<prompt> Human: POST IS RESOLVED 20:35:00My previous employer was acquired a few years ago and rather than rolling over my pension to a personal IRA I cashed it out and used the money to wipe out 20 years of accumulated debt between my wife and I. I am now working at a job with no employer provided pension 401K only and Im starting from scratch. According to Social Security Administration Im supposed to have saved 280K for retirement at this point in my career and I have zero saved. Good news is that I earn a high salary and have no debt other than mortgage and two vehicles. 49 of my gross income each month is used to pay bills mortgage so that means 51 is available for other things though it does need to also cover gas groceries expenses. How screwed am I? NOT_AT_ALL ---UPDATE 2018-05-19Turns out that Im not that screwed at all. As long as I save between 12-15 of my income I should reach around 1 million worth of retirement savings assuming an 8 average annual return. Combine that with Social Security and it should be smooth sailing. Initial Investment: 17,000 Per Month Contribution: 1,200 Years of Investment: 25 Annual Interest Rate: 8.0Expected Result: 1,169,149.61---Social Security Ive created an account on the SSA website and was able to see my entire lifetime earnings 1.5 million so far along with my estimated benefit which is around 3,000 per month. Combined with my wifes social security we should be earning over 4,000 per month in Social Security---Income Based on a random pay stub I pulled from the drawer, you can see I am being transparent about my income and my circumstances. I didnt want to expose my income, for fear of being ostracized for my poor financial decisions but people are accusing me of being a liar---UPDATE 2018-05-24My wife and used a financial planning service provided by my employer to create a tentative financial roadmap. When we laid all of our debt on the table for the administrator it turned out we actually had 37K worth of debt not the 27K I knew about. The advisors have created a plan that I think my wife is onboard with. The plan implements a debt snowball that will complete in 2020. From there its 6 years until our home is paid off and from that point onward 80 of our combined net income goes into investments to set us up for a comfortable retirement 16-20 years from now depending on the performance of the market and our ability to stick to the planSo let me take this opportunity to apologize for coming to this board for advise thinking I understood money when it turned out I knew absolutely nothing about money and was in denial  <response>: Screwed to the extent that the tax laws cap yearly contributions to IRAs. Beyond the 401k, which you obviously ought to max out, you and your wife can each contribute 5,500 to an IRA. See: So you cannot replenish your old IRA balance just like that.It sounds like you can afford to save more, so after youve taken advantage of all the tax-advantaged retirement vehicles you can, start sticking post-tax dollars in conventional mutual funds. 