Retirement’s Future and the Ridiculousness of $30k
Earlier this year I made a short film about my book The Future Poor to summarize and present the idea in a real, concise and humorous way. Most of the stuff around the retirement situation in America is troublesome and not much hope is shared.
One of the key moments in that short film hinges on the ridiculous nature of how much one needs to save to be able to live off their assets. I have a fun exchange with my son Rome, award-winning mathlete and star of “Rome Teaches Money.”
I make the point that we need to be saving $30,000 a year to make the retirement game work. Rome slams his pre-calculus book on the ground and exclaims “I give up!”
That detail of the amount needed to be saved is at the heart of why I started writing The Future Poor back in 2020. Part of the mystery for me is how there is little affect by the larger financial world when a number like that is presented. The common response is more along the lines of “better get to cutting expenses and saving” rather than Rome’s response that illustrates the ridiculous nature of that equation.
SmartAsset, a great place to visit for financial information, get quick answers to questions or learn more about finance, published an article about how much you need to save to retire in 2050. The article expands on the equations used in basic retirement calculations, the same logic we used in our video.
The article reads fine and comes to the point where they say you just need $2.69 million dollars saved and to do that you need to save $30,000 a year and start with $200,000. The article also says Social Security will likely provide significant income in retirement. I don’t know too many people that believe that.
The article continues on in the traditional way the finance industry works. Lets get started on saving more to close the gap and work with a financial advisor. The fact that these articles continue to be made makes me think I am the crazy one because it seems ridiculous to even write a sentence like “you just need to save $30,000 a year to hopefully be at 80% of your current income by 2050.”
https://smartasset.com/retirement/how-much-will-i-need-to-retire-in-2050
As always, if you come across a financially related article you’d like to send my way please do!
Best place to send them is to me.
More next time!
Jonathan