Your Retirement Savings

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.

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

― I will finish what I (Ye Mad Puffin), Friday, February 9, 2018 1:58 PM (fourteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

throw keggers to fund your retirement!

it's probably been addressed in the uncool conservative beliefs thread, but the student loan debt problem is related to a higher education bubble, which could be helped in the future by reducing the number of people going into debt to go to college, and reducing the number of people going to college, period. Many of them get little professional or financial benefit from higher education. If they are going to be Wal-Mart greeters or Uber drivers or Amazon warehouse workers, or even many computer programmers, the only real role of college is to prolong childhood/youth, postpone the meaningless drudgery of adulthood, and to give a basic overview of social justice issues.

I have a lot of money saved. This is due to me being cheap as shit, saving a majority of every paycheck since I was 16 and never having student loans or any serious health issues yet.

also living somewhere cheap i suppose?

I took out a few grand in student loans to finish my master's thesis without having to have a day job, (after failing at that for 3 1/2 years) then I paid $60 a month for 10 years on autopay, and my credit is now "excellent"

Yeah. The student loan debt crisis is very real and it needs to be addressed asap.

By a strange coincidence that there is ~$1.4 trillion in outstanding student debt, and the recent tax bill is estimated to increase the national debt by ~$1.4 trillion, while it does nothing whatsoever to address student loan debt but pours most of its largesse into the pockets of the ultra-wealthy. We are so fucked.

making notes for my ILXor plundering spree 25 years from now

xpost Hard emphasis on the 'we'.

xpost. No, I lived in NYC for 13 years. Now I kind of live everywhere.

you entered the matrix

must have a hell of a job!

Even though I have a lot of money saved in cash and I paid for my last apartment in Astoria in cash, I still won't take taxis/ubers, haven't had cable since 2003, my MotoG has been cracked for over a year, I am using a second hand laptop, I cut and dye my own hair...but I do drink expensive bottles of wine regularly. My mom was a waitress and dad military. I am just super good with saving money, making investments and being flexible with jobs.

less than it was at the beginning of the past two weeks

xpost -- Can't claim to be on Yerac's level but the importance of some kind of consistent frugality is key. Let the indulgences be just that, and sparingly rather than constants. (Obvious points but.)

voted 0

the student loan debt problem is related to a higher education bubble, which could be helped in the future by reducing the number of people going into debt to go to college, and reducing the number of people going to college, period. Many of them get little professional or financial benefit from higher education.

I'm super wary of this line of thinking. People with degrees still earn way more over a lifetime than people without, and that's not reversing itself any time soon.

As someone without a degree, there's a security to having that piece of paper that I don't have. If my business fails, I can go make $11/hr at an Amazon warehouse until I die of heat exhaustion.

i have a considerable amount in my 401k thanks to starting to contribute when i was 22, a nice employer match and profit-sharing contribution, and some cool portfolio management stuff we get (~20% return in the last year even with the recent dip). but i'm 30 years from needing that money so it's pretty uh conceptual at this time.

i have none which is dumb of me as I've been financially stable for a couple years and still haven't gotten around to setting something up

college is for networking

I kind of think everyone should be able to start a 401k at birth

I really wonder about US social security and will it be there or not when I retire

or shall I say "when I can no longer work"

I kind of think everyone should be able to start a 401k at birth

Hell yes they should.

are y'all who are putting 10%+ of income into a 401(k)/Roth/etc including employer match in that number?

I feel insanely privileged and jerkish for even asking that, I'm here thinking "am I way behind?!" when half my peers here are measuring savings in sandwiches :/

hahahah employer with a retirement plan??? riiigggght

carey, can i get a loan?

I'm going to lose some shit at some point from leaving this place or them finally restructuring the corporate crap long before I retire but I shit you not, I have some 401(k) matching _and_ a pension plan because I work for a dinosaur

the pension plan's going to disappear any moment

I don't loan money, ever. But I will invest with or just buy someone the essential thing they need. I am always happy to buy drinks.

Srsly poll the 47 and pls be srs this time with the numbers
― Simpson L. (darraghmac), Wednesday, February 28, 2018 12:09 AM (fifteen hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Not bragging, more of a reflection on growing up lower income, and tilting the other way as a single, no kids guy (I save vs. spend, maybe to a fault). Have been with same company since 23, saving for retirement since 31 or so (starting at 8%, now at 20%), so at $450K in IRA alone. Above water in house, annual pension is secure, and have good emergency savings set aside. Not accounting for Social Security, feels like with my standard of living, I can still retire early.

All comes down to health, really. Could save like crazy, and keel over with it unused. Or could retire, everything crashes or inflates, and I'm penniless. At which point, the Bacon Retirement Plan comes in: one pound of fried pepper bacon per day, until the heart seizes.

Nicely done, no lie. (Except for that final backup plan.)

unless he or she makes it a hit youtube show to annoy a retired whiney

I just plan to die when I run out of money.

I have about 300k in a 401k I was able to save when I worked like a slave at a law firm (I turn 40 next year). But Im a. worried about the hyper stock market bubble exploding and slashing that number in half and b. the rest of my savings/net worth lol dipped below 25k recently after a move and my budgeting didn't include health insurance that I'm not eligible for until mid March.. not in an insane bind but its making me anxious as hell working with less and less of a safety net and being unable to save.

it seems the DINK lifestyle is the only solvent one these days

Kids are a luxury

otm

xpost If you are super worried about a stock market bubble (although it only matters what your account is worth when you actually withdraw the money) you could just transfer the 401k to an IRA and redistribute the funds or hold them in cash/savings until a time that you feel things are cheaper.

everything crashes or inflates, and I'm penniless

...as would be everyone whose net worth could be written without at least a generous handful of zeroes. A general financial catastrophe can't be planned around. You just have to gut it out with whatever resources you can salvage from the fire. But it's always a good idea to have some tangible assets that aren't just 'paper' or digits on a bank's balance sheet, because those are the first to immolate.

There was a time when I thought I'd be able to get away with just selling my CD collection if I was skint.

My plan B is "Well, I can always move to Lincolnshire".

My story is similar to officer sonny bonds', but I had it in the bank where it all got eaten by rent during long-term unemployment