Your Retirement Savings

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

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/08/magazine/401k-retirement-crisis.html

I should repoll this, more choices/ranges this time.

i read that entire NYT article the other day and now i demand my pension!

politico (?!) had a great feature about this too https://www.politico.com/news/2024/04/13/how-your-401k-ate-the-federal-budget-00150319

url is not accurate. headline is "‘The 401(k) industry owns Congress’: How lawmakers quietly passed a $300 billion windfall to the wealthy"

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

I'm somewhere in the middle here. I've put away enough that I'm not contemplating the plastic bag and sleeping pills option, but on the other hand I don't realistically have enough to retire on when I might want to. I'm guessing I'll have to sell my house and move to somewhere smaller and cheaper.

Our retirements plans are in good part not-spending: staying in an affordable town, not moving into a bigger apartment, bringing lunch to work, buying only what we need and when we can, day-to-day discipline.

We are well covered and put aside regular amounts on the equivalent of a 401k, but we have only just started. My partner took a one-way ticket here and brought 10K in savings when I had just enough left from a 10K student loan to buy a bed and couch. That was five years ago. Now we're in our late 30s, dual income, one kid. We probably both have a shot at making good salaries one day, if that's what we want.

The dream would be to make a lot, buy a house, retire early. The reality is that less and less people can do that.

I'm privileged in my bachelorhood: good job, state benefits, a Roth IRA, some savings. I often ask myself if I should be abstemious for the sake of old age because I've no illusions about who will help care for me, but then I stop and wonder, why not have fun now?

gaudeamus igitur