How u Doing? Retirement savings.

[JedB]

I'm trying to teach my kids to start saving as soon as possible. I didn't start a 401k until I was 28. I dumped 17% into it for a short time, until I got married and decided I couldn't afford that anymore. I always put in enough to get the maximum company match, but wish I had started earlier and put more in longer.

I'm pretty sure I could talk until I was blue in the face, and not force my kids to learn from my mistakes. Sometimes people just have to learn on their own. I just hope it doesn't take them as long as it took me.

I'm not sure how old your kids are, but my folks did the following with me:
1) Told me that I had to save 50% of my allowance, and then my jobs in my early teen years.
2) They would help me save when I was very young (5 - 10) and when we would go to the bank, they would match whatever I put in.
3) Get them in the habit early. Really early.

 

[sobo]

3) Get them in the habit early. Really early.

++1

 

[HaveGun]

In theory he only lost the money if he sold the stocks at that time. knock on wood Iam almost back to January's amount.... Knock on wood.... The mrket is a place top put extra $$$$

Actually, since he's retired, he is absolutely losing the income from those investments every month.

 

[sobo]

Yup, I'm seeing the same. My 401(k) went up $5,500 overnight from 6/01 to 6/02. Haven't checked the IRAs for yesterday's performance yet, but it all smells like roses...
As of June 01, my portfolio is right back to where it was at the end of February, before all of this COVID crap hit. I've just lost 3 months of earnings/growth.

ETA: Just checked for today's numbers...
IRA is up >$1,000 from 6/02 to 6/03
401(k) is up >$3,300 from 6/02 to 6/03
So, 401(k) up $8,800+ for the first 3 days of June, and the IRA is up $2,200+ for the same period when I add in the IRA performance for 6/01 to 6/02.

IRA is up $1,200 since last check on June 3; up $3,600 for the week.
401(k) is up $3,800 since last check on June 3, up $12,600 for the week
Total portfolio rate of return YTD is up 1.88%
I am back in the black for year-to-date.

 

[Medic!]

It's only the eye of the storm.
There is plenty of reasons to think you may loose again.

But not having debt will probably keep you functional if no longer whole.

 

[GWS]

We are comfortable

 

[sobo]

It's only the eye of the storm.
There is plenty of reasons to think you may loose again.

But not having debt will probably keep you functional if no longer whole.

I have zero debt. It is my greatest financial strength...

 

[GWS]

I have zero debt. It is my greatest financial strength...

That's why we are comfortable as well.

 

[sobo]

That's why we are comfortable as well.

It is the thing that gives me the most peace and solace in these times...

 

[Medic!]

I have zero debt. It is my greatest financial strength...

I know. I read your earlier posts.

You are way ahead of the game. And much more durable than those living a leveraged life.

 

[sobo]

I know. I read your earlier posts.

You are way ahead of the game. And much more durable than those living a leveraged life.

You wouldn't believe where I was just a scant 10 years ago...

 

[GWS]

It is the thing that gives me the most peace and solace in these times...

Seriously. When we got out from under it was Free O free at last!
10 tons off our shoulders.

The only other time I felt this relieved was when we bought our house up here. That meant we were really, really going to get the hell out of California. We had a plan and a place to go.
I was walking on clouds after that.

 

[Medic!]

You wouldn't believe where I was just a scant 10 years ago...

Doesn't matter much when you put your mind to it. Dose it?
Sad that more people don't move in your direction.

I read on average people spends 32% of there take home money servicing dept.
Interest on House, Cars, Credit Cards and other sh!t. It's nice getting a 32% wage increase when you pay it all off and stop using credit.
You can really stack the cash.

I'm surprised more people don't want it? Maybe they just were never told a way to do it? Or they never thought that living a debt/interest free life was a possibility?

 

[The Heretic]

My main goal for retirement was to buy new land with the equity of my current property and reduce my debt by two thirds at least, having a much smaller mortgage, if not zero debt.

Not there. My layoff put a kink in my plans.

I am hoping that maybe I can makeup for that by going to cash at the height of the market, then buying back in when it bottoms out again. Worst case, I lose a little bit of earnings opportunity/potential because it doesn't crash again, best case, I make a tidy profit by buying low and selling high when the market crashes then recovers eventually. Makes things take a bit longer, but even if I had a job right now, I would maybe do the same thing.

I think it is more likely that we see the market go down significantly in the next 6 months, than we see it continue going up at the rate it is.

Eventually the market will take a second look at the economy, the unemployment rate, the reduced spending by both consumer and business, the bankruptcies, the people and businesses who can't pay their bills, the other businesses affected by all of this, and the market will go down.

Alternatively, the market may flatten out - but I doubt that. The last thing I expect is for the market to grow at the rate is has been. At some point, there are going to be a number of people who say "ok, time to take what I have and play it safe". How many and when I don't know.

It will take years to recover from this chaos and that is if we have no more chaos. We are less than halfway thru the year, we are still in turmoil on multiple fronts, and we have yet to see what comes out of the elections in November - which I think Trump will lose (unless Biden stumbles badly). If we have a resurgence of CV-19, then that just adds to it.

Too much has too high of a chance of going wrong.

 

[sobo]

January 13, 2018... the day I achieved my financial freedom.

Dave Ramsey says something along the lines of, "When you pay off your mortgage, go out in your yard, take off your shoes, and stand barefoot in the grass. See if it doesn't feel different to you now."
From experience, I can tell you that it does...

 

[The Heretic]

I'm surprised more people don't want it? Maybe they just were never told a way to do it? Or they never thought that living a debt/interest free life was a possibility?

They were told the opposite.

They were told to buy things on credit (debt) at high interest rates.

They were sold on instant gratification with long term high interest debt.

This was the American Dream - for the bankers. It still is.

Currently, savings rate is up to 30%+ where it was 8% before CV-19. Some people are paying attention, but most of those people will go back to their old ways when they get their jobs back. They have short attention spans.

 

[The Heretic]

Is The 60/40 Portfolio Safe?

The S&P 500 is at an all-time high because of Financial Repression, not an improving economic outlook or optimism over a vaccine drove.

seekingalpha.com

I am about 75% money market, 20% bonds, 5% stock as of Friday. I was back up to where I was at before the 30% crash in Feb/Mar, plus about 3%, so about 10% up from about a year ago, so that seemed a good time to preserve what little growth I had this year and not be greedy and try to perfectly time the market. I will lose some earning opportunity, but I am prepared for a correction - it is not an "if", it is a "when" - IMO.

More importantly, while I will lose some to inflation and earning opportunities (the latter more than the former), I won't lose to a correction/crash (like I did early this year - about 15% and it took 4 months to get back in the black - during which time, if I had needed those $ due to my unemployment, I would have taken a real world loss, not just on paper).

Generally (over the years) fall is the ending of a bull market. Winter the market goes down and it is often a good time to buy stocks.

Combine those trends with the realization that the economic recovery not only is slowing and doing poorly, but that 10%+ of the population remains unemployed, that that rate will probably go back up, that some significant percentage of those unemployed are not temporarily unemployed (they won't have a job to go back to - those jobs are gone), that many businesses have closed permanently, that bankruptcies of both businesses and consumers will go up significantly, that people won't be able to make rent/mortgage payments, that consumer spending is down and going down further, that income is down (maybe going down further - certainly after the unemployment benefits run out completely at the end of the year), that we are in a greatest recession in decades - when all this is realized by the populace and investors and the markets - wham, we got more than a "correction", we've got a "crash".

Sorry for the run on sentence. But think about it.

 

[308]

January 13, 2018... the day I achieved my financial freedom.

Dave Ramsey says something along the lines of, "When you pay off your mortgage, go out in your yard, take off your shoes, and stand barefoot in the grass. See if it doesn't feel different to you now."
From experience, I can tell you that it does...
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Convince your young self to do something your old self will thank you for doing.

I like how Dave Ramsay was helping his daughter i to her first apartment but since she had no credit score, Dave needed to co-sign. The manager said, Dave you don't have a credit score either, and Dave told him he could write a check and buy the entire complex with some funds from his personal savings...lol

 

[SonicBlue03]

If those numbers in the OP article are accurate, that's a tragic commentary on the ability for people to save.

 

[Mikej]

If those numbers in the OP article are accurate, that's a tragic commentary on the ability for people to save.

IPhone 37 comes out next week. Got one reserved for 50% off with a 17 year contract at $250.00 a month is all! YAY!

Worth it? Heck yeah, it's way "Smarter", fer shure, than the IPhone 36 I bought 4 months ago. Edit:...and only still owe $965.37 on.