Check out the stats on NetworthIQ. You’ll see that the averages are skewed because some people jump in there and say they have a NW of $26 million at age 30… ok. The medians sound reasonable in most cases.

NG

The accident forgiveness and long term customer discounts are all tricks to get you to stay. If another company is cheaper than your company with “long term discount” applied, what good is that discount doing you? The math on the chances of having an accident are pretty basic and appling that chance of premium increases versus the savings are easy to do. Last I looked one of the companies offering forgiveness charges about 10% a year more for those policies, and most accident surcharges are 10%.

Finally, your agent doesn’t set your rates, so he might be a nice guy and good for the community, but if corporate is screwing you on your rates, he can’t help you, and you’re just overpaying some faceless company far away.

The problem with that premise is that unless you’re really a jet-setter, you probably don’t NEED that much money when you’re retired to live a comfortable, fun lifestyle (assuming you got your house paid off while you were still working).

This isn’t to say you shouldn’t try your best to save money for retirement, but something is better than nothing and a lot of the literature is really intimidating.

However, with respect to one’s own finances, what others are doing is irrelevant. There are 2 major questions each person has to answer for himself or herself:

1) How much will you need to retire?
2) Are you doing enough to reach your goal?

I disagree. You get (sometimes substantial) discounts applied for being a loyal customer. But beyond that, because I’ve stuck with my company for so long, they will ‘forget about’ a future at-fault accident, meaning even if an accident is my fault, my rates won’t go up.

Also, I did try shopping aorund once and the quote I got from Geico was substantially more expensive than my current carrier.

Is it important how fast or slow one is running compared to other lemmings?

It takes about an hour on the phone or online to get the quotes, but 20% savings isn’t unrealistic.

While its interesting to see what people are spending I think the context of the data might skew the numbers beyond usability. Though it might make for interesting trivia.

You’re right about what the survey considers for retirement savings. It doesn’t include home equity or defined benefit plans, but all other savings and investments.

One thing that I didn’t note is that the EBRI is alarmed that though few people have adequate retirement savings, most people believe they’ll have enough saved when the time comes. There are some crazy unrealistic expectations about what is needed to retire.

I know, nothing to turn your nose up at, but how in the heck are so many young people hitting such a high mark so early?

I didn’t click though to the survey… what to do they consider “retirement savings”. I’m only counting 401K and Roth IRAs… not the value of my home or anything like that. I have no other investments.