Key Points
Any article about retirement is likely to urge you to save more for retirement — or at least to have you thinking you should be saving and investing more.
But some people might be better advised to stop saving for retirement. Here’s a look at Americans’ retirement readiness and at whether you might be able to stop saving.
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Americans’ retirement readiness
There are lots of data points showing that Americans are generally woefully unprepared for retirement. For example, check out these numbers from the 2026 Retirement Confidence Survey:
|
Amount in savings and investments* |
Percentage of workers |
|---|---|
|
Less than $1,000 |
22% |
|
$1,000 to $9,999 |
7% |
|
$10,000 to $24,999 |
7% |
|
$25,000 to $49,999 |
5% |
|
$50,000 to $99,999 |
11% |
|
$100,000 to $250,000 |
14% |
|
$250,000 or more |
35% |
Data source: 2026 Retirement Confidence Survey.
*excluding the value of a primary home
The folks at Fidelity have found that 55% of Americans (and 81% of baby boomers) are in danger of not being able to fully cover estimated essential expenses in retirement, such as housing, healthcare, and food.
Many, if not most, Americans should be saving and investing much more — aiming to amass a nest egg that can support them in retirement.
Might you stop saving for retirement?
How about you? Can you stop saving for retirement? Maybe — if you’ve already socked away enough.
What’s enough? Some estimate $1.5 million, but of course, plenty of people retire fairly successfully on much less. Here are some steps you might take to assess where you are:
- Estimate when you plan to retire. (To be more conservative, perhaps assume you’ll retire a few years before you actually plan to.)
- Inventory your investment portfolio to see how big it is.
- Estimate how much it could grow to by the time you retire. (This is where things get murky, as no one knows exactly how the economy or stock market will do in the coming years.) The stock market has averaged annual gains of close to 10% over many decades, but it has averaged closer to 15% over the past 15 years. You might therefore expect a slowdown and want to estimate an average annual gain of 6%, 7%, or 8%, to be somewhat conservative. For example, according to a Motley Fool calculator, a portfolio of $500,000 growing at 6% annually should be worth around $1.6 million in 20 years. Think about whether that might be sufficient. Withdrawing 4% of that in year one, for example, would yield $64,000.
- Review various withdrawal strategies, thinking about what will suit you best. One rough guide is the 4% rule, but it’s not perfect.
- Keep inflation in mind, too. It has averaged around 3% over long periods. If you’re expecting 6% annual growth and 3% inflation, that results in a “real” expected growth of 3% (6 minus 3).
A different reason you might stop saving for retirement is if you don’t have a ready emergency fund that’s able to sustain you for at least three months. If so, fill that fund before focusing on retirement.
Most folks will want to keep socking away money, but after some number crunching, you might find you’ve likely saved enough.
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