Should I Ever Stop Saving for Retirement?

I couldn't care less...I spend when I spend..

Your clear financial wisdom combined with your appreciation of life beyond the almighty dollar is so refreshing. Thank you!

I recognize this pattern of deferring living until a goal is met. I've become better at it, and currently don't have any hindering goals. I'll have to keep this in mind the next time I do.

Good content , u just confirmed my financial strategy.. thanks.

This was very useful, thank you

Excellent advice.

you are awesome! I love to stop saving now. It really makes sense just to stop and smell the roses.

I know that you are just using a hypothetical situation, however within the first 2 minuets of this video I already see several flaws. 1st most 25 years old are not even thinking about saving for retirement because they are trying to get their life going. So the notion that they are able to save 10000 a year is laughable. They are trying to pay off their student loans and if married thinking about if and when they want to start a family, then you add a kid(or two) in the mix.. Even a two income household would find it challenging to save 10 grand a year. You need the house and the car to go along with that family you are starting.. So I guess my point is for probably 99 percent of the folks out there they will not be able to stop saving for retirement. 🤷‍♂

After 10-20 years I dont think your savings would still be 10K/mo. They should incease with inflation and salary increases. A percentage savings rate would be a better comparison. But yes, as the savings grow, my net worth now grows much more with growth and dividends than my working salary.

The dollar you save today is for consumption 30 years later. Your age today doesnt matter.
You can save at 50 and consume at 80

Answer: never

Good point. And realizing you've crossed the finish line is not easy. It's stressful because no one knows the future. I retired 20 years ago at 45 and I kept running the numbers in my head, watching my spending and thinking about what I wanted in the future. I didn't have a big pile of money, only about $100k and a $2200/mo mortgage. I wasn't sure I had retired. I could still be productive and I like being productive and thinking out of the box. I had been a software engineer, loved it, and continued to write software for fun. But just writing software for 30, 40 years would I then look back and wish I'd done other things. Plus I had gotten married a couple years earlier and knew if divorced the higher my salary grew the more I'd have to pay in alimony and that force me to keep working. Plus losing 1/2 my assets. So I decided to retire.

What the money did allow me to do is try new things that probably wouldn't earn a lot, but I didn't need a lot. I fixed up that house in San Jose CA, sold and moved to Phoenix buying a house for cash. Not having a mortgage changes the way I looked at expenses. Paying $2200/mo made other expenses look small. Going out to eat for $50 looked like nothing. But once the mortgage was gone other expenses started looking like a lot of money. My life got simpler and happier, or as happy.

wow thanks for this. I'm going to save for my business and stop padding my 401k.

I stopped saving for retirement…because I invest for retirement instead. As the investments grew, they started to pay the amount that I would save annually. The. They started to make car payments. I put the car on payments because the larger amount of capital allowed access to investments with higher return. In 5 years, you own the car and still have the investment amount. Trade the car in later and either enjoy less payments due to a high down payment or put the minimum down and buy an even larger investment that covers the cost of the car and operating costs as well. That will snowball until you have the car completely taken care of.

My retirement is based on how much money per annum you get paid cash flow and how much you make in capital gains or deferred payments. When all is set properly, you will see everything increase hands off after you subtract cost of living.

to all you people with tons of money and not enjoying it. just look at the obituary's and see who died today, and check out how old they were. a lot of people die young or what i think is young , under 65.

It's so true, I was not used to withdrawing money instead of saving. My regret is not spending my money earlier. Wish I went overseas before tis pande.

Once again we are told that without 2 mil saved we cannot retire. How many retired millionaires do you know?

Beautifully elaborated with solid reasoning

I haven’t stopped saving for retirement, but I have scaled back on the 401K just so there is enough contribution to get the company match. I might as well take the free money the company is providing as a benefit. I’ve been putting the rest into a brokerage account, not for retirement, but as fun money.

I can't enjoy life while working. I'm "only" 41 years old. I have around $500,000 so I could probably stop saving and retire at 65 (or even earlier) but I hate work so much I think about suicide. Spending my money isn't going to make me enjoy work at all.

New sub here. Great work

Important to save and invest, but I think the most part is limit the debt

I'm doing this my own way. I'm maxing out a Roth 401k, and supplementing with deferred 401k withdrawals to pay taxes on that now. This will give tax flexibility in the future.

Let’s throw a solid 7-10% INFLATION into this equation. Maybe your next video.

While you are saving for retirement, your debts and home need to pay off prior to your retirement and get your LTC policy while you’re in your 50’s.

Great video! Subscribed!

I also stopped contributing 5 years before retirement. But I guess it's no big harm for most people to keep contributing, such as to a brokerage account. If you have extra money, you have to put it somewhere -- better into a brokerage account than a low-yield bank account or under your pillow. If you do stop contributing, all your ducks have to be in line: you know what you're doing in your investment, you already have an emergency fund put aside, you have a good projection of what your nest egg will be like N years from now, and you have a good idea of your expense during retirement.

Who the hell makes 10% growth every year? Some years the 1oK you put in is dollar cost averaged or appears to disappear.

Thank you so much for this video. I needed guidance and found this video very informative. Once again, thank you.

This is the situation I'm in. I've saved all my life and now need to learn how to spend in my retirement. I have a $6.8M portfolio at 58 yo and have started working with a wealth planner to implement Roth conversions and reassess my portfolio to reduce my yearly taxes through all my mutual funds capital gains. What am I saying for now? 35 years as an executive in the corporate world and I hated it - so retired at 56.

This right here is not talked about enough. I struggle with this very thing. I’m already at coast FIRE but feel that I need to continue to max out all my accounts to feel peace of mind. I do plan on stopping working all together at 50 in 12 years.

Good video, that's a strategy I've been using to plan out retirement. I looked at retiring in my late 50's, but then I looked at medical insurance costs and that was a shocker! I decided to keep working until 65 when Medicare kicked in and my house would be paid off, plus I reduced my savings/investments contributions and put that money towards renovations on my house to make it comfy for the next 30 years. The renovations are done, the house is paid off, and 65 is about a year away. All set for the next "round" of life! (and I don't mean rounds of golf . . . not a fan!).

Great thoghts. I understand this is focus on US tax situation. If you have a middle-class salary like mine of usd 120t , the tax bill is rather moderate and therefore you can really consider on stop saving. What great luck American have. In my country, Switzerland, it is really hell. The total tax is about 70% of the brut income, if you do not go on saving. So you stop saving means, you still have to save, not for you, but for filling the government pocket. And clearly this is no option I would ever consider.

I have no choise. Every year I have to transfer my usd 120t from my free funds to a retiring account to get the 0-tax bill.

I wish I could change tax-residency to USA.

Wonderful video. It is hard to leave that ROTH money on the table. At almost 52, being able to add 27K to my ROTH 401K (ROTH and catch up ROTH) and another 7K ROTH to my IRA (backdoor) is a huge benefit but you are right in that when I plug "new" money into my retirement calculator I can see that the next 3 years before I turn 55 and retire, do not really change my retirement number all that much. In fact it changes very little above the actual dollars that I add today because it has had less time to grow. The money we added decades ago is doing all the heavy work. Still having more ROTH, even with the immediate tax hit, seems like a worthwhile pursuit until 55 and retirement.

Despite being an Indian, I gave a huge thumbs up for this video !!!!!!

Mind blown...🤯

I'm probably at the point where I don't need to save any more for retirement. I have been trying to change my mindset a bit and am making a couple significant purchases that will improve my life quality while not impacting my finances for retirement. I still enjoy tinkering in the stock market, so would like to continue working at finding successful investments.

Great advice….a different perspective.

Your videos are so well packaged and polished so well! They're informative and easy to follow. I wish I was at the $2M million mark but not quite there.

I guess one could save the last few years as cash (income fund) and that could be your cash bucket in case portfolio goes down in retirement. I think that would make a bigger difference having it as a cach cushion. Maybe some in i-bond, some in cash, some in save index find, etc.

This was so true until I hit2022. Now my contrubutions are to make up part of the lose

I want to grow for my Legacy!

My wife and I were blessed to figure this out early. We hit it hard before we had kids and both maxed out 401K's and IRA's. It took some sacrifices but we were young and didn't miss the money at the time. By the time the kids were old enough to enjoy and remember experiences we were able to lay off of the savings and allow the money already in the portfolio to provide the growth we need.

Great explanation

Here is why to keep saving when it appears you have met your retirement income goals. You assumed an 8% return on investment during the accumulation phase. What would be the result of your retirement if the return during your 30 years of retirement is 1%. And you based your income needs from your portfolio at 3.2%. The "oversaving" can be thought of as an insurance policy for running out of money in retirement. Another reason for "oversaving" is you cannot predict if you will have some large expense over your 30 years of retirement. And what if your retirement ends up being 40 years --- that "oversaving" would come into play here.

My wife and I go on international trekking trips (I’m 41 and she’s a bit younger) every other year and on those trips without fail, we meet retirees who tell us they wish they didn’t wait and did more when they were younger like us. We’re privileged in that we’re able — I know that, but I think your point is a good one. Find the balance in life as soon as you can. Your youth is more valuable than any amount in a portfolio.

Our portfolio is healthy but we have two problems. We love our careers and are still enjoying them in our late 60s. The second problem is that the pandemic taught us that our favourite things don't cost much money! We love hiking and walking, listening to audio books, playing games, watching good movies. Sure we can take trips to do those things in more interesting places but more expensive things don't guarantee more enjoyment.

When to stop saving? Never! There will be times to spend, but that's not all the time. Some months you will have money left at the end. What do you do with it? You don't just spend because you can! The theory that you spend less as you age scares me. That's not always the case. You may need to hire help for housework, or lawn care. Maybe even full time. That can be expensive! If you end up in a nursing home, that can be over a hundred thousand dollars a year.