Comments on: Explaining Why The Median 401(k) Retirement Balance By Age Is Dangerously Low

By: Techfunds

Techfunds — Sat, 06 Dec 2025 07:01:03 +0000

My wife and I finally got on track based on your charts the past 5 years. We hit $600K in combined 401K and IRA funds this year at 45. Most of this is due to steady investing HEAVILY in tech stocks and mutual funds.. and individually buying and holding Apple and Meta for decades. But, now we are entering the phase where we want to be less risky. Our portfolio is still probably 75% growth and tech funds. I don’t really want to sell our Meta and Apple stock… Meta specifically because of all tech stocks it’s the only one that’s never split and really gone parabolic and I think it has the potential too. What do you suggest I do to lower my tech exposure without missing out on an NVDA / TESLA style parabolic run with Meta?

By: Todd

Todd — Wed, 30 Jul 2025 21:35:20 +0000

Is this JUST 401k balances? Because between my wife an I we have funds in the following retirement accounts: 401k, SIMPLE IRA, Standard IRA and Roth IRA. Combined that’s 6 different accounts and the combined total is far more than the median or the average.

By: PaulV

PaulV — Tue, 12 Sep 2023 18:18:59 +0000

As always, I loved your post and this is a really important topic to all those who haven’t saved enough to date. For some of us who have and might be in our mid 50’s, the leap from your age 55 to 60 numbers is considerable. As an example, we will use your high end numbers for the acct balances moving from $3M to $5M in just five years. By my math it would take an approx 9% return plus full contributions (+catch up) and a nice employer match to get the $2M additional in just 5 years. How do you suppose one should do that given the age risk and the considerable rate of return required, or is this number just too high?

Thanks as always,

Paul

By: Phil

Phil — Tue, 12 Sep 2023 17:41:21 +0000

Two other private equity crowdfund sources that I’ve invested in, besides Fundrise are YieldStreet and Percent. Percent is definitely the best of the three. I believe both require accreditation, which means “have a lot of spare money to invest”.

And I have some retirement age friends who are even well below the median for the 401K, not good.

By: Bob J

Bob J — Tue, 12 Sep 2023 17:11:12 +0000

In reply to PWilliam. I agree. I think it is highly likely individual account balances are being confused with total retirement assets. If someone has multiple accounts with some at Fidelity, others at Vanguard, and still others at Schwab, who can link them all together to get an aggregate amount other than Empower/Personal Capital? I'd love to see statistics from Empower on overall balances. I think the results might be very different.

By: Mark

Mark — Sat, 13 Aug 2022 17:08:52 +0000

In reply to MedianAccurate. Does it count if it's a rollover IRA? And with a different broker?

By: Mark

Mark — Sat, 13 Aug 2022 17:06:32 +0000

In reply to PWilliam. My thought too. I converted a 401k with a previous employer to an IRA for lower fees. That money disappears in these stats but it's still a component of my savings.