Is 10x Your Salary the Perfect # for Retirement Savings?

Online financial-planning tools have a habit of spitting out terrifying numbers when people use them to figure out how much to save for retirement. Most tools, from the AARPâ??s to the Social Security Administrationâ??s, yield similar answers when one enters spending estimates, expected salary increases, and assets: They tend to advise their users (most of whom are workers in their 40s or 50s) to have 10 times the amount of their salary in savings before they retire. Itâ??s a cutoff that some economists claim is too high, but itâ??s actually quite realisticâ??and presents a good argument for saving aggressively.