Ep 7 | You’re Likely Saving Too Much for Retirement
Think maxing out your retirement accounts is always the smartest move? In this episode, Priya Malani unpacks the hidden downside of over-saving for retirement—a common mistake high earners make. She challenges the belief that more is always better, revealing why blindly stashing money away can leave you financially stuck when you need flexibility the most. From the real math behind retirement savings to why your future self might not need as much as you think, this episode is all about striking the right balance between securing tomorrow and actually enjoying today. If you’ve ever questioned how much is enough for retirement, you won’t want to miss this.
Tune into this episode to hear:
Why high earners often fall into the trap of over-saving for retirement—without even realizing it.
How maxing out your retirement accounts might not be the smartest financial move.
The hidden cost of over-saving: how it can limit your financial flexibility today.
Why true financial success means balancing long-term security and the ability to enjoy life now.
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Transcription
At some point, you stop preparing for retirement and you start hoarding for it at the expense of everything else. Who am I to tell you what to do with your money? My name is Priya Malani, and I currently manage millions of hardworking dollars. Enough foreplay—let's talk money. Welcome to The F Word: Smart Money, No Toll.
Hey guys, today I'm talking about something you probably haven’t thought about much. Honestly, unless you nerd out over personal finance, this isn’t something that crosses most people’s minds. For the rest of us, it’s hard to think about retirement because it feels so far away. It's difficult to picture what you might need in 30 or more years, let alone figure out how much you should be saving right now. You know what you don’t want after 65, right? You don’t want to be driving for Uber just to cover your mortgage. But when it comes to what you actually want your retirement to look like, I find that’s where things get a little murky. Maybe you’ve thought about owning a boat or finally having the time to travel. Beyond that, though, many high earners haven’t given it much thought. And that's totally normal. But it's also why so many high earners—people who are crushing it in almost every part of their life—fall into the same trap with retirement investments.
When something feels too far away to plan for, we tend to default to what feels like the safest bet. For high earners, that advice is usually straightforward: max out your retirement accounts every year. And I get it—it sounds like a no-brainer. Tax advantages, compound interest, free money from employer matches. I’m not disagreeing with any of that. But before I continue, let me clarify: if your goal is to retire super early and live as frugally as possible before that, this probably isn’t the conversation for you. This episode is for people who want to live well today and be set up for a great life later. So if you're someone who sees yourself working into your 50s or 60s—whether because you love your job or because you want to make good money and live well—keep listening.
Here’s the thing: saving for retirement isn’t just about stockpiling as much as possible. It’s about ensuring you can maintain or improve your lifestyle once you get there. And that’s where a lot of people go wrong. The main narrative out there is that you’ll never have enough. You’ll never be able to retire. So naturally, maxing out your retirement accounts makes sense—the more, the better. But a lot of us are stashing money away without any idea of what we’ll actually need in retirement. So here’s the one thing no one talks about: you can actually save too much. You can over-save for retirement.
I know that might sound ridiculous, but we see it all the time. We’ve all been conditioned to believe that when it comes to saving for the future, the more, the better. But here’s the problem: most people are saving without any real understanding of how much they’ll actually need. They assume maxing out their accounts is the responsible thing to do because that’s what they’ve been told. So what happens when you save blindly without a real plan? Let me tell you about Mike.
Mike thought he was doing everything right. He was maxing out his employer plan, getting a solid employer match, and converting money into a Roth IRA (though I'll discuss whether or not that’s always a good idea another time). Mike was on track to be a multimillionaire by retirement. Then one day, he decided he wanted to take a break—up and quit his great-paying job. Not retire, just take a year off to maybe explore the idea of starting his own thing. After years of grinding in a high-stress corporate role, he was finally in a financial position to make a big move. Or so he thought.
When Mike checked his financial situation, he realized his 401(k) was locked until age 59 and a half, his Roth IRA was untouchable without penalties, and his checking account was low. He had prioritized maxing out his retirement accounts, which left him with no flexibility before retirement. Just like that, he was trapped in a job he didn’t want anymore—not because he wasn’t making enough money, but because he had saved in a way that gave him zero flexibility. For years, he had been so focused on maxing out his accounts that he never stopped to ask:
How much do I actually need for retirement?
Am I already on track—maybe even ahead of schedule?
And that’s the mistake so many high earners make: assuming that more is always better. That saving for retirement is a race to max out every account as soon as possible. But the goal of retirement isn’t just about stockpiling money. It’s to replace your income so you can maintain your lifestyle in the future. To be clear, you want to make sure you’re saving enough, but more importantly, you want to make sure you’re saving the right amount, in the right places, and for the right reasons.
I’m big on making sure your financial decisions are purpose-driven. I don’t like arbitrary decision-making. From the last few episodes, you probably know I’m not a fan of saving just for the sake of saving or investing just to invest. There should be a reason behind those decisions, and it should align with what you envision for your life. It should be deliberate, methodical, and it should make sense for you—not just because someone told you it’s the right thing to do. I’m willing to bet that you approach the rest of your life that way, and that’s why you’re in the position you’re in. You don’t just wake up and wing it when it comes to your career, health, or friendships, so why would you do that with your money?
Going back to Mike, let’s point out something else. Mike’s income is a quarter million dollars a year. Yet, when he wanted to make a move, he couldn’t—again, not because he wasn’t saving enough, but because he had locked himself out of his own money. He had prioritized future Mike so aggressively that present Mike had no room to breathe. That’s the danger of blindly maxing out accounts without a plan. You end up with all your money tied up in a future you might want at the cost of the life you definitely want right now.
Unfortunately, Mike never stopped to consider if he was already ahead of schedule. I get it—it’s not his fault. We’re all listening to the same advice. Practically speaking, a good way to think about over-saving is this: if your retirement accounts are on track to replace more than your income, you might be locking up too much. Especially when you realize that two of your biggest expenses go away in retirement: saving for the future and housing.
Right now, a huge chunk of your paycheck is likely going toward saving aggressively for your future. But in retirement, that stops. You’re no longer saving for retirement or stockpiling cash for a future that’s already here. And then there’s housing. If you own a home and plan to pay off your mortgage before retirement—many people do—then that’s another massive expense that disappears. So when you take those two things off the table, you might not actually need to replace your entire income in retirement.
Yet, many people over-save by default without considering whether they’re already on track or even ahead of schedule. Here's what can happen if you don’t stop to think about it and put a plan in place:
You might already be on track, but never know it.
You could be trading optionality in your career and life for a future that’s already secured.
The sad thing for Mike was that he had worked so hard for his success, and he really thought he was doing the right thing. So you can imagine his frustration when he realized he had built wealth, but not optionality. He couldn’t actually use his money for the life he wanted when he wanted it.
The reality is that most high earners who start saving early are actually on track—sometimes years ahead—but they don’t realize it because they’ve never done the math. So let’s do a quick math exercise to see if you’re ahead of schedule.
For those of you who don’t know, our team works with high earners every day. Based on our clients’ current needs, we’re planning for most of them to have somewhere between $4 and $9 million by the time they’re 65. That’s a huge range, but it makes sense—different people have different lifestyles they’re aiming for. Some will need more money than others. Some people want to jet-set and go big in their later years. Others want to get an RV and hit the road. There’s no one right way to do retirement—it just matters that you’re intentionally saving for what you want.
So, let’s look at how easy it is to accidentally over-save. I’m not going to use exact IRS contribution limits here because they change yearly, but you’ll get the idea. Let’s say you’re 30 years old and making $200,000 per year. You’re maxing out your employer plan and getting the full match—perfectly reasonable. That means you’re putting about $30,000 per year toward retirement. With a 7% average annual return (which is conservative based on historical performance), by the time you hit 65, your retirement accounts would grow to over $5 million. And that’s without increasing contributions at all. No raises, no bonuses, no extra investing—just sticking to what you’re already doing.
If you have a partner who's also saving, suddenly you’re looking at $10 million in retirement savings. And that’s more than you probably need. If you’re thinking, “Isn’t that a good thing?” here’s the problem: at some point, you stop preparing for retirement and start hoarding for it at the expense of everything else. Once you understand what you might actually need, the next question isn’t “How do I save for retirement?” It’s “What else should I be thinking about?”
You don’t want to be decades ahead on retirement while neglecting the goals right in front of you—the first home you want to buy in the next five to six years, the business you might want to start in the next decade, the extended travel, sabbaticals, family planning—whatever you envision for your life. If all your extra money is locked up in retirement accounts, you’re forcing yourself to wait decades to enjoy the life you’re working so hard to afford. And that’s a mistake.
As far as I’m concerned, the point of making good money isn’t just to retire well—it’s to enjoy your life before then, too. So here’s the takeaway: saving for retirement is important, but maxing out your accounts without a plan is not a good idea. If you’re already on track—or maybe even ahead of schedule—locking up even more money in retirement accounts doesn’t necessarily make you better off. It just limits your ability to accomplish other big financial goals in the meantime.
Optionality is everything. When you’re a high earner, your financial plan shouldn’t just be about your future—it should give you choices in the near term, too. We’ll dive into how to build a financial strategy that provides both long-term security and short-term flexibility in a future episode. At the end of the day, the real flex isn’t hoarding millions into a retirement account—it’s having the freedom to make big moves whenever you damn well please.
If this episode resonated with you, please share it with a friend who needs to hear it. And if you have questions, don’t hesitate to send them my way. I’ll make sure we cover them when we dig into this topic again.
Thanks for listening to The F Word with Priya Malani. If you liked what you heard, hit subscribe and leave a review wherever you’re listening. And don’t forget—you can find tons of great resources, content, courses, and freebies at StashWealth.com.
THE STUFF OUR LAWYERS WANT US TO SAY: Stash Wealth is a Registered Investment Advisor. Content presented is for informational and educational purposes only and is not intended to make an offer or solicitation for any specific securities product, service, or strategy. Consult with a qualified investment adviser (that's us) before implementing any strategy. Investing involves risk, including the loss of principal. Past performance does not guarantee future results. There…we said it.
