Let’s say you start at 24 years old, and retire at 67.
Let’s say you can average about a 4% increase in earnings every year.
Let’s say you start with nothing, but have to end up earning a total of $3.4 Million.
My excel spread sheet tells me you start off at about $29,300 per year. For a married couple, $29k seems like a slam dunk.
These stories seems to make the numbers seem crazy. Until you apply financial logic to them,.
Even the average college grad’s earnings are thought to be $2.4million over their lifetime. This means they AVERAGE $53k per year. This is pretty close to the median income for the US.
I am a college grad, as is my wife. We were making the median income for earners when we were 30-35. That gave us 30 years of above median income before retirement.
Again, these numbers seem to be applied to college grads who are working low income jobs. That doesn’t tend to be how it works.
I guess if you assume these are all single earning households, it might apply. But the traditional American Dream calls for a family. That’s more than one person earning.
24?