The Average Age When People Become Millionaires

If you start investing in a retirement plan early in your career, you don’t have to bring home an insanely high salary to become a millionaire—eventually. (Thank you, compound interest.) The average age when bank accounts reach the seven-figure mark is in a person’s late 50s, according to Business Insider and The New York Times.

The average age when women become millionaires is slightly lower than the average age for men, despite the persistent wage gap in the workforce. For women, the average age is 58.5 years old, while for men, the age is 59.3. Or at least that’s the case for people with Fidelity 401(k) retirement plans, according to the investment firm’s research. That means that millionaires are reaching that milestone several years before the usual retirement age of 66 to 67 years old.

Nevertheless, how much money you need to retire comfortably varies based on your current salary, your expenses, and the number of years you’ll be living off your nest egg. Many financial advisers say you should aim for $1 million or more, which will hopefully last you through a 30-year retirement.

Reaching that million-dollar mark may seem like a long shot, but Fidelity has found that more and more of its savings plan customers have become millionaires in recent years. One of the firm’s recent analyses found that 133,000 of its customers had $1 million or more in their accounts in 2017, compared to 89,000 in 2016. (The company oversees 401(k) accounts for around 15 million people, so that’s not exactly a huge portion of its customers, though.) Between 2005 and 2017, the number of women who had $1 million in their retirement accounts doubled.

Fidelity attributes this increase to people putting more money away for retirement than in past decades. On average, the firm’s customers making less than $150,000 a year become millionaires by saving around 22 to 25 percent of their salaries in retirement funds, including employer matches. That may seem like a lot if you aren’t making a six-figure salary, but keep in mind that the earlier you start saving, the more your money grows. Investing just a little money in your 20s is a more effective way to save for retirement than investing a lot of money in your 30s and 40s. So if you want to become a millionaire (and who doesn’t?), now would be a good time to start investing in that 401(k).