Ask HN: How much have you saved for retirement?

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1nV8N16sBFiqDtZqkORlh...

Feel free to point out bugs or copy and add features.

1. Owning a home in the Bay Area by the time you retire. No mortgage, no rent. Just bills.

2. Sell that place when you retire in order to move to a cheaper location. Use whatever's left from the sale of your home as an income for the rest of your life. Let's take a $800K home for example, if you make $150K per year, you may qualify after 2-3 years by saving as much cash as you can for a down payment. That house/condo might be worth 1.5 to 2 million dollars in 30 years from now, who knows? Despite the inflation, if you sale it for say $1.5, after tax and real estate fee you might end up with $1.2 net. This is not income money. You could then buy a $500K house somewhere cheap, then use the remaining $700K as part of your retirement money, which brings in $35K net per year for 20 years. This is roughly the equivalent of $50K gross income per year.

3. Make sure to add a little bit in your personal saving account every month, even if it's $100-$500 it's fair enough on a 30 year period.

4. Make sure you add up a little bit in your 401K.

The combination of all 4 will maximize your retirement while leaving in your own place. Real estate in a place like the Bay Area is the best investment because of the location. It doesn't matter if it's a tiny 1 bedroom in San Francisco or a crappy old house in South Bay, it will hold its value over the years and will most likely help you moving to a cheaper place with a lot of cash in hands.

Fidelity is always telling me I need some ungodly amount of money saved in order to continue the lifestyle to which I've become accustomed. I don't need that much. Here's what my current income pays for that won't be an issue in retirement:

1. Maxed out 401K at $18K/year. The wife's doing the same.

2. $3K a month paid to mortgage principal, in addition to the house payment. (It is financially unwise to pay down a 2.5% loan quickly, but I'm not retiring with a house payment.)

3. Commuting expenses.

4. A hell of a lot more eating out than I plan to do in retirement.

5. My current tax rate. A lower tax rate in retirement is the whole basis of the appeal of tax-deferred accounts.

And let me give you some anecdata to work with as you ponder your starvation in retirement: my parents. Mom just bought a brand new Corvette last year. Dad is talking about a new $65K truck to replace the one they bought just a few years ago. The just bought a new $35K fifth wheel camper this year. A large, long-paid-off house on six acres in Florida. Lots of camping trips, which means feeding that hungry diesel truck that's pulling that fifth wheel, and camp spots with hook-ups ain't cheap. Maybe it's not how kings live, but I'd have no problem with the lifestyle. They're in their 70s now, I don't see the money running out any time soon.

And they retired in their 50s with about a million dollars.

You'll need $4 million if you still hold a mortgage in the Bay Area and you're stilling hitting the $EXPENSIVE_NIGHT_SPOT thrice a week, while having Uber Eats delivery your dinner every night. Which you won't be doing when you're 55 or 65 if you have any sense. Which means you don't need anywhere near $4 million.

To get to answering your question, I plan a minimum of $1 million, and a max of $2 million, when we retire. We're not going to continue to live in Redmond, WA, I don't think. Taxes are pretty good, IMO, but we'll sell the Redmond house and buy something in, say, Bellingham and pocket the difference. I have absolutely no reason to believe we'll be anything other than just fine and dandy. Especially considering that the median person of our mid-50s age has less than a tenth of our current savings, and you don't see masses of retired people starving in the streets, do you?