S/O savings - What is your approximate Net Worth?

Southern California real estate has given our net worth a nice boost. So have tech stocks. On the flip side, those two components could devastate us during a recession. We weathered the last one pretty well but you never know about these things.

At 41, having just gone through a divorce, 19 years of work behind me,and about 15 years of work ahead of me (my goal), I'm on track for my goal. I'm more than half way to my retirement goal, and will likely be able to speed that up now that the divorce is over (I'm the saver, XDH was the spender, so now I can save at a higher rate) I don't have much debt after the divorce, so pretty much what I have is worth what it is

Real estate in our neck of the woods (military town, NC) has destroyed our net worth. We bought high and IF we ever sell it will likely be less than we paid. That's a hard pill to swallow. We also screwed up our investments early on due to lack of knowledge, but now we're doing a bit better through passive mutual fund investing. My DH and I would love to retire early but having 4 kids to help with college are putting those plans on hold for a bit.

yeah..san francisco real estate slows..doesn't really go down..but our kids will never be able to buy here.

That article seemed really sad, it says the medium is $194,000 for a 65-69 year old. If they sold their house (I understand outside of where I live you can buy a house for as cheap as $350K) and just start to dip into their retirement ($500K-$1 million), a middle class person should have a much higher net worth at retirement.

There is a very good book called "The Millionaire Next Door" that talks in great detail about net worth. One benchmark talked about repeatedly is current age times current salary times 10%. So if you are 30 and your salary is $50K you could aim for net worth of $150.

An interesting read if you are thinking about this.

This is one of DH's favorite books.

I am really surprised at how low the net worth numbers are in the article. 

I thought you were talking about a trailer but I went on Zillow and wow to my surprise you can get a new house in TX for $250K. My co-worker recently left and I overheard her talking to HR to tidy up her affairs. She's in her mid-late 30s and had worked for the company for 10 years. I was shocked to hear she was only contributing 2% to her retirement the whole time she was here! She's not married. I don't know how she thought she was going to retire?

?  I don't think you're applying the 10% correctly.  The order doesn't matter.  For example:  100,000 salary and aged 35 is $100,000*35*0.1 = $350,000

When considering net worth and retirement, I highly recommend people think long and hard about how to treat their primary residence. I've seen many people over estimate their nest egg as when push came to shove, they really didn't want to sell their house and move somewhere else. Just something to think about. There are other options (reverse mortgage, etc, but they come with some other issues to consider). My parents who bought in the Bay Area in the 1970s are working through this now. They have lots of equity, but really don't want to leave the home and neighborhood they've lived in for almost 50 years.

DH is an actuary and a 30 yo earning 50,000 should aim to have at least $3,000,000 to retire on at the current rate of inflation to expect the same standard of living assuming life expectancy is 85.

Using the formula above you'd need $50,000 plus 10% ($55,000) times 30 = $1,650,000. Not enough according to my dh unless there is a family history of early death. If family history shows long life expectancy, plan to have more.

And that brings us to estate planning. If you have that much money and you haven't spoken to a lawyer and accountant and set up appropriate trusts and accounts, ALL that money could be wiped out by one medical catastrophe as long as we have the health care system we do. In that case poor people are better off.

You should definitely "plan" for the same standard of living. While certain expenses go down, others will go up. Medical expenses often go up dramatically, even for relatively healthy seniors. Plus many finally have the time for hobbies and travel, which can become very expensive very quickly. Then you layer in the - best of plans go sideways - you're much better off PLANNING on the same standard of living so that if your savings or investment plan comes up short, inflation is higher than expected, etc, you can economize while still maintaining a comfortable lifestyle than thinking you can retire and live off 50% of your prior income and determine that you're in dire straights when things go awry.

oh, honey.   Most areas of the country, especially outside urban centers, $350k will buy you a very nice home.  In my area of the country $350k will buy you a 40 acre ranch.  If you want a house on a city lot, you'd be able to buy a very, very nice home.  

So if I consider my childhood collection of Canadian money (don't judge!), we should have a fine retirement! I've probably got close to $20 in coins and a few bills!