How Much Should You Have Saved by 30, 40, 50, and 60?

The most widely used savings benchmarks — popularized by Fidelity's retirement research — are simple salary multiples: 1× your annual salary saved by age 30, 3× by 40, 6× by 50, 8× by 60, and 10× by 67. They're rough, they're imperfect, and they're still the most useful quick test of whether your retirement saving is on track.

The benchmarks at a glance

• Age 30: 1× salary — on $60,000, that's $60,000 saved
• Age 35: 2× salary
• Age 40: 3× salary — on $80,000, that's $240,000
• Age 45: 4× salary
• Age 50: 6× salary — on $90,000, that's $540,000
• Age 55: 7× salary
• Age 60: 8× salary
• Age 67: 10× salary — the level that, with state benefits, typically sustains your lifestyle

"Saved" means everything earmarked for retirement: 401(k)/pension balances, IRAs/ISAs/RRSPs/super, and taxable investments — not your house, and not your emergency fund.

Where the numbers come from

Work backwards from the end. A standard retirement at 67 replacing ~75% of pre-retirement income, with a state benefit covering part of it, needs a portfolio of roughly 10× final salary under the 4% withdrawal framework — 10× salary × 4% ≈ 40% of salary per year, plus state benefits, lands near that 75% replacement target. The age-by-age milestones are then just the compound-growth path that arrives at 10× on time, assuming you save ~15% of income from your mid-20s and earn long-run market returns. Miss an early milestone and the path doesn't break — it just steepens.

What the benchmarks quietly assume

• Retirement at 67. Want out at 55? You need substantially more than the schedule shows (and the FIRE framework is the better model). Working to 70 needs less.
• Spending tracks salary. The multiples really proxy for spending. A high earner living on half their income is far ahead of what their salary multiple suggests; calibrate to the 25× spending rule in our how-much-to-retire guide if your savings rate is unusual.
• Steady careers and average markets. Real lives have gaps, windfalls, and bear markets. The milestones are mile markers, not a verdict.

If you're behind: the honest catch-up math

Most people are behind — median retirement balances at every age sit well below these targets, so treat the benchmarks as a goal, not the norm. What matters is that catch-up math is concrete, and time does most of the work if you give it any chance:

Behind at 30 (small balance, big runway)

From $10,000 at 30, saving $700/month at a 7% average return reaches roughly $850,000 by 67 — comfortably past 8–10× a $75,000 salary. At 30, the gap between "behind" and "on track" is usually one good savings-rate decision. Test your own numbers in the compound interest calculator.

Behind at 40

From $50,000 at 40 on an $80,000 salary (target: $240,000), saving 20% of income at 7% still reaches roughly 8× salary by 67. The required rate rises fast though — every year of delay past 40 adds roughly 1–2 percentage points to the savings rate needed.

Behind at 50

This is where the levers change. Compounding has less runway, so the plan leans on: maxing catch-up contributions (US plans allow extra 401(k)/IRA contributions from 50; other systems have equivalents), working 2–3 years longer (each extra year is roughly a triple win — one more year of contributions and growth, one fewer year of withdrawals, larger state benefits), and trimming the retirement spending target, which cuts the required portfolio by 25× every dollar. A $750k-at-67 scenario supports about $30,000/year before state benefits — for many households, that plus benefits is a workable floor.

Practical rules that make the benchmarks reachable

• Save 15% of gross income including employer match — the contribution rate the entire schedule is built on. Use the 401(k)/pension calculator to see what your match adds.
• Capture every unit of employer match before anything else. It's an instant 50–100% return.
• Automate the increase. Raise contributions one point per year and with every raise — our pay raise calculator shows how much of each raise you can bank without feeling it.
• Keep the emergency fund separate (size it here) so a surprise never forces an early withdrawal with penalties.

The bottom line

Salary multiples are a flashlight, not a judge. If you're at 0.5× at 35, the message isn't failure — it's that your savings rate, not your investment selection, is the variable to fix, and that every year earlier you fix it the cheaper the fix is. Run your real numbers through the retirement calculator and the savings goal calculator, set the contribution to automatic, and check back once a year — not once a week.