The Financial Worries of the Wealthy – Having enough money for Retirement

This article is based on a survey done for Personal Capital. The survey asked those with more than $500,000 in investable assets what their biggest financial worries were. The majority said their biggest worry was having enough money for retirement. The third worry was related; they worried that a market downturn would diminish their portfolios.

Most of the people who’ve been able to amass over $500,000 in investable assets are probably older than 37, the median age in America. Therefore, one can postulate that these investors have lived through the housing crisis and maybe even the 2000 dotcom bubble with a significant amount of assets. They’ve seen their investments get slashed by a third within 12 months a couple of times. They know dozens of people who were let go from a job they needed and remained jobless or underemployed for years.

When you amass $500,000+ in investable assets, you naturally start getting paranoid about losing all your money that took years, if not decades to accumulate. That paranoia only tends to get worse the more money you have in risk assets. After all, it takes a 100% return to get back to even if you lose 50% of your money.