My Projected Income in Retirement Isn’t Great

I don’t often log on to my TIAA-CREF retirement account portal, but I did this week because it was my annual Portfolio Rebalancing Time.

TIAA-CREF had added some new features since I last visited, and one of them was called “Projected Income in Retirement.” My current portfolio balance is $38,320, which means my projected income in retirement is $481 per month. It’s so adorably small! I want to pick it up and give it a hug.

Then TIAA-CREF gets serious: “Ask yourself: could you currently live on $481 per month?”

Okay, I’ve asked myself, and the answer is no. Of course not. My monthly nut is $1,800. I don’t even think I could live on $481 per month if I moved to the most affordable city in America.

TIAA-CREF writes “To help make sure you’re on track, your projected income should always cover your monthly expenses — now and throughout your life.”

And I was all wait what?

So I’m supposed to have an amount of money in my retirement account such that the “projected income in retirement” number reads $1,800? I looked for an online retirement calculator that would help me figure out exactly how much money I should have, and the Vanguard retirement calculator stated that the amount of money I needed to have in my retirement account right now, in order to get a projected monthly income of $1,800 when I retire, was $300,000.

I’m curious if any of your retirement account portals are offering this feature, and if you, too, are falling short. Maybe our retirement dates will, like Mike wrote this morning, have less to do with money and more to do with time — since I, at least, am already behind on the money.

My retirement portfolio is currently getting a 3 percent rate of return, by the way. In case you’re curious.

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