313: Retirement Planning in Your 40s: Have You Saved Enough?

[00:00:45] Hilary Hendershott: One of the most common questions I hear from people in their 40s is, “Have I saved enough for retirement?” And what makes that question interesting is that it usually isn’t coming from someone who has ignored retirement planning or saving.

[00:00:58] It’s coming from someone who’s been working hard for years. They’ve been saving, they’ve been investing, and building a career, and raising a family, and trying really hard to make smart decisions. And somewhere in their 40s, they look up and realize, “Okay, so how am I actually doing?” Now, here’s what I’ve learned after decades of helping people plan for retirement.

[00:01:20] Most people know their account balances. What they don’t know is whether those balances are enough to support the life they want later, and that’s because evaluating retirement readiness is more complicated than looking at a single number. When my team evaluates whether someone is on track, we’re generally looking at four things.

[00:01:39] First, how much have they accumulated? Second, how much are they saving today? Third, how much do they expect to spend in retirement? And fourth, how many years do we still have to work with? Those four variables tell us far more than any one account balance alone. For example, imagine two people who are both 45 years old and both have $1 million invested.

[00:02:03] At first glance, they appear to be in exactly the same position, but one plans to spend $120,000 a year in retirement, and the other, 350,000. One plans to work until age 67, and the other hopes to retire at 55. These are very different retirement plans, which means the same account balance can mean very different things depending on the life you’re trying to fund.

[00:02:31] And that’s one reason your 40s can feel financially complicated, because this is often the decade where multiple priorities collide. Your career may be more established, your income may be higher than it’s ever been, but you’re also balancing a lot. Children, college planning, a mortgage, aging parents, travel, lifestyle goals, building wealth, trying to enjoy life today while preparing for the future, all at the same time.

[00:03:01] And success on paper doesn’t always create confidence emotionally. I’ve met plenty of people who are objectively doing very well and still quietly wonder whether they’re okay. Because part of that is because retirement starts feeling less theoretical. In your 20s and 30s, retirement really is a distant concept.

[00:03:20] In your 40s, it starts becoming a real timeline. And the good news is that this is still an incredibly powerful decade financially, especially for high earners. Many people haven’t yet reached their peak earning years, which means they still have significant opportunities to save more, invest more, and make meaningful adjustments if needed.

[00:03:40] This is also the decade when I think measurement becomes increasingly important. Not ostrich syndrome, and definitely not panic, measurement. Because the goal isn’t to figure out whether you’ve done everything perfectly. The goal is to understand where you stand. One of the biggest mistakes I see people making is avoiding retirement planning conversations because they’re afraid of what they might discover.

[00:04:06] They assume it would be too painful to find out I was behind in savings, so if I’m behind, I don’t want to know. But uncertainty is usually far more stressful than clarity, even when adjustments are needed, because once you understand your situation, of course you have clarity and you have options. You can increase your savings, you can adjust your spending priorities, you can think more strategically about taxes and reevaluate investment decisions, or sometimes discover you’re actually in a much stronger position than you thought.

[00:04:40] Honestly, that last one happens more often than people realize, particularly among successful professionals who are so focused on what still needs to happen that they lose sight of everything they’ve already accomplished. So, this is also the stage where coordination and oversight become increasingly important.

[00:04:58] As retirement gets closer, it’s not enough to have a collection of good financial decisions. What starts to matter is how well those decisions work together. Your investments affect your taxes. Taxes affect your savings capacity. Your savings influences your future retirement options, and life has a way of changing the assumptions behind all of those decisions.

[00:05:21] Retirement planning is not a one-time calculation. It’s an ongoing process of coordination, evaluation, and oversight. That’s one reason we created our retirement guide. If you’ve been wondering whether you’re on track, don’t guess. Download my guide below. I created it to solve exactly this problem for you.

[00:05:42] It walks through the same questions we help clients think through every day. How much might retirement actually cost? How do you estimate future spending needs? What planning risks should you be paying attention to? And how do you evaluate whether your current trajectory realistically supports the life you want later?

[00:06:02] Because retirement confidence doesn’t come from optimism. It comes from clarity. And your 40s are not a decade for panic. They’re a decade for measurement because you still have time for relatively small changes to create very meaningful outcomes. And if you’ve been quietly wondering whether you’re on track while you manage the thousands of other things you have to manage, it’s not a sign that you’re failing.

[00:06:27] It’s usually a sign you’re ready for a more intentional level of planning. If you’d like help getting started, download the retirement guide below. And if you’d like help thinking through your own situation, my team and I would be happy to have that conversation with you. Because ultimately, retirement planning isn’t about reaching a number.

[00:06:46] It’s about building a future that supports the way you want to live. If you’re thinking about your next financial chapter and want a partner who looks at the full picture, not just your investments, we’d love to connect. We’re a fee-only fiduciary team focused on after-tax outcomes and long-term planning, helping our clients keep more of what they earn so their money can support the life they’re building.

[00:07:11] If that sounds like the kind of guidance you’re looking for, you can schedule a complimentary conversation with one of my lead advisors by visiting hendershottwealth.com/contact to see if our approach is the right fit for you.