Well, how much do you have in your 401K and how old are you?

Discussion in 'Industry Veterans' started by Anonymous, Nov 5, 2009 at 5:50 PM.

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  1. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    I just read an article that said the average 401K balance in the US is $47,890! Seriously?

    Please be honest, no bs. Just trying to see where I stand among the masses.

    age 54
    401K balance $465,000

    I know, it should be higher, never changed my portfolio before the crash and I'm down about $140K from my high.
     

  2. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    age 49

    445,000 401k
     
  3. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    47

    $425k
     
  4. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    32 and 200k
     
  5. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    Age 60. $401K in my 401K. But that's only about 40% of my net worth.
     
  6. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    57 yrs
    $594K in 401k
    $201K in Cash Balance Pension
    (but still owe $250K on my house)
     
  7. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    37 yo approx 600k. Started working in pharma when I was 22 and maxed out my 401k since then and have had a few nice market runs. I will admit that I have a financial planner(dad's guy) who has been managing my 401k since I started, so I can't take credit for choosing the funds and the percentages in each.
     
  8. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    that seems pretty much impossible.
     
  9. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    This is obviously a self-selected group of people who are reasonably pleased with their 401k balances. The fact that there has been only 8 responses in over one month suggests to me that most people are sucking wind or have already cashed out.
     
  10. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    It seems possible to me. If they had a solid company match, were aggressive since they started young, and if they had any company shares at a company bought out like genentech et al it is very probable they could be in the 600's. I'm 40, I was ultra aggressive in my 20's and 30's, and I worked at amgen for most of my career, and I too have a financial professional activley managing my 401k and I'm still over 500k in my 401k. So it's not as impossible as u think.
     
  11. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    Number 9 seems plausible for you. Also considering your aggressive investing strategy, I'm guessing that if you have $500K in your 401K today that you probably had about $700K in it about one year ago and took a major hit.
     
  12. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    43 years old, with 250k in my 401k plus another 225k equity in a business I own. The plan is that I will retire in 6 years and the business will provide 50k+ in income pluse 25k in pension. The 401k is not the only way to go, it is all about income streams.
     
  13. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    Actually I didn’t take that much of a hit…that’s why we pay a financial planner/asset manager. They don’t allow 401k funds to wallow around to underperform or become vulnerable. They are constantly playing with it so when things started going south they got out of a lot of things and went into a protective mode. If you make more than 150K a year you should have a financial planner from a reputable firm, not the “big box” national firms like Amex, or Ed Jones, or god forbid your bank. Find a good private firm in your area. It has done wonders for our financial picture.
     
  14. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    59 years old and 600k in the 401(k). Yet, I can't retire. Worse yet, no one will hire me.
     
  15. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    Per #13, if you can find a good financial planner/asset management advisor, then go for it. Here's my bias. The 1980's and 1990's created an entire class of "high net worth" individuals, i.e. those with at least $1,000,000 in investible assets. From this sprang an entire industry of "wealth management" advisors, many of whom were former brokers who took a weekend course in financial planning. It was clear that there was much more money to be made as a fee-based "wealth advisor" than commission-based broker. I just saw my dad write a $37,000 check to his asset manager and almost cried, since I could advise him just as well. My belief is that the need for an asset manager should be based not on you net worth but on the complexity of your financial situation. In my case, I have no dependents, no outstanding debts, no college 529, no real estate, no estate other than my liquid assets. For this I think I can manage my own assets. The new breed of wealth advisors want you cradle to grave, starting pre-natally with a college 529 plan up through doing your estate plan and everything in between. No thanks. I'll handle it myself.
     
  16. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    Poster 13 here. Yeah our situation is a bit different we do have well over $1M in liquid assets as well as three rental properties, plus our home, two young children et al. We both still work and generally W2 @ $400K combined, and we still have a fair share of unexercised options and espp shares that are managed by, but not charged/billed for, by our financial planner, as the are held it separate brokerage accounts set up by our employer.

    With that being said we pay less than 2% of our total managed assets to our financial planner annually and this past year was a great year for us with close to a 20% return. We have yet to have a year that delivered less than 8%, even in the worst of years.

    I would find it hard to believe, unless you are a CPA, and a Tax Attorney, and an Estate Attorney, and an ex- or experienced fund manager, that you could provide the same services to your father or anyone else, that our financial team provides to us. Sure anyone can pick a few mutual funds and IRA’s but to truly “manage wealth” you need to be able to do more than pick a few mutual fund/stock/bond winners. Tax implications, tax structuring, insurance, investing, estate planning, LLC management, to name a few are things that I, even with an MBA in finance, are not willing or knowledgeable enough to do alone and <2% a year fee of our total assets feels like I’m stealing from them, especially in the double digit return years!!

    We literally did not lose a penny during this economic downturn and I feel 100% confident that if not for our financial advisor and the firm we would have had substantial losses, like most of the people who manage their own assets had.

    I’d agree that you need to have a certain level of assets and a certain level of complexity to warrant a financial team, but at the very least if you have a high level of assets, the complexities will be there.
     
  17. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    I have to disagree with you here as well. If you all you have are liquid assets then I’m sure you can “handle” it on your own as you have very little to “handle”. I made over a million dollars at the age of 34 when a very well known biotech was acquired. I’m married, my wife is a stay at home mom to our son and we plan on having another child. When I was scratched a seven figure check I didn’t have the first clue of how to invest it, what was best for tax purposes, and now I had to set up a will, an estate, umbrella insurance because now I had assets that I could lose if something happened to me or we were sued. When we had no money there was no risks now that we have more than a million in liquid assets we have a lot to lose, but we also have the means to make gains and we too have a financial planner who has done an excellent job getting us set up. Just getting us through the tax implications the first year was worth every penny.
     
  18. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    No. 15. I know some pretty smart CPA's, tax attorneys and accountants here in New Jersey, the highest taxed state in the country. With all their tricks of the trade, you know what they advised to avoid getting killed on estate taxes? Move to Pennsylvania. With all due respect to you guys, I didn't need to pay someone 2% of my assets for that piece of wisdom.
     
  19. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    If that’s the case than I would argue that you are not talking to highly qualified people. I live in Bergen County and have no intentions of moving to PA and if not for our financial management firm we would be getting hammered on taxes. Again it is all relative. We are fortunate that we had some things go our way over the years and thus we have a lot of assets which comes with exposure that in no way could I manage on my own.

    2% of assets when they are finding ways(that I would never have dreamt of) to make 10% to 20% returns on said assets in bad economic times, let alone some of the windfall years we have had, is a bargain.
     
  20. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    Numbers 13 and 15, we have one thing in common. When Chris Christie runs out of ways to find money for the budget he will reinstitute the "millionaires surtax" (actually it's greater than $400k), and when Obama runs out of ways to fund healthcare, he will put a 30-40% surtax on "Cadillac" healthcare policies, which I assume we both have. So hang on to your good financial planners; we are both about to get clobbered taxwise this year.