For a 50-year-old, average retirement savings vary significantly by country, but general U.S. guidelines suggest aiming for 3.5 to 5.5 times your annual salary, while Australian data shows balances around $180,000 to $240,000 for those in their early 50s, with men typically having more than women. Key factors influencing this include income, career breaks, and lifestyle, making personalized benchmarks more useful than averages.
As a general rule of thumb, you'll want to have saved three to eight times your annual salary, depending on your age: 40: At least three times your salary. 45: Around four times your salary. 50: Six times your salary.
Retiring at 50 with $500k requires careful financial planning. With 35 years to cover, a $29,400 annual withdrawal limit, and Social Security not available until you reach age 62, you'll need to focus on investments, minimizing expenses, and finding additional sources of income to stay on track.
Retiring at 62 on $400,000
This plan can work … sort of. At age 62, with $400,000 in a 401(k) account, you can generate a livable income depending on how you structure your portfolio and where you choose to live. Livable does not mean comfortable, however.
Yes, $700,000 in super can be enough for a comfortable retirement in Australia, especially for a couple or a single person with a modest lifestyle, often combined with the Age Pension, but it depends heavily on your desired lifestyle, spending, homeownership, and whether you're single or a couple. For a comfortable retirement, a single person might aim for around $595,000-$600,000, while a couple might need $700,000-$700,000+ at age 67, with non-homeowners needing more, so $700k is a solid base but could be tight for extravagant spending.
While exact real-time figures vary, estimates from around 2025 suggest approximately 400,000 to over 500,000 Australians held over $1 million in superannuation, with about 2.5% of the population reaching this milestone as of mid-2021, a figure that has likely grown with strong investment returns, though many more hold significant balances and millions are projected to reach this goal by retirement, especially men.
Yes, you can likely retire at 70 with $800,000, but it depends heavily on your annual spending, investment returns, and eligibility for government support like the Age Pension, potentially supporting a modest to comfortable lifestyle, though a very high-spending one might require more capital, according to wealthlab.com.au, Toro Wealth and Frontier Financial Group. Using the "4% Rule", $800,000 could provide around $32,000/year initially, but factoring in the Age Pension and lower expenses (like no mortgage/work costs) can make it stretch further, possibly supporting a single person's $44k-$50k/year needs.
How many Americans have $500,000 in retirement savings? Of the 54.3% of U.S. households that have any money in retirement accounts, only about 9.3% have $500,000 or more in retirement savings.
We'll use a 4% withdrawal rate, a common rule of thumb in retirement planning, which suggests you can withdraw 4% of your portfolio in the first year of retirement and adjust for inflation thereafter. Under these assumptions, your $1 million could potentially last 25 to 30 years.
If you were born in 1964, the ASFA Super Guru website recommends a super balance of $469,000 at age 60 to allow for a comfortable lifestyle in retirement. The average super balance for Australians aged 60-64 was $402,838 for males and $318,293 for females, as at June 2021.
If invested with an average annual return of 7%, it would take around 15 years to turn 500k into $1 million.
There's no single correct amount to save for retirement. For example, a $500,000 nest egg may be a good amount for some retirees, while others may need more, depending on where they live and how many dependents they have. If you want to figure out what size your nest egg should be, a retirement calculator can help.
Fewer people have $1 million in retirement savings than commonly thought, with around 4.6% to 4.7% of U.S. households having $1 million or more in retirement accounts, according to recent Federal Reserve data (2022), though this percentage rises for older age groups, with about 9% of those aged 55-64 reaching that milestone. However, the median retirement savings are much lower (around $88,000-$200,000), showing a large gap between averages and reality, with many retirees having significantly less, notes.
Biggest 401(k) Mistakes to Avoid
A millionaire is somebody with a net worth of at least $1 million. It's a simple math formula based on your net worth. When what you own (your assets) minus what you owe (your liabilities) equals more than a million dollars, you're a millionaire. That's it!
"You can live off $500,000 in the bank and do nothing else to make money, because you can make off that about 5% in fixed income with very little risk. Or you can make 8.5 to 9% in equities too, if you're willing to ride the volatility."
The typical American has an average retirement savings of $521,522. Americans in their 60s have the most saved for retirement with average balances close to $1.2 million. Average account balances more than double between those in their 20s vs their 30s.
Around 80,000 Australians had over $2 million in superannuation as of 2019-2020 data, with estimates suggesting this number might be higher now due to asset growth, potentially affecting around 80,000 people with balances over $3 million by 2025. While most with high balances are older, some young individuals (under 30) also hold over $2 million in super.
A wealthy retiree in Australia generally has over $1 million in investable assets (excluding the family home), but for a truly high-net-worth individual, this can extend to $5 million or much more, allowing for a very comfortable lifestyle with significant income, travel, and assets, well beyond the ASFA "comfortable" benchmark (around $595k single/$690k couple for basic needs) and often without relying on the Age Pension, notes.
$800,000 in retirement can last anywhere from 15 to over 30 years, depending heavily on your annual spending, investment returns (e.g., 4-6%), and lifestyle (e.g., modest vs. comfortable), but factors like inflation, taxes, and fees also significantly impact longevity, with higher spending and lower returns depleting funds faster. For example, spending $50k/year with good growth might last decades, while spending $60k-$70k with modest returns could see it gone in 20-25 years.
Believe it or not, data from the 2022 Survey of Consumer Finances indicates that only 9% of American households have managed to save $500,000 or more for their retirement. This means less than one in ten families have achieved this financial goal.
Summary. $1 million should be enough to see you through your retirement. You can retire at 50 with $1 million in savings and receive a guaranteed annual income of $62,400. Your tax bracket and how much you pay should also be considered when planning how much money you'll need for retirement.