Currently 30, how to retire at 50?

[dnce3d]

@xeonome Without a dramatic change in income you aren’t gonna make it. Any upside to either career?

 

[ramirezchely]

@xeonome You're aiming for 170k/year as your 100%, but why? Sure, that's what you make now, but that's to keep up with current debts and investments. By retirement, you won't have those debts and won't have to keep investing, especially at that rate if you're fully funded. Can you not live off 80k~/year once retired with paid-for homes?

 

[mommy2littles]

@ramirezchely Maybe, but I’d say it’s foolish to assume that you won’t possibly come into any more debts while retired. Or want to move or something like that. After all, they’re retiring at 50. The kinds of things you’re going to want to do are a bit different than retiring at 65

 

[mommy2littles]

@ramirezchely If you’re retiring at 50, you’re gonna want to make sure you have plenty of money to do things. If your plan is to retire at 50 and just hang around the house for 30 years you’re gonna go insane in about 5

 

[rank156562]

@xeonome Y'all both gotta get a second job to make it happen without kids. With kids you got no shot.

 

[thecommander]

@rank156562 Kids are expensive. Either expensive daycare costs or one partner stays home or works second shift etc. Then there’s braces, club/travel sports, family vacation costs double, need a 3rd/4th car when kids are driving, 4x car insurance, 4 cell phones, grocery bill doubles, utilities go up with house full of gadgets, etc. etc. I’m not qualified to predict your future finances but I do know that kids are expensive.

 

[pt_barnum]

@thecommander 3/4 cars is such an American thing.

 

[thecommander]

@pt_barnum So true! Wish it were different trust me. Unfortunately public transportation isn’t a thing where we live and all four of us ( me, wife, two kids) work jobs where remote work isn’t an option.

 

[aurora8907]

@xeonome You didn’t account for expenses and support for kids, except $50/month? Did you drink a few bottles of beer when you wrote the post?

 

[karibeanato]

@xeonome Don’t have kids. Double your income.

 

[resjudicata]

@xeonome easy, forget having kids, both join US military retirement after 20 years, you will be 50, monthly checks for life plus all the accumulated growth on current investments. move to a nice lower cost country on a retirement visa.

 

[ginoo]

@xeonome You aren’t retiring at 50 if you are planning on having kids.

 

[nzmusicmissions]

@xeonome A lot of good logic here from the response. You are also not accounting for two kids either. I believe the average cost of raising a kid in the US is right around 250k. Unless you dramatically increase your income or get really lucky on your investments you won’t be able to retire at 50. Also why are you using 77 for you dying? What happens if one or both of you live to 80 or 85?

 

[blueberry25]

@xeonome You make $170k a year but do a Roth 401k? Why?

If you are going to retire at 50 and all of your money is in a 401k and a Roth IRA....where are you going to pull your retirement income from?

Kids costs about $350k each to raise so having two of them is going to toss this plan right on its head.

You make $170k a year now and are saving with that and you have to pay taxes both income and payroll on it. Why do you want $170k a year in retirement when you dont need to save (more spending money) AND you dont owe payroll tax (even more spending money) and if it comes from Roth you dont pay taxes at all (like 2x the spending money).

The average life expectancy is 77 because sometimes babies die and that brings the average WAAAY down. Basically if you have 8 people and 9 of them live to 96 years old and two of them die at 1 year old then the average is going to be 77. If you have lived to retirement the average age of someone is considerably higher than 77.

 

[tropicalbaby]

@blueberry25 Roth has pretty low annual maximums. Now way they have 3.5m in a Roth at 60 without a LOT of luck. Anything else WILL see some taxation on withdrawal, so it's fair to factor that in.

I agree with a lot of what you're saying, but absent some absolutely massive Roth account, people should consider taxes against any retirement income, ESPECIALLY if aiming to retire before 60.

 

[blueberry25]

@tropicalbaby I think you misunderstood what I was saying,. I was suprised they were doing a Roth 401k instead of a pretax 401k. They are able to contribute $29k to Roth per person so $58k a year to Roth for a married couple if they do exclusively Roth 401k and Roth IRA. But pretax is better than Roth so if they had that amount they could contribute then instead they should be doing $45k to pretax 401k, $13k to Roth and then with the $10,800 they save from pretax 401k they should put that in an after tax brokerage.

I think they are losing money doing exclusively Roth. Sure its tax free on withdrawl, but they will have a lot less money saved so they will end up losing out in the end.

 

[tropicalbaby]

@blueberry25 I think with the plan as spec'd he's better off maxing Roth and then just putting other savings into a standard investment vehicle. That allows him to build maximum tax free and then access the rest before age 60 so he can retire at 50.

Now,this does depend somewhat on actual gains and investment style. If op is aiming for long term capital gains with "buy and hold", then there's not much point maximizing standard 401k over Roth. The big benefit is tax deferral on the assumption that retirement income/tax bracket will be lower. But op is aiming to have equal income in retirement, so the tax benefit is basically only realized if 1. They are an active investor (short term gains) and 2. Nominal tax rates don't increase in the next 30 years, which is possible but unlikely imo.

Also, any money in retirement accounts will be subject to RMDs, so could affect taxes adversely depending on the specifics.

All THAT said, I think odds are 50% at best that Roth accounts keep "tax free" status for the next 30+ years. I think there will be a lot of people that don't have one that get envious.