How much should you have saved at your age?

A more realistic global reference, adjusted for purchasing power.

"By 35 you should have €50,000 or €60,000 saved." It's a common line in personal-finance content. It can be useful inside a specific retirement plan, but it's misleading when presented as a universal rule. Not everyone has worked since 20, not everyone lives in the same country and, above all, it doesn't cost the same to live in Madrid, Caracas, Mexico City or Bangkok.

Core idea: for someone around 30–35, roughly 20,000 international PPP dollars can work as a rough global benchmark for financial savings. In Spain, using the 2025 private-consumption PPP, that's about €12,200 of purchasing power. It is not an exchange rate or an official target.

The problem with "X times your salary" rules

Fidelity suggests retirement milestones of roughly 1× annual salary at 30, 3× at 40 and 6× at 50. Schwab uses similar logic and places, for example, a reference of 2× salary at 35. [1][2] So, on a €30,000 salary, someone might conclude they "should" have €60,000 by 35.

But those figures are retirement portfolio targets, not a description of how much money a person that age normally has. Schwab, in fact, builds its multipliers assuming saving starts around age 25 and that roughly 12% to 17% of annual income is contributed steadily, including employer contributions. [2] Taking the number out of that context changes its meaning entirely.

The world average isn't a good answer either

Wealth is highly concentrated. The World Inequality Report 2026 estimates that the richest 10% hold around 75% of the world's wealth, while the poorer half holds barely 2%. [3] That's why a world "average" is dragged upward by large fortunes and poorly describes the typical person.

UBS adds another clue: in 2025, just over 41% of the world's adults still had less than 10,000 dollars in total wealth. [4] And total wealth doesn't mean money in the bank: it can include housing, investments and other assets.

The median is usually more informative than the mean when describing an ordinary person's experience. The global "mode" —the single most frequent value— has no robust, comparable international estimate, so using it as a precise figure would give a false sense of accuracy.

The key: compare purchasing power, not just currencies

Purchasing power parity (PPP) lets you compare how much given amounts of money can buy in countries with different price levels. The World Bank publishes conversion factors for private consumption. In Spain, the most recent value for 2025 is approximately €0.61 per international dollar. [5]

So 20,000 international PPP dollars represent about €12,200 of consumption capacity in Spain. It doesn't mean €12,200 can be exchanged for 20,000 US dollars; it's an equivalence of domestic purchasing power.

A rough global reference by age

The table below does not come from any official body. It's an analytical proposal combining global wealth distribution, life cycle, PPP and liquidity needs. Read it as an order of magnitude, not as a border between "doing well" and "doing badly".

Age	Rough savings (US$ PPP)	Practical reading
18–24	2,000–5,000	First cushion
25–29	5,000–12,000	Basic reserve + start of accumulation
30–34	12,000–22,000	A reasonable financial base
35–39	20,000–32,000	Healthy position
40–49	30,000–60,000	Consolidated accumulation
50–59	55,000–100,000	Significant financial wealth
60+	80,000–120,000	Preparing and transitioning to retirement

Before going on, try it with your own numbers: the calculator below converts this reference to your country and age using PPP, and combines it with your emergency fund. All the math happens in your browser.

Region, socioeconomic level and gender: they change the path, not the need for security

The same nominal target makes no sense in every country; that's why we use PPP. Nor does it make sense to impose different targets simply by sex. A woman and a man need the same ability to absorb a job loss or an unexpected expense. What does change is the historical ease of accumulating capital: the World Inequality Report 2026 shows that women receive around 28% of global labor income and face persistent gaps in income and unpaid work. [6]

Socioeconomic level matters too. For someone on a low income, reaching a given level of wealth may take far more years of saving; for someone on a high income, a global benchmark may be too small to sustain their lifestyle. That's why it's best to combine the age benchmark with a personal, expense-based rule.

The most useful rule: combine wealth and months of security

Vanguard typically recommends keeping between 3 and 6 months of expenses to weather income shocks, widening the reserve when there is a single income, variable work, dependents or lower job security. [7]

Practical target ≈ the greater of "global benchmark by age" and "3–6 months of essential expenses".

For example, if a 34-year-old needs €1,200 a month to live, six months is €7,200. The central global benchmark of 20,000 PPP dollars is worth about €12,200 in Spain. In that case, a reference near €12,000 offers a more complete measure than simply saying "you should have two salaries saved".

So, how much should you have?

For someone around 30–35, a simple reading might be: 10,000 US$ PPP indicates a meaningful reserve already exists; 15,000–25,000 US$ PPP represents a reasonably good position; and 25,000–40,000 US$ PPP can be considered solid from a global perspective.

The goal is not to lower your ambition. It's to replace a viral figure with an economically more honest comparison. Having 50,000 or 60,000 at 35 can be excellent and perfectly consistent with a retirement plan; it just isn't a universal starting point.

The most useful question isn't "do I have what I should for my age?", but: how many months of security does my wealth give me, is it growing, and how much real time have I had to build it?

Methodological note

The age ranges are a rough proposal prepared for this article, not statistics or official recommendations from UBS, the World Inequality Lab, the World Bank, Fidelity, Schwab or Vanguard. PPP serves to compare consumption purchasing power; it should not be used as an exchange rate or as a direct method to value international financial assets. This tool is educational and not a substitute for individual financial advice.

Main sources

1. Fidelity. Top 3 questions about saving for retirement
2. Charles Schwab. How to stay on top of your retirement savings
3. World Inequality Lab. World Inequality Report 2026
4. UBS. Global Wealth Report 2026
5. World Bank. PPP conversion factor, private consumption — Spain
6. World Inequality Lab. Gender Inequality — World Inequality Report 2026
7. Vanguard. Emergency fund: Why you need one