Are We Saving Too Much?

Yesterday, I read an article on New York Times with the title "A Contrarian View: Save Less, Retire With Enough" [Registration required]. Without reading the article, the message seemed to be very clear: maybe we are saving more than necessary.

If you visit any of the big mutual fund firms' website, such as Vanguard, Fidelity, or T. R. Price,you will find that they all offer a tool (or a calculator) to estimatehow much you will need for retirement, based on, for example, your age, current income level, current retirement assets, annual contribution to retirement accounts, expected returns, and life expectations, etc. Onceyou provide all these information, the calculator will tell you the estimated number you are going to need for a comfortable retirement.For me, I tried Fidelity's myPlan a couple of moths ago, and the number I got was a shocking $6M. Vanguard's calculator gave a slight lowered number, but still at more than $4M (Super Saver has a review of T. R. Price retirement calculator). If I believe what the numbers are telling me, then the prospect of my golden years won't be pretty.

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