I’m on a flight from FL to MN right now and ran across this interesting survey from Empower, an investment company. I thought it did a good job showing how people are thinking about their financial lives & retirement.
Link: Empower Study
Overall, I’m generally pleased when I see how people are thinking about retirement, even if their actual behavior falls quite short. Like nutrition, most know what they should eat, even if as a nation we become fatter!
Here’s a summary of their key points …
• Retirement age “should” be 58, on average
• As of 2024, on average, men retire at age 64 while women retire at age 62
• A third (30%) of Americans say hitting a life milestone changed how they define success – it’s not just about money.
• 34% wish they reached their last major milestone later – with better financial stability.
• Close to half (45%) wish they had started saving earlier.
• Americans (42%) see retirement planning as the most significant wealth-building opportunity.
• Buying a home is the most financially impactful life change (29%).
• Most think you should start saving for retirement at 27, land your dream job at 29, buy your first home at 30, and earn six figures by 35. They also say they should become debt free at 41 and retire at 58.
• A quarter (25%) admit they underestimate the costs of major life events.
• About 1 in 3 (32%) say they realized the importance of having a financial plan or working with a financial planner after reaching a life milestone.
We hit most of the milestones shown on the chart earlier than most of the targeted ages – ultimately reaching retirement age a full 9 years early.
How are you tracking / did you track with these ages?
Image: Pixabay; Chart: Empower
MrFireStation 
I certainly missed the six-figure income at age 35, but in 1997 that was a very high wage.
I started saving for retirement at age 22 and I stopped contributing to retirement in my 40’s as I was overfunded based on need. I thought that it was better to pay down mortgage and spend money on experiences with family and education as it was abundantly clear that I would have enough in retirement. Early investing + a good stock market= Security
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$100K today would have been only about $50K in 1997 money. I think I had definitely cleared that mark by then. We beat all of the other milestones / except maybe paying off all of our debt. We paid off our mortgage at about age 45.
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Thanks for the share. I would imagine that most of your subscribers are well ahead of these metrics! I got the ‘dream job’ at 36, leading a regional team, but already had a good financial cushion by that age. I remember feeling immediately disillusioned by corporate politics when I started by first full time job, and continued to be disillusioned during my career. That’s corporate marketing I suppose – brutal served with a smile. I saved and invested like a madman as the environment never felt secure, seeing my colleagues fired on a personal whim. Retired at 44.
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Retired at 44 is a terrific success, congratulations! I mostly stayed clear of the poison of corporate politics. One of the best compliments I ever got was my reports telling me I was pretty successful creating a bubble around our team – and free from that ugly nonsense. I think that’s an important job of a team leader.
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The numbers are remarkably close, but I take exception to one benchmark.
There is good debt and bad debt. People high interest rates on credit cards is bad debt. We still purposely are not debt free. Our mortgage is 2.75% and is very manageable. Inflation allows us to pay the mortgage with dollars that become worth less valuable every year. During BiDUMB’s four years the dollars became worth about 25% less. Beating 2.75% investing is doable as well.
Finally, I would like to point out that you never really truly own your home as long as you have to continue paying the feudal landlord for the right to continue living on your serf’s rental property for another year. Other people call paying the feudal landlord, property taxes. I recommend attending a county Real Estate Tax Auction where you see properties getting sold out from under serfs in around a minute each because they failed to pay the feudal landlord.
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