Any ballpark figures on how much should you have already saved in your 20s, 30s and beyond?

I'm 38 and have SGD $45k in the bank, USD $200k in an ETF growth portfolio, USD $204k in a dividend stock portfolio, no property, no debt, and health and life insurance. I feel OK (not happy, but at the same time not overly anxious) with where I am financially and assume it's about average for my age and income level.

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When I was 30 I had invested around USD $80k and had maybe SGD $10k in the bank.

It does not matter as long as you are happy with life. The people on the FIRE path give up a lot of things. Keeping up with inflation for the majority of people is a master of increasing income. The need to invest to fight inflation is sales talk by people who are incentivised by sales commissions with the aim of scaring you into action.

A normal person without sizeable liquid net worth of more than a few million dollars will not need to worry about inflation as there is not much wealth to erode in the first place. You are far better off finding a way to earn more per day or earn for longer, ideally both.

Everyone will ask will give you a different response as seen by the other comments.

Some use a set figure based on your income and age:

https://www.cnbc.com/select/savings-by-age/

https://www.capablewealth.com/how-wealthy-shoul...

Some use averages regardless of income:

https://www.ally.com/do-it-right/money/savings-...

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/here-are-the-...

Unfortunately there isnt an SG benchmark and people normally base it off US examples. I also feel a lot of SG folks ignore the CPF aspect of their savings (which is what you are doing as you only name your cash savings) which lowers your true wealth.

I am not going to give you my net worth because you may find it unbelievable for my age and income. I consider myself an outlier as none of my colleagues have anywhere the same net worth as I have, even if they achieved my savings rate of 70%. Because it wasnt a result of saving but also managing my money.

Now that I have answered your first question I am going to question your question. You worry that you may not be able to keep up. But there are multiple reports of large swaths of the population not having enough for retirement:

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/survey-finds-42-...

https://www.forbes.com/sites/teresaghilarducci/...

https://www.fool.com/retirement/2020/06/10/70-o... Even if you kept up, you may be keeping up with people not ready for retirement. Did you ever consider that?

A better question is how much do you need for retirement? Is a 1K to 2K retirement depicted in this video sufficient:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkpzJjYHjkU&t=3...

If it is you need to assume with the nominal inflation rate that by the time you reach 60, you need double to have that standard of living in your retirement.

We can then work backwards which means you need 2k to 4k when you are 60. Using the Trinity Study (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228707...), and assuming a withdrawal rate of 3%, you would need 800k to 1.6mil invested in a diversified portfolio. If you need more, just multiply accordingly.

The good news is that as Singaporeans, CPF life provides that level of income for life without as high capital requirements. As of 2021 for just 415k at 65, you can get a monthly payout of 2k which is a lot lower than the 800k requirement.

https://www.cpf.gov.sg/members/schemes/schemes/...

If you still feel unsecure, you can also augment CPF's monthly payouts with your own investments with the Trinity Study which is being challenged and backtested every year. So far it has not failed and is currently in my personal opinion the most reliable way to plan for your retirement.​​​

I can’t understand how gathering up people’s savings or net worth can give you a big picture to beat inflation. The most you can get is implied savings rate and investment to net worth ratio). You need either 1) salary increment higher than inflation % and 2) return % that is higher than inflation % to beat inflation.

But sure I’ll give you mine, 26 with c$100k net worth (75% of that tied to investment). A big disclaimer is that I am not liable for NS, and I saved 65-75% of my salary regularly (no rocket science).