Retirement Calculator: What Is the Average 401(K) Balance of a 60-Year-Old

Hi there. Stan The Annuity Man, America's annuity agent, licensed in all 50 states. We're talking about retirement calculators how much a 60-year-old has in their 401k. I get that question a lot, how much does a 60-year-old have or how much money does a 70-year-old have in retirement, et cetera.

We will cover those things, and I will give you some stats that my staff researched that are pretty cool. The bottom line is to visit my site at The Annuity Man. We have annuity calculators you can use, but I encourage you to use those first and then set a time with us. Then, I can get involved in the process because most quotes are customizable, and you need to know what you don't know. You're going into the annuity space. You're trying to learn. You go to my site. You download my books. You set a time, and you get on the phone, and we talk to you and have a one-on-one.

Annuities are customizable, so there's not just a one-size-fits-all, even though many people sell them as such. I want you to think, when you think annuities or you're thinking retirement calculators, it's all about what you want, what your goals are, and what you want to contractually solve for. Forget the products that are being pitched to you. Forget all that. Forget all the nonsense. Forget all the ads. Forget all of that. It comes down to a customizable solution, and hopefully, I can be a part of that and help you with that.

What's the Average 401K Balance?

So, what's the average 401k balance of a 60-year-old? We looked it up. It's a little less than $200,000, which isn't enough to live off of. We all know that. I read some sites, and I thought this was pretty interesting. They think you should have eight times your final salary in a 401k. I love these arbitrary things like that, but that was kind of interesting as well. But most people don't have that. Most people have a good lump sum in their 401k, and they're looking at their investments as a whole, and they're saying, "Okay, I need to go to some of these sites and do some retirement calculators and figure out this, and I'd rather not speak to anybody because I don't want anybody to sell me and I don't want to get on anyone's mailing list and I don't want them to hound me and call me and show up at my door."

Our Process

I get that. I'm the same person. When I started The Annuity Man a long, long time ago, I used to be with Morgan Stanley, Dean Witter, and UBS; I don't like people calling me and trying to sell me something. I want all the information that I want. I want to request it. I want to get it in, and I want you to leave me the heck alone so I can make a decision on my terms and my timeframe. That's how we've done it at The Annuity Man.

People always say, "Annuities aren't bought, they're sold. All annuities are sold." You come and work with me, you're going to buy it. Here's the way the typical process goes. You go to our site, you use our retirement calculators, our annuity calculators. Then you schedule a call with us, okay? If you haven't downloaded my books by then, make sure to download them. It's free. Then we get on the phone, we do all the talking, we go through all your goals. We ask you two questions. What do you want the money to contractually do, and when do you want those contractual guarantees to start? We do all of that. We will send you the quotes and all the information that you need. If you want a specimen policy, we will send it to you, and then we will leave you alone. We really do.

Now, you can email or call with questions just to clarify things if you have any specific questions, but here's how the buying process goes. With every single person, thousands and thousands of people, all 50 states, I get an email that says, "Hey Stan, I'm ready to move forward. What are the next steps?" Typically, I've explained those next steps to you during the last call, but, "What's the next steps. Ready to move forward," or they'll call me, "Hey Stan, ready to go," calling me, emailing me. That's how the process works. That's how it should work.

Lifetime Income Annuities

Our retirement calculators and annuity calculators aren't some guys who get your information and pound you into oblivion. No, it's for you to understand the contractual realities of what's out there. Remember that when you're looking for lifetime income with annuities, and annuities are the only product on the planet that solve contractually for lifetime income, you can never outlive the money. That's what lifetime means. You can go and use our calculators all day long and look at the numbers and start looking at, "Hey, this is what this amount is going to pay," but remember that income from annuities is primarily based on your life expectancy or life expectancies if it's joint with the spouse or partner at the time you take the payment. The older you are, the higher the payment.

Sound familiar? Social security, anyone? It's the best annuity on the planet for inflation. Social Security. The older you are, the higher the payment. I hear it all the time. "Well, Stan, I was thinking about taking my Social Security at 65, but I'm going to wait until I'm 70 because when I'm 70, the payments are higher." Why? Because you're older. Same thing with annuities. Do not make it any more difficult than that. Do not look at annuities as investments because they're not. They're transfer risk products. That's all you're doing, transferring the risk to the carrier to pay you for the rest of your life or to pay you and your spouse.

One of the things that I hear all the time from people that are looking at annuities for income is, "I would never buy an annuity, Stan, because when you die, the money goes poof." That's one of about 40 ways to structure it. That's called life only. It's the highest payment. But you don't have to do that. You can structure it contractually so that you're going to get a lifetime income stream, and when you die, the income stream continues uninterrupted and unchanged for your spouse, and when they die, whatever's left in the account goes to the beneficiaries, meaning that the evil annuity company doesn't keep a penny.

The Questions

Surprised? Don't be. That's the way that we will set up the contract. That's why it's important for us to talk, because we will ask you those questions about you, your spouse, your partner, what the goals are, what the overall assets are. Do you need lifetime income? Do you need principal protection? Do you need legacy? Do you want to solve for confinement care? What do you want to do? And then I'm going to go at it trying to use as little amount of money possible to solve contractually for that goal.

Now, let me repeat that. We're going to try to use as little money as possible to contractually solve for your goal. It's really that simple. You don't put all your money into annuities. The annuity industry doesn't even want that. In fact, they want about 50% tops. It doesn't mean you have to buy one, but if you decide that annuities fit about 50% tops of your overall investible assets, non-home, but investible assets, they feel comfortable with annuities, regardless of type.

The regardless of type part of it is where we come in because I want to make sure that you're choosing the right type. If you ask the question, what do you want the money to contractually do, and when do you want those contractual guarantees to start, those are the two questions that you need to ask. Period. Again, what do you want the money to contractually do, underline contractual, and when do you want those contractual guarantees to start? From those two answers, then we can match you up with the right annuity that will provide the highest contractual guarantee, or from those two answers, I'll tell you that you don't need an annuity.

So, the average 401k balance for a 60-year-old, according to my staff and them looking into it, is around $200,000. Let's say it's a little bit more than that. Let's say it's $400,000. Is that enough? It depends. It depends on your lifestyle. It depends on how much income you need. It depends on when you want to turn on the income. It depends on whether you want to add a spouse or partner. It depends on how you want to structure it from a legacy standpoint for any unused money when you die. It all depends.

When we go back to the retirement calculator question, and everyone has their retirement calculator and thinks theirs is best, simple is complex. The simplicity of an annuity quote really comes down to what you're trying to contractually achieve. What I would encourage you to do is go to my site at The Annuity Man, use the quotes at your leisure, and if there does come a point in time that you want to connect and really dig in and let me weigh in on how I think it should be structured based upon your answers to me, not based upon what I want, based upon on what you want, then that's the way to go.

It Need to Be About You

I'll tell you a good story, and I'll leave you with this. I got a call the other day, and it's the typical one-product pitch to the guy, and the guy just kept going through all the benefits this guy had listed, none of the limitations, just the benefits. And I say to him, like I say to everybody, "Don't let the product fit into your life. Let your life fit into the product."

And if I leave you with one thing, remember that. Your life, your specific life, your customized life, your one-of-a-kind life, and your family need to fit into the product as a customized product. The product needs to be customized around that life of yours. That's what needs to happen. Retirement calculators can give you all kinds of numbers. Retirement calculators can give you all kinds of stats. Annuity calculators can give you the numbers, but at the end of the day, it needs to about you.

And so instead of the agent saying, "I've got this product. Fit it into your life," you need to say, "No, I've got this life. I need to customize the product." And with that, I'll see you on the next Stan the Annuity Man blog.

Never forget to live in reality, not the dream, with annuities and contractual guarantees! You can use our calculators, get all six of my books for free, and most importantly book a call with me so we can discuss what works best for your specific situation.