I would say that its a pretty bad article considering that we have a negative savings rate, and that there are very few people who can say that the save enough money. When you throw in inflation, skyrocketing medical costs that the boomers will be facing, further potential increases in oil prices, and a likely recession / stock market and housing collapse, no amount of savings is too much or has ever been.

They found that 88 percent of all households with breadwinners over age 51 had accumulated sufficient resources to finance adequate consumption in retirement. … Probably are considering their home equity as a source of "resources" which is very risky at best.

I also don't see how this can be a bad thing, because whatever these boomers eventually die with, even if it is more than they need, will be passed on to their kin, and will be consumed immediately by the next generation which is much further in debt and has much worse savings habits anyways. 

As an obessive-compulsive saver and investor who is on track to retire in his early 40s, I’d say that I like articles like this. Let me explain, by consuming more, non-savers make my investments (shares, etc.) more profitable. Stop reading this! Get yourself to the mall and buy and charge until you drop! Don’t just stand there, buy something!

That’s exactly what I’m thinking. The spenders are the one that’s helping me to reach my early retirement goal. Spend baby spend.

This smacks of George W. Bush-think. Spend more money, go out and visit our national parks, buy a car, take a vacation, spend, spend, spend.

He doesn’t have to worry about his retirement. He’s never had to worry about anything. He just doesn’t want to have the economy collapse until after he’s out of office so someone else will have to face the music. If that requires ginning up the reports, meddling with various government departments and telling outright lies to the public, so be it.

I think once he’s gone you’ll see huge revisions in housing reports, employment, etc. It’s going to be a scary time.

“A separate study by John Karl Scholz, an economist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and two other researchers found more than 80 percent of households headed by Americans born between 1931 and 1941 have accumulated their optimal wealth targets for retirement.”

This may be true for people in my parents’ age group.

But this is not true for boomers –those born after the end of WW2—-through the early 1960s who are the largest group heading for retirement.

I agree with the article to a point. I stopped funding my IRA and 401K (before I became self-employed) at age 35 because I started very early and based on historical returns I was going to end up with %7-8 million in an IRA account. There’s no way I need that much money. That would be like winning the lottery when you turn 65. Then what, totally change your lifestyle and try to spend the money before you kick the bucket?

I think once you reach a point where you can safely say that you’ll have a few million in your retirment account, you should probably cut back. I’m not saying to spend the money on consumables, but maybe look for other investments such as a vacation house that you can enjoy now.

The savings rate is the net of income less consumption. If you consume less than you earn and put the difference in investments, that counts as savings. However the appreciation of your investments is not counted as savings.

Think of it as Income Statement (P&L) vs. Balance Sheet. Savings is Net Income/Loss.