CalcKitThe positive pregnancy-test question was when; the retirement question is how much. Without a target, saving for retirement feels like pouring water into a bucket you cannot see. Age-based benchmarks solve that: they express your savings goal as a simple multiple of your annual salary, so you can check your progress in seconds and know whether you are on track, ahead, or need to catch up. Here are the milestones, where they come from, a worked example, and what to do if you are behind.
The age-based salary multiples
The most widely cited framework comes from retirement research by firms like Fidelity. It runs as a ladder of milestones:
By 30: 1x your salary · By 35: 2x · By 40: 3x · By 45: 4x · By 50: 6x · By 55: 7x · By 60: 8x · By 67: 10x.
“Saved” means all your retirement accounts together — workplace plans, personal retirement accounts, pension value — but not your home equity. Notice the ladder is not linear: the jump from 4x at 45 to 6x at 50 is deliberately steep, because those are meant to be your peak earning and peak saving years. You are not expected to hit every rung exactly — the milestones are goalposts, not grades.
Worked example
Take someone earning $50,000 a year. The benchmarks say: about $50,000 saved by 30, $150,000 by 40, $300,000 by 50, $400,000 by 60, and $500,000 by 67. Earn twice as much? Simply double the numbers — the ladder scales with your salary, which is what makes it useful as a personal gut check. Compare your actual savings to the multiple for your age and you instantly see where you stand.
Want to see how your own numbers compound over time? Run them through our free Retirement Calculator — it projects your nest egg from your monthly savings, return rate, and years left.
Where these numbers come from
These benchmarks are not guesses. The framework assumes you save 15% of your income every year starting at 25 (including any employer match), invest more than half of your savings in stocks over your lifetime, retire at 67, and aim to maintain your pre-retirement lifestyle. It also assumes other income covers part of retirement spending — for a median US earner, Social Security is assumed to replace roughly 40% of pre-retirement income, with savings covering the rest. Change any assumption — retire at 60, earn far above median, plan a simpler lifestyle — and your true target shifts. Treat the ladder as a starting point, then personalize it.
What to do if you are behind
Most people are, and it is fixable. Your two strongest levers: raise your savings rate and start now. Even saving 1 percentage point more per year compounds into a large difference, because every extra dollar gets more years in the market. Automate the increase so you never feel it. If you are 50 or older, check whether your country's tax-advantaged accounts allow extra catch-up contributions. And remember the biggest mistake is waiting for the “right” time — the best time to start was years ago, the second-best is today.
The 15% rule behind the milestones
The engine under the whole ladder is the 15% savings rate: at least 15% of pre-tax income saved every year, employer match included. That figure is high on purpose — it is the rate that, combined with compounding and stock-market growth, reliably reaches 10x by 67 in the model's analysis. If 15% feels out of reach right now, do not stall: start at whatever you can afford and raise it by about 1 percentage point per year. A clear path to 15% beats a perfect plan you never start.
📚 Related guide: Freed-up cash has to come from somewhere — read our How Much of Your Salary Should Go to Rent? guide and use the Compound Interest Calculator to see how extra savings compound over decades.