I’m a 41-year-old doctor who’s finally making good money after years of training – how do I calculate how much I need to save?

A Reddit user who has completed her medical training has recently seen her income go from $250K to $450K per year. She’s 41 and her husband is 45 and he makes $80,000.

The couple has two young kids, they have already saved $750K for retirement, and they have some money in a 529 account. However, the poster feels her kids’ college accounts are underfunded.  She’s also indicated that her goal is to be able to retire in her 60s with $200K a year in annual spending but she’s not sure how much money she needs to save in order to make that happen. 

So, how much will she need to save to be on track for her target retirement date?

This is how much to save to spend $200K in retirement

If the poster wants to be able to spend $200K as a retiree, she’ll need to first figure out how big her account balance needs to be in order to generate that amount of income each year.

That will depend on her desired withdrawal rate. If she opts to be conservative and use a 3.7% withdrawal rate — which is what experts now say is safe given projected future returns and projected future lifespans — she would need to have around $5,405,000 invested by the time she’s 60 to have the income she wants.  That’s assuming she’s not taking Social Security into account in her calculations, since she won’t be able to claim that until at least age 62. 

She’d next need to consider what her ROI is going to be. It’s pretty reasonable to expect around an 8% average annual return, but she may decide to be more or less conservative in her estimates.  Estimating your projected returns is crucial to setting savings goals, because the higher your returns, the less you personally have to invest. 

Armed with this information, the Redditor can use the calculator on Investor.gov  to determine exactly how much to invest in order to end up with the necessary amount of money given that she’s starting with $750K invested and has 19 years left until she wants to retire. 

If she does use that 8% ROI for her estimates, then she’d need to invest around $4,359.51 per month to hit her target — or $52,314.12 each year. Given that she’s making $450K annually, that’s only around 12% of her income which should easily be doable. 

Since the Redditor wants to retire at 60, rather than earlier, she’ll also be old enough to begin making withdrawals from a 401(k) and IRA account when she’s ready to leave the workforce. That means she can take advantage of the tax breaks that come from investing in these accounts, which makes it easier to save since the government subsidizes her contributions. 

Working with a financial advisor could help her to hit her goal

While it should be pretty easy for the Redditor to reach her target retirement goal, she should seriously consider talking with a financial advisor to get help both in confirming how much she should invest and in developing a strategy to accomplish all her financial objectives. 

Since she wants to both retire at a young age and deal with her underfunded 529 plans, an advisor can work with her to create a comprehensive budget and ensure that she’s using her money in the wisest way possible to take care of all these needs.

Since she has plenty of income and a good start with her $750K in savings already, getting professional advice will ensure that she’s able to use her funds wisely and achieve all of the dreams that she has for herself and her family financially. 

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