reports, anyway.)
I’d argue that my retirement savings are higher than average because both my undergraduate and graduate degrees were fully funded, because I have no children and live in a low cost-of-living area, and because I’ve spent the past five years writing about personal finance.
In other words: I’ve had some financial advantages that the average millennial hasn’t.
But enough about me. What about you? Do your retirement savings fall in line with the average? If they’re higher or lower than what other people in your generation are saving, what factors might have contributed to your ability to make retirement contributions?
