<prompt> Human: So I looked at my retirement website today. I have 60k in there which seems pretty good to me for having only contributed 4 years. Anyway I notice the site has a thing where it predicts how much money you will retire with if the market averages 11 returns and I keep my present contributions it predicts I retire with over 7,000,000. I understand compound interest but that number seems pure bullshit to me. There is no way it could be that high, is there?  <response>: If the future is like the past no guarantee of that then the market will return about 5 or 6 more than inflation. So if the market returns 11, it will be because inflation is 5 or 6. If inflation is that high, your 7M will be worth 700k to 1M in todays dollars.That seems about right if youre saving 10kyear in todays dollars.A more realistic projection that works out the same in real dollars is 2.5 inflation, 8 nominal returns, so you retire with about 3M worth about 1M in todays dollars. 