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Financial Survival
- Thread Starter Just Jim
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If by pensions you mean non-401K or non-IRA retirement plans funded by corporations, then almost nobody has those anymore except for certain types, like government workers.
As for cutting retirement plans, unless you are already in retirement, I don't think any org needs any permission to cut a pension - they can pretty much change them at any time they want, especially if they have funded the plan solely with corporate funds and not employee funds.
I have never worked for anybody except the military that had any kind of "pension" and I prefer to manage such funds myself. Corporations and their pensions can pretty much disappear with the winds of the economy.
My 401k and IRAs (two of them) are managed (to a degree) and funded by me. I determine how much goes into them, where the funds go, and when they come out (I am 60 now, so I can pull out the funds whenever I want).
I max them out every year putting about one third of my income into them. They grow - on average - about 5 to 10% each year.
As for money in a bank, I rarely have more than $25K there, and it fluctuates with expenditures. If a bank starts taking people's regular funds and leaves them high and dry, you can imagine that heads would roll - locally and in WA DC - people would not stand for it, not now with their faith in FDIC. That faith may be misplaced, but you can bet that it is there and if people saw those funds go away there would be rioting in the streets that would make Ferguson look like a family picnic.
More to the point, banks and politicians know this.
As for cutting retirement plans, unless you are already in retirement, I don't think any org needs any permission to cut a pension - they can pretty much change them at any time they want, especially if they have funded the plan solely with corporate funds and not employee funds.
I have never worked for anybody except the military that had any kind of "pension" and I prefer to manage such funds myself. Corporations and their pensions can pretty much disappear with the winds of the economy.
My 401k and IRAs (two of them) are managed (to a degree) and funded by me. I determine how much goes into them, where the funds go, and when they come out (I am 60 now, so I can pull out the funds whenever I want).
I max them out every year putting about one third of my income into them. They grow - on average - about 5 to 10% each year.
As for money in a bank, I rarely have more than $25K there, and it fluctuates with expenditures. If a bank starts taking people's regular funds and leaves them high and dry, you can imagine that heads would roll - locally and in WA DC - people would not stand for it, not now with their faith in FDIC. That faith may be misplaced, but you can bet that it is there and if people saw those funds go away there would be rioting in the streets that would make Ferguson look like a family picnic.
More to the point, banks and politicians know this.
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Owe your soul to the Company Store.
- Thread Starter
- #24
Sorry I wasn't posting clearly. The pension as I understand it were government and union pensions. However I am not sure if 401k's are now considered part of the banks funds and subject to a Greek haircut. Plus with all the confiscation laws and government notification by the banks of cash movement it's unsafe to even remove your cash from the bank in large amounts.
So.. what's the right answer here? Long term savings / investing seems, from my perspective, to be a really unsafe bet. I watched my father take a really substantial hit back when the market fell. I have retirement through PERS to "look forward to" assuming I make it that far. What else can I do to protect a moderate quality of life in 20 years? I'm starting to feel like there will be no retirement.
- Thread Starter
- #26
Right now it's a mater of protecting what you have. It looks as though it may be difficult to accumulate wealth on a monetary basis. The regulations they are putting in are dangerous to the working man. To me and it's just opinion I would use all extra funds to get out and stay out of debt. The biggest wage increase in your life will be from paying off your house. You will make more on your money paying off a car loan than you will get on your money in your bank.
After that it all depends on your lifestyle as to what you put your money in that holds value.
Last Edited:
Thanks Jim,
I have a moderate savings and investments that are slowly increasing as time goes by, but I can never quite shake this feeling that I should be doing something other with this money, than letting it collect the paltry interest rate. The CD rates alone are silly to the point of me wondering if I shouldn't just use it to pay off all my debt (minus maybe the mortgage) and all of a sudden have triple the discretionary income I had before. I guess I could use that to purchase more real assets instead of fake dollars in a fake account that seems subject to manipulation by people who don't have my interest in mind.
- Thread Starter
- #28
Save yourself one heck of a lot of money by getting out of all debt plus it will give you a freedom few will ever know. That money you save turns into real wealth and will help you become a free man. Being free is the most wealth you can have.
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Many unions no longer have pensions per se - many now have some form of 401K, if not outright.
No bank holds my 401k/IRA - they are held by various investment management institutions.
As for the Greeks - you saw what happened there right?
Now imagine that happening here, but an order of magnitude worse, in a country with 100 million firearms, less than 2 million active/reserve military, less than number LEOs, and all of those would also be subject to the same financial issues.
I don't think any bank or politician or gov. official has any illusions about what would happen if they made any kind of large money grab. The economy would fail, the government would fall, there would be chaos. And no - nobody wants that to happen.
- Thread Starter
- #30
A lot of those 401k and pension financial institutions are investing in bank derivatives and that is why the move to back the derivatives by the FDIC. There really isn't a safe place for money when the crooks have the government in their pocket.
What happened the last great depression? Older realities told me the banks closed and even drilled the safety deposit boxes to steal people's money. Yet the public didn't burn it all down when everyone was in the same boat.
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Here is what I am doing.
Maxing my 401K contributions. That is growing about 5% per year on average (beyond what I put into it, which is about 25% of my gross income).
I also have funds I converted from a closing 401K to a conventional IRA - those funds get actively invested (i.e., it can change weekly), currently, in moderate growth, diversified over fund types. So far, the funds have been up and down, sometimes a couple per cent a week - but overall, in the long term, they have grown 5 to 10% per year over the last 15 years.
I also have a Roth IRA I started two years ago. That is currently in low growth "safe" funds, not earning much interest, but that is my first emergency fund because I it is post-tax and I can pull money from it without paying any taxes. Eventually I will start shifting some of it, as I get more funds in it, into more growth funds.
Between those funds, if I had to, I could continue at my current expenditure level (mortgage, food, heat, food, insurance) for at least 5 years (probably more) at which time I would pull on SSI (I could start SSI in 1.5 years if I had to).
I currently have 33% equity in my property, possibly more. I plan to sell some of my acreage to a neighbor before I sell the property when I retire. That should not significantly impact the selling price of the property as this kind of property, if you have about 5 acres, then having more doesn't really add much value on average - so I will sell some acreage, use that along with some other savings to buy acreage further out in the boonies. Better acreage, with a southern facing gentle slope, hopefully with some marketable timber I can have thinned for additional income.
Then I will start building on it. Meanwhile I will sell my current acreage. With even just my current equity (not to mention 5 years of mortgage payments and appreciation), that would pay for a pretty nice house and other property improvements. The idea being, when I retire, my new property/house will be paid for.
Meanwhile, I will have been putting those significant funds into my retirement accounts (not in any bank). The total amount would be enough to live on the "interest" income alone (without touching the "principal") - assuming a conservative 5% annual income from the funds and that I have no debt/mortgage and I live frugally. That said, my SSI income (assuming it is still there) would also be roughly equivalent to the income from the private retirement funds.
Between the two, assuming no mortgage/rent/debt, I would be living high on the hog. My private retirement funds pass on to my daughter when I die of old age, not having been touched by me (I have calculated that the minimum I must pull out by law when I reach age 70, should be less than the amount the funds grow (assuming no huge economic depression/etc.).
Actually, if things go according to plan, I should be able to live how I want (some traveling in the winter, to warmer climes, come home for late spring, summer, fall - rinse and repeat) on less than my income. The big wild card is what happens when my health eventual fails. I know from family experience that this can really eat into your funds/income big time.
That's the best case scenario.
Worst case - I have a heart attack/stroke or get cancer tomorrow, and I cannot work anymore. My insurance would eventually run out, and even with insurance the expenses can easily eat through my funds in less than a year, at which point I would have to sell my property.
A slightly less worse case scenario is that I die suddenly and my daughter gets my retirement funds and life insurance payout.
Way way way down my list of probabilities is SHTF/TEOTWAWKI/Economic collapse, et. al., which I prepare for, but not to the extent I prepare for retirement, which comparatively is a fairly sure thing.
Maxing my 401K contributions. That is growing about 5% per year on average (beyond what I put into it, which is about 25% of my gross income).
I also have funds I converted from a closing 401K to a conventional IRA - those funds get actively invested (i.e., it can change weekly), currently, in moderate growth, diversified over fund types. So far, the funds have been up and down, sometimes a couple per cent a week - but overall, in the long term, they have grown 5 to 10% per year over the last 15 years.
I also have a Roth IRA I started two years ago. That is currently in low growth "safe" funds, not earning much interest, but that is my first emergency fund because I it is post-tax and I can pull money from it without paying any taxes. Eventually I will start shifting some of it, as I get more funds in it, into more growth funds.
Between those funds, if I had to, I could continue at my current expenditure level (mortgage, food, heat, food, insurance) for at least 5 years (probably more) at which time I would pull on SSI (I could start SSI in 1.5 years if I had to).
I currently have 33% equity in my property, possibly more. I plan to sell some of my acreage to a neighbor before I sell the property when I retire. That should not significantly impact the selling price of the property as this kind of property, if you have about 5 acres, then having more doesn't really add much value on average - so I will sell some acreage, use that along with some other savings to buy acreage further out in the boonies. Better acreage, with a southern facing gentle slope, hopefully with some marketable timber I can have thinned for additional income.
Then I will start building on it. Meanwhile I will sell my current acreage. With even just my current equity (not to mention 5 years of mortgage payments and appreciation), that would pay for a pretty nice house and other property improvements. The idea being, when I retire, my new property/house will be paid for.
Meanwhile, I will have been putting those significant funds into my retirement accounts (not in any bank). The total amount would be enough to live on the "interest" income alone (without touching the "principal") - assuming a conservative 5% annual income from the funds and that I have no debt/mortgage and I live frugally. That said, my SSI income (assuming it is still there) would also be roughly equivalent to the income from the private retirement funds.
Between the two, assuming no mortgage/rent/debt, I would be living high on the hog. My private retirement funds pass on to my daughter when I die of old age, not having been touched by me (I have calculated that the minimum I must pull out by law when I reach age 70, should be less than the amount the funds grow (assuming no huge economic depression/etc.).
Actually, if things go according to plan, I should be able to live how I want (some traveling in the winter, to warmer climes, come home for late spring, summer, fall - rinse and repeat) on less than my income. The big wild card is what happens when my health eventual fails. I know from family experience that this can really eat into your funds/income big time.
That's the best case scenario.
Worst case - I have a heart attack/stroke or get cancer tomorrow, and I cannot work anymore. My insurance would eventually run out, and even with insurance the expenses can easily eat through my funds in less than a year, at which point I would have to sell my property.
A slightly less worse case scenario is that I die suddenly and my daughter gets my retirement funds and life insurance payout.
Way way way down my list of probabilities is SHTF/TEOTWAWKI/Economic collapse, et. al., which I prepare for, but not to the extent I prepare for retirement, which comparatively is a fairly sure thing.
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My parents and grandparents lived through the Great Depression. My Grandparents were farmers from the Dust Bowl. They moved here, and not only survived, but thrived. My father worked on WPA projects - he helped build a number of dams along the Columbia and worked on other projects.A lot of those 401k and pension financial institutions are investing in bank derivatives and that is why the move to back the derivatives by the FDIC. There really isn't a safe place for money when the crooks have the government in their pocket.
What happened the last great depression? Older realities told me the banks closed and even drilled the safety deposit boxes to steal people's money. Yet the public didn't burn it all down when everyone was in the same boat.
Back then there was no expectation of a safe haven for monies placed in a bank, much less the government providing a "safety net", because there was no such thing.
Today, not only is there such an expectation, but about 50% of the population have some kind of income from government social programs, many have their sole income from such programs, the rest of us support them through taxes. This expectation has grown over the last 70 years. My parents generation, the generation that was self-sufficient, is gone.
Today, more than half the population is dependent on government hand outs. Everybody has been promised, time and time again, that their money is safe in the banks.
Turn off that spigot, take people's savings away from them to prop up the banks and other financial institutions because they are "too big to fail"?
Uh yeah, bad things will happen. People won't sit back and say "oh well". They won't take "too bad, so sad" from the government or the banks. Heads will roll, cities burn.
Politicians and banks know this. They aren't stupid.
- Thread Starter
- #33
Still not sure I agree, the asset forfeiture laws allows your money to be stolen without warrant, trial or conviction yet not a word from the public. I like it your way better but just don't see it for now. Here's hoping
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Civil forfeiture works on probable cause - they have to have cause to believe that it is ill gotten gains. It would be difficult to show in court that my 401K contributions came from drug deals or were stolen when there is a record from employer to accounts.
Civil forfeiture works for the government when there is either such a small amount that it is not worth the cost of fighting it in court, or that there is no easy way to prove the innocence of the funds or property.
Note that cash in your pocket generally falls into both categories.
I am as strong opponent to civil forfeiture as anyone else, but I don't think it is currently a danger to my current assets.
Civil forfeiture works for the government when there is either such a small amount that it is not worth the cost of fighting it in court, or that there is no easy way to prove the innocence of the funds or property.
Note that cash in your pocket generally falls into both categories.
I am as strong opponent to civil forfeiture as anyone else, but I don't think it is currently a danger to my current assets.
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Ditto that too. My folks were in that same age bracket and their experiences and the life they lived shaped my fiscal outlook and work ethic. They truly lived in hard times and survived. My dad told me down and out "bums" they called them would ask for their apple cores to eat. They were Missouri and IL dust bowl natives who joined the Westward Ho movement to Southern California. My father and uncles found work in the aerospace industry and did quite well in raising families. My father found his way to the early wave of hi tech at Tektronix, while farming a 100 acres "on the side".
Hard honest work was an ingrained thing, I was farming 40 acres and had 20 head of cattle when I was in high school. Learned the ability to use leverage to grow a business could be a good thing, and that it could bite you in the a$$ real fast as well.
At this point in my life, having no debt is a good thing and far better than having massive investments in the stock market. Reasonable amounts of liquid cash and harder investments , and finding different ways to generate that money are the way.
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This is a path some are taking. But the issue is timing. Timing...Run your debt to the roof, protect the assets you want to keep and bankrupt out when it crashes.
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Put money in disaster cleanup companies.
I had a good friend who's father passed away. After he passed she asked that I come over hand help her identify and value some firearms. I figured he had a couple pistols and a shotgun, maybe a few hunting rifles. When I got there she led me into a room with two massive safes and a huge wall locker. The gentleman had well over 80 rifles as many handguns and 25 or so shotguns. Everything ranging from SKS's to top dollar AR setups. lots of exotic firearms etc. He even had a Barret.
This is a man who I had known for 10 years, never once heard him talk about or reference an interest in firearms. It blew my mind.
It turns out that he had an illness that prevented him from obtaining reasonable life insurance. His answer to this was to invest his money in firearms as a source of income to be sold after his death to provide for his family. I helped value what I could and pointed out the ones she needed to hold onto or research more.
She ended up selling a portion on Gunbroker and by the time everything was said and done the partial sale netted her over 60k in revenue. Not great considering prices now, but not a kick in the teeth either.
I have been trying to sell my wife on firearms as an investment for quite some time. I figure at the very least, buying intelligently, I will always be able to get what I paid.
This is a man who I had known for 10 years, never once heard him talk about or reference an interest in firearms. It blew my mind.
It turns out that he had an illness that prevented him from obtaining reasonable life insurance. His answer to this was to invest his money in firearms as a source of income to be sold after his death to provide for his family. I helped value what I could and pointed out the ones she needed to hold onto or research more.
She ended up selling a portion on Gunbroker and by the time everything was said and done the partial sale netted her over 60k in revenue. Not great considering prices now, but not a kick in the teeth either.
I have been trying to sell my wife on firearms as an investment for quite some time. I figure at the very least, buying intelligently, I will always be able to get what I paid.
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Guys, I really appreciate your views on financial survival. Especially when some of you are talking about
what your parents & grandparents did during the depression. In years past I did a lot of reading on the economy.
I always seemed to guess wrong. When I thought things were about to crash, they would boom. Never could figure out why, other than it must have been the puppet master pulling the strings, again. They say the economy is getting better, ah, I don't see it. Food prices are sky rocketing. The list is endless..... Once again, it's nice to hear your input.
what your parents & grandparents did during the depression. In years past I did a lot of reading on the economy.
I always seemed to guess wrong. When I thought things were about to crash, they would boom. Never could figure out why, other than it must have been the puppet master pulling the strings, again. They say the economy is getting better, ah, I don't see it. Food prices are sky rocketing. The list is endless..... Once again, it's nice to hear your input.
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