Retiring at 50 would be nice, but there's a financial goal that easily beats it

Gen Z and millennials are used to the ‘on demand’ culture of today’s America, and they would rather not wait for retirement either.

These young Americans would like to retire when they are 50 and are willing to sacrifice some pleasures today for the tomorrow they want, according to a new survey of more than 2,000 adults across the U.S. by fintech platform SoFi.

Across all ages 18-75, around two-thirds of respondents said they are willing to give up eating in restaurants for five years to save more money towards an early retirement, and a similar share are willing to forego attending weddings of close friends and family and even not have a wedding themselves to shave five years off their retirement date.

However, while retiring at 50 is a top goal for 3 in 10 poll participants, 7 in 10 would rather be able to buy a home of their own.

Almost half (44%) of people feel like they are not making enough money to contribute to their retirement savings with men more likely to be on track than women (54% vs. 43%). Of those who are saving, men are also more likely than women to know how much is in their retirement savings account (55% vs. 44%).

SHORT-TERM GOALS

The survey also asked about top priorities for the next six months, with "making more money" the top answer ahead of "living more comfortably" and "quality family time."

And this appears to be less about being rich and more about just making ends meet with living comfortably, feeding their families, and reaching a certain income level identified as the top three markets of success when pursuing ambitions.

The $50,000 to $74,999 income bracket was most often cited as the amount needed to achieve ambitions.

SoFi recently announced that it is following Robinhood’s strategy of offering owners of individual retirement accounts a 1% contribution match to win their business.