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Retirement Savings

One of the positive things my company offers our employees is an annual, conference-like seminar that educates our employees on our benefit package.

Yesterday was our first seminar, held in Virginia.

One of the standout presenters was from Fidelity, educating our employees on our 401k benefit, investing strategies, and retirement goals.

With my personal financial goals in place, this was the first year that I found this presentation extremely motivating. I would guess that there's a large chunk of the population, especially at my age, that are not giving their retirement savings enough thought.

There was one chart in particular that stood out to me. It was a chart illustrating basic retirement savings goals by age. Take a look:

https://www.fidelity.com/viewpoints/retirement/how-much-money-do-i-need-to-retire

This is obviously a guide. I imagine some would look at this and feel a little overwhelmed based off where they currently find themselves. I can also imagine some people would look at this and think 10x yours salary at age 67 wouldn't be enough to retire on.

Retirement savings is a personal matter. It would depend on many variables. What are your retirement goals? What is most important to you when it comes to retirement? Do you simply want time to pour into hobbies, or do you want to be a world traveler? Do you want a house, a summer camp, and a fleet of toys? Do you want to visit every Major League Baseball ballpark? Your savings goals will depend on how you want to spend those retirement years.

For me, instead of focusing on saving my salary, I would change that to yearly living expenses. How long do I expect to live? My family history would suggest 67 would actually be an impressive feat...but let's just use 85. If I want to retire at 67, I would try to save 18x my yearly expected living expenses (this is where having a budget is also very helpful).

My goals of frugal living, along with a minimalist approach to life, are deeply intertwined with my retirement goals. I value time. I enjoy slow living. I enjoy a meaningful social life. If I sacrifice a little now, I can achieve what I want later. One of Dave Ramsay's most used quote's is "If you live like no one else today, you can live like no one else later".

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