The average retirement age in the United States among currently living retirees was 59.88 years old. The median living retiree left work at 62 years old, and the most common age to retire was 62 years old. 18.7% of retirees retired at age 62, and a whopping 63.1% retired between the ages of 57 and […]

One way to evaluate retirement savings is to look at a retirement savings to income multiple. In this post we'll look at a good multiple to target and how Americans are doing. How do you compute a retirement savings to income multiple? Take a household's total retirement savings and divide by typical household income to […]

While net worth comparisons are interesting and revealing for all ages, net worth is most important for retirees. When people retire, they rely solely on wealth, periodic payments, and individual help to live. Here's a cut of our wealth percentile data for American households headed by a 65+ year old individual. Beyond that, we further […]

Editor: Patrice has followed up on his promise to study his strategy - please see his Accumulation Decumulation Study, and visit his writeup on his website. Please welcome Patrice Leblanc to Don't Quit Your Day Job... today as your guest host! He graduated from the University of Sherbrooke with a degree in Mathematics and has […]

Here's a hard truth: you should max out your retirement accounts as early and often as you can. Having money in tax-protected accounts gives you piece of mind now, and a cushion in case of unplanned issues and bumps in the future. The Failure to Contribute Is Costly We once read a piece in Bloomberg claiming […]

This article looks at wealth drawdowns for American retirees. We examine net worth data for heads of households with age ranges 65-69, 70-74, 75-79, 80-84, and 85+.  Seeing the average net worths of different retiree age groups gives you an idea for fund drawdown. Ideally, it also suggests a path for your own wealth drawdowns. […]

Editor: we updated this data for 2016 SCF data. Continuing our little series on American Net Worth secrets revealed by the Federal Reserve's 2013 Survey of Consumer Finances, I figured we'd zoom into a little segment of the population where more than a few politicians have made their careers: retirees. Okay, that's a big segment.  […]

Saving too much... really, is that a possibility that people are even remotely concerned about?  Or is it just a meme used to justify an expensive third decade? I love Morningstar, I really do. My respect for the company is one of the reasons I had a particularly exaggerated eye-rolling session upon reading Morningstar's report […]

The internet likes to talk about two competing terms – Financial Independence and Retirement. Sometimes they combine them in an acronym FIRE, which stands for Financial Independence, Retire Early. But: what exactly does retirement mean?  How about financial independence? Where does the difference lie? There is a huge battle over what, exactly, it means to be 'Retired', […]