401(k) Balances Hit Record High

The average American now has about $106,500 saved up for retirement in a 401(k), a record high.

That’s just one of the positive findings out of Fidelity Investments’ quarterly analysis of retirement savings trends, USA Today reported. The total is a nearly 7% increase from last year and nearly double from September 2008, the height of the financial crisis , when the average was just $56,900.

The average IRA balance also hit a record high at $111,000.

But stocks are another story.

The volatile market took a hit in October when the S&P 500 briefly fell into correction territory, according to USA Today, also known as a 10% drop from the previous high. At the beginning of this week, Standard & Poor’s was down just over 7%.

A positive of the financial crash and the unpredictable market, however, is that it forced people to get serious enough about their retirement funds to educate themselves on how to best save.

“We’ve seen an increasing amount of positive savings behavior over the last 10 years,” president of workplace investing at Fidelity, Kevin Barry, told the news site, “which helped put many people back on track for their retirement savings goals.”