How much passive income is enough to retire?
A common rule is to budget for at least 70% of your pre-retirement income during retirement. This assumes some of your expenses will disappear in retirement and 70% will be enough to cover essentials. Remember, that's a general guideline, and your needs may vary.
Dollar amount of enough
There is no hard and fast dollar amount that defines “enough”, but most people agree that you need to make at least $1,000 per month consistently in order to live a comfortable life with no worries. This is an incredible way to gauge how much money you are bringing in!
Assuming an inflation rate of 4% and a conservative after-tax rate of return of 5%, you should aim for a savings target of $1.3 million to fund a 30-year retirement that begins at age 67. This would give you an investment portfolio that produces about $50,000 a year in income.
After analyzing many scenarios, we found that 75% is a good starting point to consider for your income replacement rate. This means that if you make $100,000 shortly before retirement, you can start to plan using the ballpark expectation that you'll need about $75,000 a year to live on in retirement.
Key takeaways: Most people in the U.S. retire with less than $1 million. $500,000 is a healthy nest egg to supplement Social Security and other income sources. Assuming a 4% withdrawal rate, $500,000 could provide $20,000/year of inflation-adjusted income.
Age Range | Median Net Worth | Average Net Worth |
---|---|---|
55-64 | $212,500 | $1,175,900 |
65-74 | $266,400 | $1,217,700 |
75+ | $254,800 | $977,600 |
RANK | STATE | INCOME REQUIRED |
---|---|---|
47 | New York | $73,226 |
48 | California | $80,013 |
49 | Massachusetts | $87,909 |
50 | Hawaii | $112,411 |
It can take years to build up enough passive income that you can actually live off of it. If you own your own business, outsourcing that business is another way to earn passive income.
States that require the highest living wage for individuals are Hawaii ($112,411) followed by Massachusetts ($87,909) and then California ($80,013).
Social Security offers a monthly benefit check to many kinds of recipients. As of December 2023, the average check is $1,767.03, according to the Social Security Administration – but that amount can differ drastically depending on the type of recipient. In fact, retirees typically make more than the overall average.
How much do most people retire with?
The average retirement savings for all families is $333,940 according to the 2022 Survey of Consumer Finances. Taken on their own, those numbers aren't incredibly helpful. There are a variety of decent retirement savings benchmarks out there, but how much money other people have isn't one of them.
Safe Withdrawal Rate
Using our portfolio of $400,000 and the 4% withdrawal rate, you could withdraw $16,000 annually from your retirement accounts and expect your money to last for at least 30 years. If, say, your Social Security checks are $2,000 monthly, you'd have a combined annual income in retirement of $40,000.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the average income of someone 65 and older in 2021 was $55,335, and the average expenses were $52,141, or $4,345 per month.
Many retirees fall far short of that amount, but their savings may be supplemented with other forms of income. According to data from the BLS, average 2022 incomes after taxes were as follows for older households: 65-74 years: $63,187 per year or $5,266 per month. 75 and older: $47,928 per year or $3,994 per month.
The above chart shows that U.S. residents 35 and under have an average of $30,170 in retirement savings; those 35 to 44 have an average $131,950; those 45 to 54 have an average $254,720; those 55 to 64 have an average $408,420; those 65 to 74 have an average $426,070; and those over 70 have an average $357,920.
Summary. $300,000 can last for roughly 26 years if your average monthly spend is around $1,600. Social Security benefits help bolster your retirement income and make retiring on $300k even more accessible. It's often recommended to have 10-12 times your current income in savings by the time you retire.
If you retire with no money, you'll have to consider ways to create income to pay your living expenses. That might include applying for Social Security retirement benefits, getting a reverse mortgage if you own a home, or starting a side hustle or part-time job to generate a steady paycheck.
Your net worth is what you own minus what you owe. It's the total value of all your assets—including your house, cars, investments and cash—minus your liabilities (things like credit card debt, student loans, and what you still owe on your mortgage).
Someone who has $1 million in liquid assets, for instance, is usually considered to be a high net worth (HNW) individual. You might need $5 million to $10 million to qualify as having a very high net worth while it may take $30 million or more to be considered ultra-high net worth.
How many people have $1000000 in retirement savings?
However, not a huge percentage of retirees end up having that much money. In fact, statistically, around 10% of retirees have $1 million or more in savings.
An individual needs $96,500, on average, to live comfortably in a major U.S. city. That figure is even higher for families, who need to earn an average combined income of about $235,000 to support two adults and two children.
Here, a single person needs $110,781 annually or $53.26 in hourly wages to be comfortable, according to the data. For a family of two working adults with two children, a salary of $276,557 is needed.
According to 2021 research from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, California's average cost of living is $53,082 annually (rising into the $70,000s for heavily populated areas like Los Angeles). Staying in control of your finances and maintaining a solid financial plan is essential regardless of where you live.
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