The Millennial Disconnect: Ideal Retirement Age vs. Likely Savings

Retirement is on everybody’s mind, it seems, whether they’re close to that age or whether they’re financially prepared for it.

Senior living communities company Provision Living asked respondents to tell them what their ideal retirement would look like, and participants obliged with everything from the city they’d like to call home once they retire to how they want to spend their time when it’s theirs to call their own.

What may surprise you is how often people think about retirement, and which age at which they plan to retire. With 52% of respondents saying they think about it four or more times a week, the average age they’d choose for retirement is 60—but when it comes to boomers (who, admittedly, are a lot closer to retirement than millennials), they’d choose 64. Millennials, on the other hand, are aiming for 56.

But whether they’ll actually be able to hit that age remains to be seen, since millennials think they’ll need to have $687,000 saved up before they can turn out the office lights—yet realistically they only expect to be able to set aside $357,000.

Oh, and 37% of millennials think they won’t need Social Security when they retire—while 39% of respondents overall don’t think they’ll be able to get by without it.