Bill Gallagher argues that picking a retirement number is a trap. He uses the example of Bob to show how target amounts keep rising, and explains why saving alone can't beat inflation and taxes. You need assets that actually grow.
This, this idea of, hey, I'm just going to work my way through, through life, I'm going to save up a bunch of money and that money is going to carry me through to retirement. And there's this idea that that's the preferred way to go about living and it's just not. The first problem Bob has is this realization that the closer he gets to retirement, whatever number it was that they told him he would need, he needs more. So in Bob's case, Bob, when he started his, his career, they told him, you would need a half a million dollars to retire. Nobody's ever going to need more than a half a million. He got it. He said, josh, once I got it, they told me I'm going to need a million. Once I got it, they told me I'm going to need a million five to two. And all I'm doing is chasing a carrot. And the first thing we covered with, Bob, is it's mathematically impossible to save your way to wealth. In order to create wealth, you have to have something that gets ahead of inflation and taxes that are going to consume it anyway.
