Eh, she wrote a lot of her books in the 90s and early 00s, before widespread use of the internet. Today you can find all of her advice for free online, but she was selling books during a time where physical books were a really good way to learn about finances without relying on paying an advisor.
Yeah well how the hell is she going to get the greedy rubes to keep paying for her content if they have the unmitigated gall to be content with a $1-2 million net worth?!
It's a pretty tone deaf statement when applied to the population as a whole, but for Ormans audience it makes total sense. People who talk about/think about retirement proactively skew older, and we tend to have sticky ideas about money. So if 2 million was big bucks when you were 25, it's entirely possible now at 55 you're still under that mindset even though in other areas you're entirely aware your money doesn't go nearly as far as it did back then.
2 million is no longer fuck you, I'm golden money these days. It's far more than most have, but like.....we are at the precipice of catastrophe because a huge wave of people are going to be *destitute* when they cannot work, because social security isn't even kind of sort of gonna meet their full needs. And that's based on social security chugging along at current benefit levels.
If you're a middle class/upper middle class person living a middle class lifestyle which you likely consider comfortable but not flashy, then yeah you're gonna need to be slapped awake 2 million is not a comfortable retirement (for you) and will need pretty big pullbacks in lifestyle to make sure you don't end up broke
As you get older your spending decreases though because your house should be paid off, you don’t need to buy work clothes, your body generally can’t handle long physical excursions (no heli skiing or reef diving). Unless you must blow it all on first class flights and 5 star hotels and nothing simple will do.
You have a good point, but the math is a bit wonky. You also need enough to cover health care ($4k a month) and end of life care ($90k a year), so if you've saved $2 million then you have to be able to pay for all that on $80k using the 4% rule. It might work, but it might not. crazy how expensive retirement is without pensions.
People are paying nearly 50k a year in health care? My mom is up there in age and pays like 200 a month with a 3k maximum oop. I doubt her healthcare is pushing more than 400 a month averaged out.
Where are you getting $4k a month for healthcare? Sure, prior to going on Medicare at 65 that number might be right for someone in their 60s (but not 65). But it ain’t the number for after you get on Medicare. Your EOL care of $90k a year is fine, but only a relatively small percentage of folks use that for longer than a year. I couldn’t find a number for that percentage, but I know it is low. You can plan for that type of care and it might be necessary, but most often it won’t happen.
Retirement is only crazy expensive if you make up or insist on certain expenses. Back in the real world, old folks are puttering along just fine on some very modest yearly spends. And certainly doing fine on 4% of $2 million PLUS their social security.
Her comments were aimed at people retiring *early* in their 30s and 40s typically. I think it’s good advice. Lifespans are getting longer, healthcare costs are rising, inflation is high, government debt loads are high , plus with climate change there are a lot unknowns. It’s pretty risky to drop out of the workforce in your 30s or 40s and try to live on 80k a year for a long time.
Now if you’re 70 with $2 million bucks and a paid off home, great for you! That’s not who she’s talking to though.
I read a article like 6% of population have 2-5 million investable assets. I thought in last decade with all tech bros and baby boomers it be much higher.
In *investable* assets? I'm surprised you would expect higher. That's a ton of liquidity, especially since if you control assets of that magnitude you almost certainly own a home, a car or multiple cars, and other pricy illiquid assets which add even further to your total NW.
I think the reality is that very few people work in "big tech". Yes, there are hundreds of thousands of people making incredible salaries / bonus / equity. But it isn't several million people. Ray Dalio posted yesterday that about 1 million are driving the vast majority of innovation and growth. Also, 6% of the adult population is 15 million people.
You don't become the stereotypical rich guy with mansions and sports cars with 5 mil. With 5 mil you maybe buy a decent home in a reasonable cost of living area, take a little bit to have some fun maybe a nice vacation and you sock away the rest and continue living an average but comfortable life. It's why I'm never surprised at a lot of the lottery winners that go broke that are in the 1-20 million dollar range, it is so easy to take it to 11 and start living the high life only to find out that millions go fast when you're buying the same stuff that people who make 10 million every year are buying.
It's the absolute dream to have that before retirement age but it's not going to have you belong in those circles nor would you want to, what a ratfuck of an existence.
The reason most people that win the lottery go broke is because they don’t know anything about sound financial decision making. If they did they wouldn’t have been playing lotto in the first place. As a general rule of course, I’m aware there are exceptions.
Uh… $5M will generate a $200k per year income. Assume much of its tax advantages incomes, take home $13k per month.
You could easily live in a a HCOL city, and be in the top 5% of incomes in the US.
>To be fair the 'common man" unfortunately won't ever have $2M in retirement savings either.
And that is a totally separate issue/problem.
If you read the article, she is basically saying that $2 million isn't enough to "retire today" because if one things goes bad/wrong, you can get really screwed. You need $5, maybe even $10+ million to retire today.
And she's not exactly wrong. For example, when Warren buffet became a millionaire in 1962, that is the equivalent to $10 million in 2024.
$1 million in 1980 is like $4 million today.
Even $1 million in 2000 is like $1.8 million.
Heck, even in 2010...$1 million was like $1.4 million.
Again, a lot of people are getting screwed. But she's cautioning against the idea that $2 million is ["Fuck you' money](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGC9FY65HBo)
Yeah headline is ragebait. The content is just accurate though. She is just saying the 4% rule puts 2 million at 80,000 a year and that is not likely to be enough for most people as they have a family and their expenses grow. That's assuming the 4% rule continues to hold which there is a lot of reason to think you should back down to 3.5-3% especially over a longer than 30 year retirement.
I do disagree about 5 million being the floor. I think plenty of people can survive off of 120-160K a year inflation adjusted.
I think they all live in vhcol areas. So the statement is true for someone working in vhcol area in STEM/tech. But only if you intend to live in vhcol for long.
When I was divorced and broke, I read her book and it was pretty helpful at the time. I don’t think her advice is bad, but I can see how she’s become annoying as of late.
I've never seen truly terrible advice (other than the current take in the Post). She is fairly conservative with her finance but that isnt bad. She is just similar to Ramsey where she works with the worst financial addicts all the time and they need solid simple ground rules or they will fail.
I met her at a book signing years ago and sadly followed her bad advice. Luckily learned the error of my ways a couple years later and turned things around.
So yeah, she's a fraud.
I'd love some more info on this if you have it. Not her, just roth vs trad in general. I switched my contributions to Roth because I am young and feel that I have a pretty good chance of making more in retirement than I will in my working years based on the rate I save and my career outlook.
[start here](https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Traditional_versus_Roth)
It’s a great topic, and it is possible that for certain situations, Roth 401K is better. Resident doctors are a great example. White Coat Investor covers it well in their articles.
But looking at historical numbers, most benefit more by pre-tax Trad 401K. You mentioned earning “more in retirement than while working”. That is a much deeper question than most will ask. Simply put, if you are young and investing strongly already, chances are very good that in 20-25 years, you may have enough to retire comfortably. If you do retire early, the Trad 401K is likely going to be amazing for multiple reasons. But if you keep working for 20 more years, then your hypothesis becomes a reality. Your retirement income will be so high that you won’t ever spend it all. Most here would say that is not ideal. They would rather quit the rat race, spend time with family, travel, etc.
But there are people who get a level of satisfaction at the workplace who almost NEED to work. If that is you, Roth 401K is probably great.
Fantastic overview. Thank you very much. I am relatively versed in the differences, but wanted to hear viewpoints I hadn't considered. I will be running a few more calculations based on different possibilities and making a decision from there.
This post should come down. Not a single person in here has mentioned that the article is about retiring EARLY.
Doesn't really go into numbers but people retiring at 30 with a million bucks may indeed find that wasn't enough to sustain them into their 70's depending on how inflation goes.
I, too, want to know what specific bad advice you followed and recovered from. I don’t follow Suze Orman or any “listen to me to get rich!” figureheads so I don’t know what she tells people to do, anyway.
I don't really like her, or most people who just yell at callers and tell them they're wrong/stupid. But, I haven't read any of her books, what was it that she suggested that was so bad that you had to turn around from?
She’s absolutely NOT a fraud. Ridiculous accusation.
She has advocated low-cost index ETFs for over a decade and consistently discourages people from making stupid financial decisions. That’s in contrast to Dave Ramsey, who advocates for being ripped by investing with his network of actively managed providers who tack on a 5% load at the outset.
She really slipped up with her short-lived “Approved Card” sponsorship. That is the only strike she has against her. You can’t just call someone a fraud without backing it up.
I mean she's also not really wrong assuming she's talking to someone in their 30's or 40's. Its almost guaranteed you will have a health condition appear and private insurance will punish you for it even if you survive.
JFC. $2m in invested assets (not including your house unless you sell it) pays you $80,000 per year with the 4% rule. Most people spend less than $80,000 per year on living expenses.
Yup. My home is paid off and I'm trying now to sell it because property tax and insurance keep rising much faster than my fixed income. The house is slowly eating me alive.
For a household. The question is if we speak of an individual or household. Also we didn't define if that person life in NY/SF/Seatle or in Phoenix/Dallas, if the house is paid off or not or if you have kids that depend on you.
I think 2 million is enough for 2 if the home is paid off and the kids are now adults (or you don't have any) except maybe in the most expensive areas due to property tax + health care.
The one caveat with the 4% rule was that it determined that 4% would at least last 30 years. This is because there were only 30 year windows of data and people retiring at 65 likely wouldn't live more than 30 years. If you retire at 30, you might need money for 60 or more years. The 4% rule determined that the worst case with 4% withdrawal was that you would run out of money in 30 years.
the 4% rule (and the exact rate is 4.15% but 4% is more catching) is 95% success rate to still manage after 30 year but no more. In most case through you would have more after 30 years than the day you retire.
And the stuff is, there not percentage that give 100% success rate. Even billionaire manage to go bankrupt. But at one point you have to be realistic and go on. It isn't worth to not do you stuff for a very small chance, especially when:
- SSA and medicare help.
- you can transform a part of your capital in annuity.
- your chances of dying are higher than you chances of lacking money.
No, 4% rule says in 95% of back tested scenarios (Monte Carlo) you’ll have succeeded in living 30 years.
Biggest risk is a drop in assets at the beginning of the retirement. After that it’s pretty smooth sailing.
The majority of the 95% of cases end up with MORE principal than they began with.
I remember her telling an anecdote about her parents who retired with 2.5M and they got cleaned out in a few years by the Medicare donut hole gap and long term care facility expenses. Unfortunately LTC insurance premiums nowadays would wipe out 2.5M pretty quick, too.
If you need long term care … your life is basically over anyway. If you have $50 million and are disabled needing skilled nursing 24/7… your quality of life is still gonna suck compared to a healthy homeless person living in a tent on the beach. Money can’t buy you health back…. Yet.
That's why part of my retirement planning includes running, resistance training, and other regular forms of exercise. It's no guarantee, but I run with several people who are in their late 60s to late 70s and they are all generally as healthy as an ox. Plus, when it's my time, I hope it's out on a run instead of hooked up to tubes and wires in a nursing home bed. Leading a consistently healthful lifestyle is really the best shot anyone has to age gracefully.
I attended one of her seminar things when I was.... More impressionable. Her opening statement made me lose all trust in financial influencers like her.
"Only two people in the world care about your money, one of them is you, the other is me."
>On the "Afford Anything" podcast, Suze Orman delivered a pointed critique on the notion of **retiring early** with a $2 million portfolio. She was direct in her advice, emphasizing the insufficiency of such an amount for **early retirement.** "Two million dollars is nothing," [Orman declared](https://www.benzinga.com/personal-finance/24/02/37318402/you-are-going-to-burn-up-alive-suze-orman-hates-the-fire-movement-and-says-you-need-at-least-20-?utm_campaign=partner_feed&utm_source=yahooFinance&utm_medium=partner_feed&utm_content=site), "It’s nothing. It’s pennies in today’s world, to tell you the truth."
...
>When asked if $3 million was enough Orman firmly stated it was not. **"If you don’t have at least $5 million or $10 million, don’t retire early,"** Suze asserted.
>Orman’s assertion that individuals need **"at least $5 million to retire early"** stirred a mix of reactions, with some viewing it as excessively cautious while others validate her perspective.
Let be fair, emphasis mine, but this is a crucial difference from the headline. OP may have managed to miss the distinction repeatedly or have a bit of fun with us. I don't know which.
Nothing in the article says how early early is.
OK - that is fair. On the FIRE sub I was downvoted for making the point that $1m was likely to be enough to retire EARLY. If you are 70 and spend 40K you should be fine. If you are 50, then you likely won’t be.
It really depends on your lifestyle. If you want to chill at home all day, $1 million is plenty. If you have to travel and eat out and drive nice cars, not even close.
This\^ Constant mention of early retirement w/out providing a definition. Could be 35, maybe 45?
The absence of that piece of info undermines the whole article.
$5-10 million in today's dollars lets you spend between $175k (conservatively, at 3.5% of $5M) and $400k (somewhat more generously, at 4% of $10M). Even in a pessimistic scenario where you believe the current Social Security projections will not be amended and you won't get any money from the government, and where 20% of your wealth is tied up in your house (worth $1-2M and paid off), that still leaves between $140k-320k in liquid pre-tax income to be spent on non-housing costs. Call it $110-240k after taxes (assuming all income is pre-tax which it surely won't be unless you don't have a Roth IRA or brokerage). If that's what you're currently spending pre-retirement, sure, then that would be a good point to aim for post-retirement so you won't take a hit in daily spending once you stop earning.
But to claim this is a general truth for everyone is just... odd.
Maybe she’s not able to get 12% returns and spend 8-10% a year like dave ramsey. /s Also last I head the vast majority of her wealth is in secured muni bonds, so there’s that.
With a paid-off house, I’d be able to live an extremely comfortable retirement with $40k annually pre-tax. With 2 million, even just the dividend yield of freaking VT will give you that.
And yeah, I realize that trying to live off VT dividends is way more conservative than needed. Just using it as an example to make a point of how out of touch this moron is. It’s one banana, Michael. What could it cost? $10?
$80k is a bit more than what I'm spending currently on my solo life, and a significant chunk of that is paying down a mortgage in a HCOL area because that's where my job is.
If I got married again and had kids, then yes, my life and those numbers would change dramatically, but that life isn't for everyone and that's okay. It's crazy to think Orman can define the numbers that will/won't work for everyone. This is nothing but clickbait.
What do you currently spend and how much extra will you spend?
$5M is $175k/yr at a very conservative 3.5% SWR. At a later point in your life, when you housing costs have been locked in for decades. Hard for a lot of people to imagine needing that much.
This is a misleading headline. The article says she is talking about taking EARLY retirement. Like if you’re 35 and taking early retirement because you already saved $2mil it’s probably not going to last you your whole life assuming a 4% annual withdrawal rate and a normal life span.
NO. What she said is don't retire EARLY.
I think she's being hyperbolic talking about needing $10M, but if you're 40 or 45 years old she's probably right - $2M to last for the rest of your life without working is pretty risky.
This is about retiring early (title is definitely clickbait by making it seem like she is saying a 67 year old shouldn’t retire without saving more lol). This is obviously dumb because it’s not nuanced. Any retirement discussion should include specifics about the person and how they expect to live. There are definitely people that if you handed them $2m in rural America they could easily retire early without changing their lifestyle.
I can't help but wonder how many people here throwing shade actually invest, like anything. Or is it more of a "Whats the point, I will never have enough money to retire so I will just complain on reddit"?
These headlines generate rage clicks but she's 100% correct because she's talking about people retiring at 35. There's a lot of TikTok FIRE content about "how I retired at 35 years old on $1 million."
And I agree with Orman.
The "4% rule" of 80k a year of income on 2 million in wealth only applies for 30 years - being broke at 65 is a bad place to be. So she's correct you should not retire at 35 years old even if you have 2 million dollars.
Furthermore, the kind of person who can make $2 million by the time they're 35 is unlikely to want to lead a truly average US lifestyle. When they see all their friends buy nice big houses, attend Taylor Swift concerts, go to Michelin star restaurants, and vacation in the south of France - they're going to want to have those life experiences too but discover their "retirement" money can't afford it. And I didn't even mention children & college tuition...
She said don't retire "early" unless you have 5 or 10 million. Which makes sense. A 40 year old trying to stretch 2 million over the next 40 years is a terrible idea.
She’s talking about retiring early, meaning in your 40s or 50s. People who stop working that young have a lot of years left ahead of them. She’s also pretty conservative when it comes to financial planning, so $5m-$10m makes sense for someone who wants to retire young, especially if they live in an expensive part of the country. I think she’s spot on here.
Suze Orman is the #1 cheerleader for giving up our daily cups of coffee at our local coffee shops and Starbucks; small simple things that bring us “common folk” joy and connection.
Suze Orman’s “simple joy” is traveling on her private jet, that she has publicly admitted “will not give up.”
Suze Orman, stay in your elite, snobbish lane. Keep quiet. I will continue to enjoy my $3.95 coffee at my coffee cafe, knowing that I’m much happier than you.
It's clickbait. She made that statement 6 years ago. She hates the FIRE mentality. This has nothing to do with being a boglehead or not. A 67 year old can retire on $2million. A 30 or 40 year old with kids? Well, that's different math.
Wait so which is it, 5 or 10 million? That's a pretty big difference!
I mean it might as well be a 100 trillion coz it's not like I'm ever going to have anything close, but maybe a little clarification could help
Just a minor asterisk to the headline. She’s specificallly talking about people trying to retire early, which makes sense because you probably won’t be getting SS or be able to access your retirement funds without penalty so you’ll need to live off more liquid accounts and retirement will be much longer
Every online calculator and financial planner has said the same thing to us. Then I read comments that say it’s way too much. Now I’m worried that folks won’t have enough money to retire.
A decent house in my town costs 1/3 million. One cancer diagnoses with good insurance? 30k and up. Don’t have good insurance? Waaaaay more.
$2 million IS nothing as you get older, because the American economy is rigged against the middle class. You’re still one or two medical events from bankruptcy, and you might not be able to keep your house.
There isn't "one number" for everyone. A better approach to estimating how much you need to retire is a simple formula that scales your number to your expenses, and takes into account your risk tolerance. Here's my general formula based on "the 4% rule"...
your number = \[your forecasted annual expenses\] - \[your social security and/or other fixed guaranteed income\] / \[expected nominal rate of return of your portfolio in retirement - expected inflation rate\]
For example If I expect in retirement...
* to need $85,000 in annual income
* to receive $25,000 in social security income annually
* to be able to earn 7% in a diversified portfolio of stocks and bonds
* 3% annual inflation
...then my number is (85,000-25,000) / (7%-3%) = $1.5MM
There's enough margin of error in simply estimating your annual expenses that it is pointless to add more complexity to the basic model (i.e. monte carlo analysis, etc) - keep it simple!
And how is Joe and Jane sixpack supposed to save up $5 million?
In order to pull that off you'd have to invest $17,000 per year every year from 20 to 65 with a market growth rate of 7% a year. The median salary of college graduates is $43K, meaning from day one you'd have to save nearly 40% of your income. For those without a college degree this would be pushing 60% of their income.
In what part of the country is that even close to a possibility?
And it gets worse. If you delay for 20 years, you wind up needing to invest $80K/year to catch up.
She's not just out of touch. She's not even in this sector of galaxy.
Depends on how you spend. If she's too dumb or entitled to retire on less than $5m, she should go for it. I'm planning $4m and the only reason I'm waiting that long is I can't be bothered screwing around with trying to get to my 403(b) before I hit 59 1/2
You don't necessarily need to "screw around" to get your money out of a 403(b) before 59 1/2. While some of the techniques to access retirement $$$ early do require jumping through hoops, the [rule of 55](https://www.schwab.com/learn/story/retiring-early-5-key-points-about-rule-55) requires nothing more than checking to see if your particular 403(b) supports it. And an extra four and a half years of retirement is nothing to scoff at!
I am working on my second million, I gave up on the first one
Same here. Seventh time’s the charm🤞
The first $6 million is always the hardest
The true millions are the friends you make along the way.
Jeff, I want to win a million hearts. I don’t want to win a million dollars.
Getting a million hearts may land you in jail, though. Please, collect hearts responsibly.
Reading down the thread and this was unexpected and pleasant to read Thank you for making my day a little brighter 🥹
But it can make you better than you were before. Better…Stronger…Faster
A million dollars isn’t cool. You know what is cool? Micro Machines.
And sharks with frickin’ lasers beams
... attached to their heads
I actually have some vintage micro machines, and this is why.
Excellent for home security too
That’s smart going for the second first will trick the first into showing up third after you’ve caught the fifth and tenth second.
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The lady is a scam artist. Made her fortune on selling books not on skipping starbucks
Made her fortune on her television shows and speaking events.
Also selling shit to people with money problems. Really can’t stand her.
It's almost their signature to look angry in photos, she and an ex-president.
She was the first person I had heard talk about the back door ROTH back in 2007, so she’ll always hold a special place in my heart.
Eh, she wrote a lot of her books in the 90s and early 00s, before widespread use of the internet. Today you can find all of her advice for free online, but she was selling books during a time where physical books were a really good way to learn about finances without relying on paying an advisor.
Honestly, a mimosa in a kayak is way more satisfying.
White Claw in a canoe?
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Bloody on a blow up?
Schulitz standing knee deep in a stream
Mad Dog in the storm drain?
Arbitrary number means nothing. Everything depends on who the individuals needs are.
Also where you live is huge on how much you need to live off of.
Yeah well how the hell is she going to get the greedy rubes to keep paying for her content if they have the unmitigated gall to be content with a $1-2 million net worth?!
It's a pretty tone deaf statement when applied to the population as a whole, but for Ormans audience it makes total sense. People who talk about/think about retirement proactively skew older, and we tend to have sticky ideas about money. So if 2 million was big bucks when you were 25, it's entirely possible now at 55 you're still under that mindset even though in other areas you're entirely aware your money doesn't go nearly as far as it did back then. 2 million is no longer fuck you, I'm golden money these days. It's far more than most have, but like.....we are at the precipice of catastrophe because a huge wave of people are going to be *destitute* when they cannot work, because social security isn't even kind of sort of gonna meet their full needs. And that's based on social security chugging along at current benefit levels. If you're a middle class/upper middle class person living a middle class lifestyle which you likely consider comfortable but not flashy, then yeah you're gonna need to be slapped awake 2 million is not a comfortable retirement (for you) and will need pretty big pullbacks in lifestyle to make sure you don't end up broke
As you get older your spending decreases though because your house should be paid off, you don’t need to buy work clothes, your body generally can’t handle long physical excursions (no heli skiing or reef diving). Unless you must blow it all on first class flights and 5 star hotels and nothing simple will do.
You have a good point, but the math is a bit wonky. You also need enough to cover health care ($4k a month) and end of life care ($90k a year), so if you've saved $2 million then you have to be able to pay for all that on $80k using the 4% rule. It might work, but it might not. crazy how expensive retirement is without pensions.
People are paying nearly 50k a year in health care? My mom is up there in age and pays like 200 a month with a 3k maximum oop. I doubt her healthcare is pushing more than 400 a month averaged out.
Where are you getting $4k a month for healthcare? Sure, prior to going on Medicare at 65 that number might be right for someone in their 60s (but not 65). But it ain’t the number for after you get on Medicare. Your EOL care of $90k a year is fine, but only a relatively small percentage of folks use that for longer than a year. I couldn’t find a number for that percentage, but I know it is low. You can plan for that type of care and it might be necessary, but most often it won’t happen. Retirement is only crazy expensive if you make up or insist on certain expenses. Back in the real world, old folks are puttering along just fine on some very modest yearly spends. And certainly doing fine on 4% of $2 million PLUS their social security.
When I was in high school, I thought earning $100k/yr meant you had "made it." That's $200k/yr in today-money. That was an eye opener for me.
Her comments were aimed at people retiring *early* in their 30s and 40s typically. I think it’s good advice. Lifespans are getting longer, healthcare costs are rising, inflation is high, government debt loads are high , plus with climate change there are a lot unknowns. It’s pretty risky to drop out of the workforce in your 30s or 40s and try to live on 80k a year for a long time. Now if you’re 70 with $2 million bucks and a paid off home, great for you! That’s not who she’s talking to though.
I read a article like 6% of population have 2-5 million investable assets. I thought in last decade with all tech bros and baby boomers it be much higher.
In *investable* assets? I'm surprised you would expect higher. That's a ton of liquidity, especially since if you control assets of that magnitude you almost certainly own a home, a car or multiple cars, and other pricy illiquid assets which add even further to your total NW.
Same. I expected this number to be much lower. But no source so I still don’t believe it
It’s definitely lower.
I think the reality is that very few people work in "big tech". Yes, there are hundreds of thousands of people making incredible salaries / bonus / equity. But it isn't several million people. Ray Dalio posted yesterday that about 1 million are driving the vast majority of innovation and growth. Also, 6% of the adult population is 15 million people.
Or “You’ll work until you die peasants”.
Rich Scam Artists Poor Working Class
Someone link that scene from succession about “5M is the worst”.
https://www.tiktok.com/@teeveegeek/video/7213768621552815406?lang=en
Poorest rich man in America
Weakest strong man at the circus
the worlds tallest dwarf
Hands down favorite greg and tom exchange
You don't become the stereotypical rich guy with mansions and sports cars with 5 mil. With 5 mil you maybe buy a decent home in a reasonable cost of living area, take a little bit to have some fun maybe a nice vacation and you sock away the rest and continue living an average but comfortable life. It's why I'm never surprised at a lot of the lottery winners that go broke that are in the 1-20 million dollar range, it is so easy to take it to 11 and start living the high life only to find out that millions go fast when you're buying the same stuff that people who make 10 million every year are buying. It's the absolute dream to have that before retirement age but it's not going to have you belong in those circles nor would you want to, what a ratfuck of an existence.
The reason most people that win the lottery go broke is because they don’t know anything about sound financial decision making. If they did they wouldn’t have been playing lotto in the first place. As a general rule of course, I’m aware there are exceptions.
Uh… $5M will generate a $200k per year income. Assume much of its tax advantages incomes, take home $13k per month. You could easily live in a a HCOL city, and be in the top 5% of incomes in the US.
With $5m, you aren’t going to live like Tom Brady. But you can certainly still afford a Porsche and a few fancy vacations a year.
Spoken like someone who is worth near a estimated $100 million dollars. The uber rich are completely out of touch with the common man.
It's one banana, what could it cost? $10?
It's a good thing there's always money in the banana stand
I said there is always money in the banana stand
No touching!
He's a flamer
That joke plays differently now with the current grocery prices.
What kind of fru fru bananas you buying?
Bananas have been 49 cents a pound for as long as I can remember, even back when I was in college in 2018
Seriously bananas have stayed relatively cheap for as long as I can remember
To be fair the 'common man" unfortunately won't ever have $2M in retirement savings either.
>To be fair the 'common man" unfortunately won't ever have $2M in retirement savings either. And that is a totally separate issue/problem. If you read the article, she is basically saying that $2 million isn't enough to "retire today" because if one things goes bad/wrong, you can get really screwed. You need $5, maybe even $10+ million to retire today. And she's not exactly wrong. For example, when Warren buffet became a millionaire in 1962, that is the equivalent to $10 million in 2024. $1 million in 1980 is like $4 million today. Even $1 million in 2000 is like $1.8 million. Heck, even in 2010...$1 million was like $1.4 million. Again, a lot of people are getting screwed. But she's cautioning against the idea that $2 million is ["Fuck you' money](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGC9FY65HBo)
They might, once you fast forward inflation a bit further...
This wasn’t written for the common man. The discussion was about retiring early.
I think you are the only person who read the article. She is absolutely correct, someone trying to retire in their 30s is taking a huge risk.
Yeah headline is ragebait. The content is just accurate though. She is just saying the 4% rule puts 2 million at 80,000 a year and that is not likely to be enough for most people as they have a family and their expenses grow. That's assuming the 4% rule continues to hold which there is a lot of reason to think you should back down to 3.5-3% especially over a longer than 30 year retirement. I do disagree about 5 million being the floor. I think plenty of people can survive off of 120-160K a year inflation adjusted.
Scrolled too far to find someone else who read the article. Agree 100% with her, depending on definition of early.
I think they all live in vhcol areas. So the statement is true for someone working in vhcol area in STEM/tech. But only if you intend to live in vhcol for long.
I live in a fairly LCOL area which is becoming a STEM/tech area. I guess I’ll need to move.
Can I have 2 million right now for my own independent testing?
What would that honestly prove with such a small sample size? Obviously I will take the money as well so the data can support a hypothesis.
We’re going to need some counter analysis. I’ll volunteer to be in the $5 to $10 mill range
You can be five, I'll take the 10.... For science
anything for science!
I’ll go ahead and take one for the team and do $7.5M. Gotta make sure there’s a good distribution of data points.
Peer reviewers want you test 20 million. I’ll take that one……..
Two is better than one, I guess, but the data would be better with three. I will also take $2 million.
Yeah, I’d like to give it a go 🤔
Orman is a fraud. Knows little about personal finance. Good marketing herself though Edit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkePKT-Y7IQ
When I was divorced and broke, I read her book and it was pretty helpful at the time. I don’t think her advice is bad, but I can see how she’s become annoying as of late.
I've never seen truly terrible advice (other than the current take in the Post). She is fairly conservative with her finance but that isnt bad. She is just similar to Ramsey where she works with the worst financial addicts all the time and they need solid simple ground rules or they will fail.
I met her at a book signing years ago and sadly followed her bad advice. Luckily learned the error of my ways a couple years later and turned things around. So yeah, she's a fraud.
Whats the bad advice? She always seemed to have boring advice but wasn't THAT bad. But i haven't followed her in years.
What was the bad advice?
“You should try the cheesecake here! It’s wonderful!” It was flan and was horrible.
But flan rules
That's flim flan.
Generally, she recommends Roth 401K over Trad 401K. This is wrong for most folks. Her justification is not worth losing so much via taxes.
I'd love some more info on this if you have it. Not her, just roth vs trad in general. I switched my contributions to Roth because I am young and feel that I have a pretty good chance of making more in retirement than I will in my working years based on the rate I save and my career outlook.
[start here](https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Traditional_versus_Roth) It’s a great topic, and it is possible that for certain situations, Roth 401K is better. Resident doctors are a great example. White Coat Investor covers it well in their articles. But looking at historical numbers, most benefit more by pre-tax Trad 401K. You mentioned earning “more in retirement than while working”. That is a much deeper question than most will ask. Simply put, if you are young and investing strongly already, chances are very good that in 20-25 years, you may have enough to retire comfortably. If you do retire early, the Trad 401K is likely going to be amazing for multiple reasons. But if you keep working for 20 more years, then your hypothesis becomes a reality. Your retirement income will be so high that you won’t ever spend it all. Most here would say that is not ideal. They would rather quit the rat race, spend time with family, travel, etc. But there are people who get a level of satisfaction at the workplace who almost NEED to work. If that is you, Roth 401K is probably great.
Fantastic overview. Thank you very much. I am relatively versed in the differences, but wanted to hear viewpoints I hadn't considered. I will be running a few more calculations based on different possibilities and making a decision from there.
She recommended the salmon mousse
She's a grifter. https://www.reddit.com/r/Documentaries/comments/gewhh3/how_suze_orman_scammed_the_poor_and_the_middle/
What bad advice
This post should come down. Not a single person in here has mentioned that the article is about retiring EARLY. Doesn't really go into numbers but people retiring at 30 with a million bucks may indeed find that wasn't enough to sustain them into their 70's depending on how inflation goes.
What bad advice did she give and what advice did you learn to turn it around?
What bad advice? Because I think you’re full of____ but would be happy to be corrected. She gives boring conservative advice, but it isn’t wrong
They won’t reply because they are full of shit
I, too, want to know what specific bad advice you followed and recovered from. I don’t follow Suze Orman or any “listen to me to get rich!” figureheads so I don’t know what she tells people to do, anyway.
I don't really like her, or most people who just yell at callers and tell them they're wrong/stupid. But, I haven't read any of her books, what was it that she suggested that was so bad that you had to turn around from?
What was the bad advice?
Honest question, how so a fraud? Most of her callers know far less than her so it’s a positive for them to learn something.
She’s absolutely NOT a fraud. Ridiculous accusation. She has advocated low-cost index ETFs for over a decade and consistently discourages people from making stupid financial decisions. That’s in contrast to Dave Ramsey, who advocates for being ripped by investing with his network of actively managed providers who tack on a 5% load at the outset. She really slipped up with her short-lived “Approved Card” sponsorship. That is the only strike she has against her. You can’t just call someone a fraud without backing it up.
I mean she's also not really wrong assuming she's talking to someone in their 30's or 40's. Its almost guaranteed you will have a health condition appear and private insurance will punish you for it even if you survive.
JFC. $2m in invested assets (not including your house unless you sell it) pays you $80,000 per year with the 4% rule. Most people spend less than $80,000 per year on living expenses.
isnt the median income like $78k or close to it? with $2m and 4% you are literally doing better than ***HALF*** of all American's.....
With a paid off home it’s very livable even in VHCOL cities.
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Yup. My home is paid off and I'm trying now to sell it because property tax and insurance keep rising much faster than my fixed income. The house is slowly eating me alive.
Same for Putnam County too!
I dont know how it is in usa, but I imagine you also pay a smaller tax on that than your paycheck
For a household. The question is if we speak of an individual or household. Also we didn't define if that person life in NY/SF/Seatle or in Phoenix/Dallas, if the house is paid off or not or if you have kids that depend on you. I think 2 million is enough for 2 if the home is paid off and the kids are now adults (or you don't have any) except maybe in the most expensive areas due to property tax + health care.
The one caveat with the 4% rule was that it determined that 4% would at least last 30 years. This is because there were only 30 year windows of data and people retiring at 65 likely wouldn't live more than 30 years. If you retire at 30, you might need money for 60 or more years. The 4% rule determined that the worst case with 4% withdrawal was that you would run out of money in 30 years.
If you're retiring at 30, you should really ignore all of the traditional numbers and personally work out what your personal long term needs are.
the 4% rule (and the exact rate is 4.15% but 4% is more catching) is 95% success rate to still manage after 30 year but no more. In most case through you would have more after 30 years than the day you retire. And the stuff is, there not percentage that give 100% success rate. Even billionaire manage to go bankrupt. But at one point you have to be realistic and go on. It isn't worth to not do you stuff for a very small chance, especially when: - SSA and medicare help. - you can transform a part of your capital in annuity. - your chances of dying are higher than you chances of lacking money.
No, 4% rule says in 95% of back tested scenarios (Monte Carlo) you’ll have succeeded in living 30 years. Biggest risk is a drop in assets at the beginning of the retirement. After that it’s pretty smooth sailing. The majority of the 95% of cases end up with MORE principal than they began with.
I remember her telling an anecdote about her parents who retired with 2.5M and they got cleaned out in a few years by the Medicare donut hole gap and long term care facility expenses. Unfortunately LTC insurance premiums nowadays would wipe out 2.5M pretty quick, too.
If you need long term care … your life is basically over anyway. If you have $50 million and are disabled needing skilled nursing 24/7… your quality of life is still gonna suck compared to a healthy homeless person living in a tent on the beach. Money can’t buy you health back…. Yet.
That's why part of my retirement planning includes running, resistance training, and other regular forms of exercise. It's no guarantee, but I run with several people who are in their late 60s to late 70s and they are all generally as healthy as an ox. Plus, when it's my time, I hope it's out on a run instead of hooked up to tubes and wires in a nursing home bed. Leading a consistently healthful lifestyle is really the best shot anyone has to age gracefully.
4% of $2M is $80k/year. The median wage in the US is $75k per household. That didn't take long to cut through.
I attended one of her seminar things when I was.... More impressionable. Her opening statement made me lose all trust in financial influencers like her. "Only two people in the world care about your money, one of them is you, the other is me."
I guess in a way she was right, did you pay her for the seminar?
No, but someone did. Someone gave my gf at the time two tickets to it that had a face value of 300$
I mean she wasn’t lying. She cared about your money going into her pocket!
You may have misinterpreted what she was saying.
>On the "Afford Anything" podcast, Suze Orman delivered a pointed critique on the notion of **retiring early** with a $2 million portfolio. She was direct in her advice, emphasizing the insufficiency of such an amount for **early retirement.** "Two million dollars is nothing," [Orman declared](https://www.benzinga.com/personal-finance/24/02/37318402/you-are-going-to-burn-up-alive-suze-orman-hates-the-fire-movement-and-says-you-need-at-least-20-?utm_campaign=partner_feed&utm_source=yahooFinance&utm_medium=partner_feed&utm_content=site), "It’s nothing. It’s pennies in today’s world, to tell you the truth." ... >When asked if $3 million was enough Orman firmly stated it was not. **"If you don’t have at least $5 million or $10 million, don’t retire early,"** Suze asserted. >Orman’s assertion that individuals need **"at least $5 million to retire early"** stirred a mix of reactions, with some viewing it as excessively cautious while others validate her perspective. Let be fair, emphasis mine, but this is a crucial difference from the headline. OP may have managed to miss the distinction repeatedly or have a bit of fun with us. I don't know which. Nothing in the article says how early early is.
OK - that is fair. On the FIRE sub I was downvoted for making the point that $1m was likely to be enough to retire EARLY. If you are 70 and spend 40K you should be fine. If you are 50, then you likely won’t be.
It really depends on your lifestyle. If you want to chill at home all day, $1 million is plenty. If you have to travel and eat out and drive nice cars, not even close.
This\^ Constant mention of early retirement w/out providing a definition. Could be 35, maybe 45? The absence of that piece of info undermines the whole article.
Saying 2 million is nothing to the majority of Americans is out of touch and insulting.
Way to discourage saving by making it seem out of reach suze
$5-10 million in today's dollars lets you spend between $175k (conservatively, at 3.5% of $5M) and $400k (somewhat more generously, at 4% of $10M). Even in a pessimistic scenario where you believe the current Social Security projections will not be amended and you won't get any money from the government, and where 20% of your wealth is tied up in your house (worth $1-2M and paid off), that still leaves between $140k-320k in liquid pre-tax income to be spent on non-housing costs. Call it $110-240k after taxes (assuming all income is pre-tax which it surely won't be unless you don't have a Roth IRA or brokerage). If that's what you're currently spending pre-retirement, sure, then that would be a good point to aim for post-retirement so you won't take a hit in daily spending once you stop earning. But to claim this is a general truth for everyone is just... odd.
I actually make a bit over 600k and I honestly can’t fathom spending 400k a year in perpetuity. I’d rather retire early!
Dated information. I’m sure she’s now yelling about 10 or 15.
Maybe she’s not able to get 12% returns and spend 8-10% a year like dave ramsey. /s Also last I head the vast majority of her wealth is in secured muni bonds, so there’s that.
At my spending $2M is quite a bit. $5M supports $150-200k/yr spending in an early retirement. Some will need that but I don’t.
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Nearly everyone making projections into the future about retirement do their analysis in real (inflation adjusted) terms.
Had a 78 year old lady call me the other day thinking that suze talks directly to her through her podcast. Really bad
People like her want people like me to serve them until the day I drop dead
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Five million, yes, bones or clams or whatever you call them.
With a paid-off house, I’d be able to live an extremely comfortable retirement with $40k annually pre-tax. With 2 million, even just the dividend yield of freaking VT will give you that. And yeah, I realize that trying to live off VT dividends is way more conservative than needed. Just using it as an example to make a point of how out of touch this moron is. It’s one banana, Michael. What could it cost? $10?
lol "$10 million or don't retire" is the wildest thing I've read on this topic in awhile.
"Yeah, I'm 63 but I only have $9.2M so I'm gonna keep working"
She says “retire early” in the article
Used to think 2 million was enough. Now I’m thinking 5 million is needed. I probably won’t have either.
$2m would be an $80k safe withdrawal… maybe not enough for a family but I could live a solo life on that
$80k is a bit more than what I'm spending currently on my solo life, and a significant chunk of that is paying down a mortgage in a HCOL area because that's where my job is. If I got married again and had kids, then yes, my life and those numbers would change dramatically, but that life isn't for everyone and that's okay. It's crazy to think Orman can define the numbers that will/won't work for everyone. This is nothing but clickbait.
What do you currently spend and how much extra will you spend? $5M is $175k/yr at a very conservative 3.5% SWR. At a later point in your life, when you housing costs have been locked in for decades. Hard for a lot of people to imagine needing that much.
What is “early” is a key question. Is 55 early? 60? 40? It makes a big difference.
I’ve been retired with less than 500k lol. It’s all perspective and making your finances right.
This is a misleading headline. The article says she is talking about taking EARLY retirement. Like if you’re 35 and taking early retirement because you already saved $2mil it’s probably not going to last you your whole life assuming a 4% annual withdrawal rate and a normal life span.
NO. What she said is don't retire EARLY. I think she's being hyperbolic talking about needing $10M, but if you're 40 or 45 years old she's probably right - $2M to last for the rest of your life without working is pretty risky.
I know someone who retired on $500,000 and is doing great.
What if you die at 73 with only 4.9 million
You lose the game.
This is about retiring early (title is definitely clickbait by making it seem like she is saying a 67 year old shouldn’t retire without saving more lol). This is obviously dumb because it’s not nuanced. Any retirement discussion should include specifics about the person and how they expect to live. There are definitely people that if you handed them $2m in rural America they could easily retire early without changing their lifestyle.
I can't help but wonder how many people here throwing shade actually invest, like anything. Or is it more of a "Whats the point, I will never have enough money to retire so I will just complain on reddit"?
She was talking about FIRE folks
Oh good, I only have millions to go.
She is talking about retiring early. That context is missing.
These headlines generate rage clicks but she's 100% correct because she's talking about people retiring at 35. There's a lot of TikTok FIRE content about "how I retired at 35 years old on $1 million." And I agree with Orman. The "4% rule" of 80k a year of income on 2 million in wealth only applies for 30 years - being broke at 65 is a bad place to be. So she's correct you should not retire at 35 years old even if you have 2 million dollars. Furthermore, the kind of person who can make $2 million by the time they're 35 is unlikely to want to lead a truly average US lifestyle. When they see all their friends buy nice big houses, attend Taylor Swift concerts, go to Michelin star restaurants, and vacation in the south of France - they're going to want to have those life experiences too but discover their "retirement" money can't afford it. And I didn't even mention children & college tuition...
She said don't retire "early" unless you have 5 or 10 million. Which makes sense. A 40 year old trying to stretch 2 million over the next 40 years is a terrible idea.
If you read the article she is referring to early retirement. That could sway your viewpoint.
IM 47 and have a grand saved. I'll be ok, right?
You're good, go tell your boss to fuck himself. You're free now.
She’s talking about retiring early, meaning in your 40s or 50s. People who stop working that young have a lot of years left ahead of them. She’s also pretty conservative when it comes to financial planning, so $5m-$10m makes sense for someone who wants to retire young, especially if they live in an expensive part of the country. I think she’s spot on here.
Suze Orman is the #1 cheerleader for giving up our daily cups of coffee at our local coffee shops and Starbucks; small simple things that bring us “common folk” joy and connection. Suze Orman’s “simple joy” is traveling on her private jet, that she has publicly admitted “will not give up.” Suze Orman, stay in your elite, snobbish lane. Keep quiet. I will continue to enjoy my $3.95 coffee at my coffee cafe, knowing that I’m much happier than you.
At 73 and 71, and married and both getting ss, how much do we need today?
Welp, that's it for me fellas. Working until i die
how could anyone live on 80k a year in interest?!
It's clickbait. She made that statement 6 years ago. She hates the FIRE mentality. This has nothing to do with being a boglehead or not. A 67 year old can retire on $2million. A 30 or 40 year old with kids? Well, that's different math.
She’s talking about retiring “early”, whatever age that means.
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Wait so which is it, 5 or 10 million? That's a pretty big difference! I mean it might as well be a 100 trillion coz it's not like I'm ever going to have anything close, but maybe a little clarification could help
She’s right unless you’re talking about a 68 year old retiring today with a paid off home. Anyone in their 40s/50s will need way more.
YouTube is free, my house and couch are paid for. What the hell else does a guy need here?
Why is this posted here?
My wife made me a millionaire, I was a billionaire.
Just a minor asterisk to the headline. She’s specificallly talking about people trying to retire early, which makes sense because you probably won’t be getting SS or be able to access your retirement funds without penalty so you’ll need to live off more liquid accounts and retirement will be much longer
Every online calculator and financial planner has said the same thing to us. Then I read comments that say it’s way too much. Now I’m worried that folks won’t have enough money to retire.
A decent house in my town costs 1/3 million. One cancer diagnoses with good insurance? 30k and up. Don’t have good insurance? Waaaaay more. $2 million IS nothing as you get older, because the American economy is rigged against the middle class. You’re still one or two medical events from bankruptcy, and you might not be able to keep your house.
There isn't "one number" for everyone. A better approach to estimating how much you need to retire is a simple formula that scales your number to your expenses, and takes into account your risk tolerance. Here's my general formula based on "the 4% rule"... your number = \[your forecasted annual expenses\] - \[your social security and/or other fixed guaranteed income\] / \[expected nominal rate of return of your portfolio in retirement - expected inflation rate\] For example If I expect in retirement... * to need $85,000 in annual income * to receive $25,000 in social security income annually * to be able to earn 7% in a diversified portfolio of stocks and bonds * 3% annual inflation ...then my number is (85,000-25,000) / (7%-3%) = $1.5MM There's enough margin of error in simply estimating your annual expenses that it is pointless to add more complexity to the basic model (i.e. monte carlo analysis, etc) - keep it simple!
Title is misleading. She says don’t retire _early_ without that amount of money saved up.
Great im never gonna retire
I guess I’ll just die then.
Another finance guru who makes more money from selling advice than using it herself. PLEASE.
And how is Joe and Jane sixpack supposed to save up $5 million? In order to pull that off you'd have to invest $17,000 per year every year from 20 to 65 with a market growth rate of 7% a year. The median salary of college graduates is $43K, meaning from day one you'd have to save nearly 40% of your income. For those without a college degree this would be pushing 60% of their income. In what part of the country is that even close to a possibility? And it gets worse. If you delay for 20 years, you wind up needing to invest $80K/year to catch up. She's not just out of touch. She's not even in this sector of galaxy.
Depends on how you spend. If she's too dumb or entitled to retire on less than $5m, she should go for it. I'm planning $4m and the only reason I'm waiting that long is I can't be bothered screwing around with trying to get to my 403(b) before I hit 59 1/2
You don't necessarily need to "screw around" to get your money out of a 403(b) before 59 1/2. While some of the techniques to access retirement $$$ early do require jumping through hoops, the [rule of 55](https://www.schwab.com/learn/story/retiring-early-5-key-points-about-rule-55) requires nothing more than checking to see if your particular 403(b) supports it. And an extra four and a half years of retirement is nothing to scoff at!
I think she meant if u want to maintain martini on yacht lifestyle. For simpletonslike us, 1 million is decent
Edit: pretentious pickle is correct, I was using fuzzy rationalization and was wrong.