<prompt> Human: Anyone else terrified of the seemingly insurmountable task of saving enough for retirement? I know we are lucky compared to many but it sometimes feels impossible that we can save enough. Our current situation - mid 40s in age- married, one child 10 years away from starting college- 30k in 529 plan- 470k in IRAs and 401k- 90k in non-taxed advantaged brokerage accountMany retirement calculators say I need millions to retire and that college is going to costs 250k... I just dont think we can get to those numbers despite maxing two IRAs and one 401k a year. What do you do to calm yourself down and keep plugging away?  <response>: I would recommend trying to run some sample numbers. The money you have already saved should continue to grow. If your existing 590k in savings grows at a rate of 5 for 20 years, youll be looking at a bit more than 1.5 million. If you were getting 7, youll be looking at over 2.2 million.If youre maxing out a 401k at 18k per year, over twenty years at 5 growth youll have another 625k. If you got 7 growth youd have another 790k. If the two of you max out your IRAs at 11,000 total for the next 5 years and then bump it to 13,000 for 15 years, with 5 growth thatll be another 427k, and with 7 growth youd have another 536k.So, with your current savings plus maxing out your two IRAs and one 401k, with a projected growth rate of 5, youd be looking at 1.5 million 625k 427k, or a bit more than 2.5 million. With a projected growth rate of 7, youd have 2.2 million 790k 536k, for a total of a bit more than 3.5 million.How does this compare to your goals? How well have your investments been doing? Have you gotten good returns, are the feels eating into gains, are you exposed to a lot of risk if theres market volatility? There are a fair number of factors to look at, but I think its helpful to try to run some rough numbers to assess if youre on track to get where you want to be or not. It actually sounds like you arent in terrible shape. 