We are back with a timely Consumer Confidential The Dow
hit a record high yesterday, which is great news for
that 401K of yours.
So we thought now would be a good time to
talk retirement here to walk us through some important information.
NBC Senior Business Correspondent Christine Romans and you would be
hard pressed to find someone more excited to talk about
retirement then Christine Romans.
It's one of my favorite topics.
This is my love language.
Saving money is my love language too.
Wow.
So I mean, let's just start with when folks should
actually start saving for retirement.
Well, yesterday.
But it's never too late to start.
And that's what's really important here.
Time is your superpower.
The longer you are saving for retirement, the better.
Let me give you an example.
You put $10,000 into a retirement account.
Over 30 years, with compound interest of 5%, that becomes
$40,000.
Doing that every single year over all of your earning
years, that's how you really use time to your benefit.
You have to think about, you know, when you have
that first discussion with your partner or spouse about retirement,
you have to think about, you know, how long am
I going to live?
What do we want to do in retirement?
But if you're a real young person, you don't really
need to worry about that right now.
You just need to be putting some money away.
OK.
So what are our options?
Well, there is a traditional 401 KA, lot of 70
million of us have 401K's and so that's where your
company may match money.
So even if you're young with with student loan debt,
you still should be doing this.
You can be paying off debt and investing at the
same time traditional pensions, that's what our parents and grandparents
had.
That's not really, that's not really available to us, it's
really DIY for retirement.
Don't think this is going to happen on its own.
And there are investments in real estate.
As you get older and you acquire things, those will
be things that you'll draw down in your retirement years.
We have viewers that have you know obviously a variety
of ages, but how do you know your number, the
number this is the most, the most talked about in
my circles.
What should the retirement number be?
I know, I know some circle you got there.
You should come to my parties.
Millennials, 54,000 is what they have right now.
You know they have some time to grow that boomers,
34,000 is how much you need to what this is,
how much the average balance is right now, 54,000.
So we are chronically account.
We are chronically under saved.
Boomers have about 230,000.
They're going to need more than that.
Let me give you a number that's going to terrify
you.
Fidelity says in retirement, a couple it's 65 years old
and then going through the last 20-30 years of their
of their lives will spend 315,000 out of pocket for
health care.
Just for the.
Yeah.
So we're not saving enough, but we can.
You can, especially if you just keep saving now.
So what do you need to hold studio that rise
like?
I know, I know, that number terrifies people.
But I I promise you, I promise you have to
work forever from the studio.
I've never seen Mason so animated at a whole meltdown
he's going to be healthy forever.
So it doesn't.
It doesn't, it doesn't apply to him.
But the number you need to plan to live off
of.
If you want to keep your current standard of living,
you got to make sure that you're investing enough money
so that you can be earning about 80% of your
current year.
What's the 50th?
Unless you, Unless.
Unless you want to have a let's you want your
children to take care of you, which that's also an
option.
What's the 503021?
OK, so right now what your paycheck is right, half
of it goes to needs just needs, 30% goes to
once.
20% is for savings and investments, so that's why.
So 20% of everything in your in your take home
pay should be going to the future that you're going
to live on later in life.
And again, it's never too late to start.
And and don't be, don't be daunted by any of
these numbers I've given you because, you know, there's there's
a lot of variables in life.
What about Social Security, though, Christine?
Yeah, you know Social Security is about $1700 as the
annual check and one annual, I'm sorry, monthly.
Monthly.
Carrillo.
I was like, wow, I'm sorry.
Rewind 1700 is about the average monthly payment and one
in seven seniors.
That is, that is their entire entire income.
One in seven seniors.
So I think that that for older Americans, that's going
to be a variable.
But of course, in the years ahead, we don't know
exactly what what Social Security will look like for for
the younger generation.
Very good.
Wow.
You can do it.
We can do it in America right now.
We got this.
Now put something into some retirement accounts.
Thank you, Christine.
You're welcome.
Thank you, Mason, you got this.
You got this.