Everyone wants to know, 'how much should I have saved by a certain age to be able to retire in comfort?' You may not like the answer.
Houston CPA Michael Parmet says you have to start saving your acorns early -- very early.
"At age 30 they should have saved about half of their annual salary; by the time they're 40 they should have saved twice their annual salary and by the time they're 50 they should have saved four times as much as their annual salary."
If you've saved 75-grand by age 40, you're in good shape. But our culture doesn't exactly encourage savings and the kids may not be listening to talk radio, so you parents need to start hammering this message home.
"It's tough if you have a salary under $150,000 to save that amount, but people in the $50,60,70,000 range, they really have to think about it and make the choice to take care of themselves in retirement; Social Security will not be doing it."
Social Security, at most, will provide about 40% of your income.
Are your kids getting this message? You probably need to hit them over the head with it.