I'm 28, and have worked for 5 years at a company with zero 401(k) matching at a salary that started at $40K and has worked its way up to $70K. (I didn't have any retirement contributions at the job that preceded this one.) I've got my money spread across a few target date funds (2045, 2055, 2060) and have currently got just over $18K (7.4% return). I'm building up my 6-month emergency fund now and hope to soon start to save up for a down payment on a home, so I've been planning to scale back my contributions a bit.
I had a pretty aggressive contribution from my paycheck for the last few years that I was proud of (20%) and thought I was doing great. Just compared notes with a colleague who's 5 years older than me and she has well over $50K in her fund and thought that was "decent." What have I done?!
I hear so many good things about aggressive 401(K) contributions at companies that match, and I wonder how far behind I am for missing out on that advantage for all these years. It's bad, but is it leave-this-job-for-one-with-a-better-plan bad? Is it foolish for me to scale back retirement contributions to get out of my apartment rental sooner? Am I behind for my age, or is does a target "x savings by y age" even exist?
Thanks for any input — this sub has been so incredibly helpful to me and I so appreciate all the great discussions here!
Submitted May 09, 2017 at 08:37AM by explainlikeim666 http://ift.tt/2qXpz7w
