Your Retirement Savings

I really need to get around to consolidating the last few retirement accounts from old jobs into my federal TSP

Defined benefit scheme so no cash value but it's a good un, presuming I don't get promoted and work til 66 I think it would be valued at that stage at something over a million

Actuarially speaking im quarter paid up so 250k I guess

I'm public sector btw but cant afford a house tbf

Yeah, my retirement account is doing pretty well through no fault of my own. Paycheck to paycheck I'm tripping over my own dick.

I’ve been contributing 10 to 15% of each paycheck for the last ten years to all stock funds. Company matches to a certain point and I’m full vested

Much like deems, defined benefit, public sector, fully vested, etc. I’d hit 40 years service when I’m 63, another 16 years off, and if I fully cashed out then and there it would approach a million at current levels but that would also remove my medical insurance payments so no thanks — will stick with monthly payouts instead whenever I do retire.

I have no idea. Nowhere near enough. Will be very disappointed if my plan to die on the job falls through.

The last time I checked my account at Fidelity, it was gratifyingly robust. Then the market gyrations hit.

I've been doing well with plugging 10% of my salary into a 401k for the past decade+. Don't yet know how any savings I've established is going to look once I send my son to college in a few years.

Fully vested public sector employee, bolstered by Roth IRAs and my own savings.

I've considered a Roth because why not. (Also suits my temper to just have the taxes paid already.) There's some supplementary money from the UC I have invested in a 401-ish setup that I treat rather casually; among other plans the UC offers a typical stocks/bonds mix that grows more conservative with time so it's sitting in that for the most part, and it'll tick over. My separate personal savings is for emergencies or some possible big purchase down the road, though with housing being what it is here, that's kinda unlikely.

suicide I guess?

I sure hope plasma clinics still exist by the time I'm in my sixties.

I have low risk Roth IRAs (a redundant phrase, I guess), so the fluctuations of the market don't significantly affect it. Obviously it's done better in the last 15 months but not substantially so.

I do think about it. Basically I have great credit, I really try to maintain that, I think when I get old I will apply for shit loads of credit cards....legally emancipate my daughter, then filter whatever I can give to her in cash form, then sell her the house for $1 while I continue to live there. Then just use one credit card to keep paying the other minimum payments and keep that shell game going for as long as possible, then whatever declare bankruptcy or die or whatever and hopefully leave the credit card companies eating it

Retirement in the 21st century is:

https://www.touchofart.eu/photos/Dariusz_Kaleta/big/Sokrates_i_Cykuta_dkal55.jpg

oh yeah and also I figure while running up the credit cards if there still is social security I'll take those payments, withdraw the cash and put those in an offshore account or even safety deposit box under a different name and just go grab cash for stuff after the credit card game is up

ums, how much do you charge for a retirement plan consultation, and can I pay you in pogs?

Step 1: storage unit full of Beanie Babies
Step 2: ???
Step 3: retirement!

I really like UMS's plan - $1 sale of the house is clever, but I think you should also budget for a good lawyer for your daughter. Legally emancipating her doesn't mean your creditors won't still try to lean on her to settle your estate.

For extra righteousness I might also say that your orgy of credit-card-fueled spending should probably shift away from local small businesses.ethically sourced whatsits, and more toward eeevil megacorps, as you get closer to financial self-immolation. Make sure all the people who get screwed over are the ones who deserve it.

considering how much you need to retire shouldn't there either be a few more options or consolidate a bunch of these into one? is there a practical difference between having saved $3,000 or $9,000 or $15,000 or $30,000? or is that the pt? that whatever we've most likely done so far is hopelessly inadequate?

does anyone else worry about putting money aside for the future when maybe there will be no gov backing the dollar in the future?

a big tent and a one-way ticket to Uzbekistan should do me

i'd love to visit bukhara one day

Ripple guys ripple

i have a meager IRA from a previous job that matched contributions, however, as i'm under 30 i wonder if i should just take that $ and use it to travel and whatnot before we go full waterworld

Invest in sunscreen and swimwear.

i have quite a bit but not as much as i should have; I withdrew a lot to buy a house six years ago, which was actually a good investment (so far). my company doesn't match unfortunately.

"does anyone else worry about putting money aside for the future when maybe there will be no gov backing the dollar in the future?"

all the time

I really like UMS's plan - $1 sale of the house is clever, but I think you should also budget for a good lawyer for your daughter. Legally emancipating her doesn't mean your creditors won't still try to lean on her to settle your estate.

For extra righteousness I might also say that your orgy of credit-card-fueled spending should probably shift away from local small businesses.ethically sourced whatsits, and more toward eeevil megacorps, as you get closer to financial self-immolation. Make sure all the people who get screwed over are the ones who deserve it.

― I will finish what I (Ye Mad Puffin), Friday, February 9, 2018 9:16 AM (thirty-seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Thanks, that's good advice and also good point on screwing the big companies.

Old Lunch - sign up for my webinar "Dirtbag Retirement Planning"

Trump has been sort of...inspirational is the wrong word...but eye opening, like reading about him, it's like rich people act like crooks all the time why should I approach things like ooh save my pennies one at a time like a good little boy

Also inspired a couple of things...a friend's brother was getting divorced and they were broke as hell but his soon to be ex stayed in the house and just kept bullshitting and making payment agreements and sending them payments here and there as much as she could and it was FOUR years before she was evicted

also, my cousin does crop insurance and one of his adjusters is this older guy who went down post-Katrina with his wife in an RV to do freelance adjusting (there was obviously just shit tons of work down there)...anyway, he goes to check out this trailer park that had been destroyed, gets there and there's NOTHING left, like maybe a piece of sheet metal here and there or piece of wood, but like the things was erased...like it never existed...so like good luck trying to assess anything, he was just gonna write it up as a total loss for every person that could be shown to own a trailer there...

anyway, he's walking along the beach and he sees this sock...picks it up and it's full of cash. a lot. so he's like how the fuck would I ever trace who's money this was? so he takes it back, and him and his wife hang it up to dry like in a fuckin movie..anyway, it turns out to be more than $50,000....so he's real careful about it but it like fuck it, it's just gonna sit in some government office or something and they'll never get it to whose it was anyway...so they just keep the cash, don't buy anything crazy but just say hey this is food, groceries and clothing money...he got more than a decade out of it, just using it for those basics and paying in cash keeping the money in a safe

but eye opening, like reading about him, it's like rich people act like crooks all the time why should I approach things like ooh save my pennies one at a time like a good little boy

on one hand yeah but otoh you want to be a better human than djt. not saying you can't bend the rules and be a good person (and sometimes maybe bending the rules is required to be a good person) but the way djt acts like a crook he leaves a lot of damage in his wake.

who am i damaging in my scenarios? (if you say banks or credit card companies i don't give a shit)

back when i had a steady job i put 5% of every paycheck into retirement, which was matched by my employer. it is weird, now, outside of that job, to have ~$0 in my bank account but to have a decent amount stored away for "retirement" 35 years from now. hopefully i won't have to withdraw it early in order to make it through the next few decades

one of the many reasons I left the usa was that here I'm a civil servant with a nice pension plan. since I came here late it'll only be like 80% of my highest salary but that'll be plenty, especially since there'll be no health care costs. no college costs either (my older daughter will start higher ed this fall, if we were still in the usa I have no idea how we'd have handled that, I guess the usual loan thing)

https://i.imgur.com/kV3v7oZ.png

this is good presumably. anyway, i play along to an extent with the conceit that in 30y time the world financial markets will still be intact. but i am p close to converting my retirement plan contribution into a canned goods and ammunition stockpile fund

considering how much you need to retire shouldn't there either be a few more options or consolidate a bunch of these into one?

I worry that my savings are inadequate and I'm in the highest category (albeit barely)

I have a 401k, but have not been able to contribute more than a couple % of my income to it for many years. I've also borrowed from it twice, once to buy a home (stupid, I know) so I'm paying that back rather than accumulating new retirement savings. The recent fluctuations didn't hit me too badly because with the help of our company's advisor my portfolio is VERY conservative.

Although last year I was getting like an 11-12% return, now I'm getting 2.66% YTD. Thanks, Trump!

I am retired now. My answer will no doubt ruin the curve.

I contribute the max 18,500 every year and currently have $140K total. At 36 with a good twenty years to go I think I’m sitting pretty. Thank you Thrift Savings Plan. And I guess thank you Ohio for having such a low cost-of-living.

i have $1000 saved dollars and i am so fucked forever.

You have saved dollars?! So jealous right now.

P.S. I am powerfucked times infinity.

I do have a change jar at home that's like a quarter full atm, so it isn't technically true to say I have NO savings.

$0 but the only person in my family who's ever "retired" was my grandmother who worked for the post office and even then she worked 30 hours a week as a Wal-Mart greeter until she died, so the concept is fundamentally foreign to me.

the $1000 i have saved is because i tried to save some money while i was working a bit extra, and then i gave it to my wife for safekeeping.
i 100% live paycheck to paycheck, and my 2 days/week regular work doesn't cover my rent.

I think my mom is the first person in my family to retire and stay retired (so far, it's only been a couple of years). Thoroughly expect to still be working as a brittle nonagenarian.

We were pretty rich when my daughter was born. Her college account balance is twice (twice!) my IRA balance. She's 10.

Some folks say it should be the other way round, because you can borrow for college but you can't borrow for retirement. Welp, too late now.

I may have to ask my daughter if I can crash in her dorm for a while.

a big tent and a one-way ticket to Uzbekistan should do me

i'd love to visit bukhara one day

I've been to Uzbekistan, some cool stuff, madrasas, Samarkand, Bukhara, Tashkent, etc., but it's pretty hardcore there right now. Great bread, great plov!

'Zero student loan debt' is second only to 'life' in the list of greatest gifts you can give to a child.

ie I have no savings largely thanks to student loan debt. Thanks, college (and, tbf, my complete absence of financial acumen).

i live paycheck to paycheck. i currently have about $800 credit card debt, that's the extent of my worldly debts. i have no savings, and while i do have a decent enough pension in my current job - where I've only been 18 months - i am extremely unlikely to stay here long-term as i don't want to live where i am longer than perhaps a year or two more.

oh i have student debt in scotland of about 1500 pounds but a: they don't collect it from me since i left the country, b: it's interest are,. c: they take it directly out of my paycheck when I'm in scotland in very reasonable (i.e. small) installments so i basically don't even think about it as being a thing that exists

yeah, my retirement savings pretty much == my student loan debt. i'm hoping that the savings appreciate at a faster rate than the debt, but who knows.

holy shit this poll

This was the 2022 tax bill … I thought there was something new … or do i need to read more than the first few paragraphs? (Will read the whole thing later just… on phone rn)

Who is the richest ilxor

Me

I have a 403(b) - the nonprofit equivalent of a 401(k) - and I'm always slightly afraid when the quarterly statement arrives in the mail
Sometimes it's good, often it's bad

I have been the beneficiary of savings plans since the 90s (social security, 401k and a small pension). I think I'm wealthy enough to survive as a senior, but as someone with MS I will need nursing care in the future. I just don't want to go to a depressing nursing home, I want to live in an assisted living facility where there is a chance for some independence and camaraderie with others my age

I don't have any heirs that are important to me in my family - they all have enough money - but there are some other people that I want to help or at least acknowledge as ones I've loved.

The whole idea of a living will is so fraught, and my ideas about it change from day to day

I’m not that old (I’m just 68) and am not near to being incapacitated but, as a single person, advanced aging concerns me. My friends and I are discussing these issues. Many of you will too in coming years

68!

Old bro itt

:) it's not that old, really, you guys will be there soon

Respect

I got $10 set aside for some sleeping pills and a plastic bag. Retiring Heaven’s Gate style.

Respect

I got $10 set aside for some sleeping pills and a plastic bag. Retiring Heaven’s Gate style.

― papal hotwife (milo z)

damn that's bleak

that used to be my retirement plan but as i get older, that just doesn't seem practical. getting old and dying doesn't seem like a binary now, it doesn't feel like "well i can't work any more, guess i'll kill myself". in large part i guess because i... kind of can't work anymore? like i'm kind of legit "disabled" at this point. not permanently or whatever, it's just that the conditions i'm under right now make it really difficult for me to fulfill the expectations placed on me by capitalism. i'm basically faking it for the health insurance. there's a possibility that at some point somebody decides to switch me on the balance sheet from "asset" to "liability", which will make things harder in some ways but easier in others. it's not the end of my life. working isn't my life. getting paid makes my life a hell of a lot easier, but if i'm not getting paid, it doesn't mean i'm gonna kill myself.

transition increased the precarity of my financial situation by orders of magnitude. my ex-wife and i both worked, we owned a house, no kids. we were going to grow old and die together, except that i kind of wanted to skip the "growing old" part. the irony of it is that now that i've transitioned, i no longer want to kill myself, but in other respects it's made life so much more difficult for me - single income, no house, a job that's no longer suited to the person i am now. the trans people i know, lots of us are trying to survive without being able to work, and it's hard. most of us aren't killing ourselves, which is good. some of us are, and that makes me sad.

so here's bleak: my mom's in assisted living, which is good for her but sucks for me... like i hate that this is a calculation, but a lot of my being able to do the things i've done is that my dad died when i was 40 and left me a substantial inheritance. i don't know how long she's going to make it. she was and is an extremely emotionally abusive parent so we don't really talk. (so even if she dies with money, i might not get any of it lol).

No kids/heirs here either - I'm with milo on the Heaven's Gate exit. Bulldoze my stuff into a volcano when I'm gone...

Well this thread took a turn for the morbid

Retirement is as inconceivable as winning a $500mn jackpot and I just don't want to be one of those inspirational stories on the news about an 85 year old celebrating their birthday during a Wal-Mart shift. Even that fate is preferable to the old people prisons you get stuck in if Medicaid/Medicare have to foot the entire bill.

I think being a greeter is like the ideal post retirement gig. Love to say hi to strangers and to be paid to do it? Ffs

When the time comes Im going to rat out all you retirees’ hiding places to the liberators in exchange for food and shelter, gl

Fuck Walmart greeters and fuck Walmart.

Bro

lol it’s like I remember someone made a post here recently about hating self-checkout at groceries stores because they like to talk to the staff or something.. like ok

I’m finding my current age (59) a bit agonising. I can see over the next few years the strong temptation will be for me to keep working to ensure I’m as financially comfortable as possible- but this will cut into precious uncertain remaining years of good health I could be using for an active retirement.

It’s tough trying to land a retirement in a cost of living crisis.

we should form an ILE retirement center in the U.S. imo

Wal-Mart eliminated the elderly greeters IIRC, they're all spry young loss prevention associates to keep you from shoplifting baby food and diapers.

^^Yesterday I was at my old local Walmart for the first time since I moved/the pandemic, and was kinda bleak. The whole beauty department and all the Legos were in glass display cases!

Theft is reals

Target is the same way

Bought toothpaste yesterday and not only was it in a locked case, someone had to take it to the register for us

we had a BJs membership and i just ended up refusing to go there because they check your cart at the door after you have already paid. fuck that i hate them. plus it just has an apocalypse vibe in there. people stocking up for doomsday. the perfect place to take over in the event of a real doomsday though. so much food. so many socks.

Walmart is super apocalyptic, so much stuff behind bars and glass. So much unfinished concrete. So cold.

the concrete is a good call out, so many places are like this now. like they decided 'why spend money making this place look good, who cares'. apparently people don't either!

lol they just did a full remodel of ours and the polished concrete floors are a vast improvement

I need 50 pounds of romaine where can I go yeah you know

green in judgment, cold in blood

Theft is reals

citation needed

I just want to acknowledge that well-placed Shakefpeare ref