Retirement

[MrDawn]

What are you doing for retirement?

Do you have an IRA account set up with your bank or are you putting back money?

 

[Crystal]

Nothing. I can't afford to live now, I'm going to be working until I can't move.

 

[Jon]

I'm never going to be able to retire.

 

[Benzine]

Making unwise life choices so I don't live too long

 

[MrDawn]

I'm never going to be able to retire.

Same. I wish I could, but you know....wish in one hand and shit in the other and see which one fills up faster.

 

[Jon]

Same. I wish I could, but you know....wish in one hand and shit in the other and see which one fills up faster.

There's a visual here and I'm not happy. @Ben - Need a DALL-E of this.

 

[Ben]

There's a visual here and I'm not happy. @Ben - Need a DALL-E of this.

Nope!

Also hahaha retirement. OK boomer.

 

[Christina]

My plan is to have my house paid off and bills such that I can work part time. Hopefully also doing a hobby job of some kind. I don't believe it's healthly to just retire and not have something to do.

I have issues with the stock market and think the whole thing is a scam for those that are not the big players siphoning off money from everybody else.

I also have an issue with this putting away all your money for later. Again I think this is a scam to get people to leave their money in accounts so that others can take advantage of it.

I'm not guaranteed tomorrow. So I will live today.

Retirement is a very new concept and really only 1 generation has been blessed enough that it worked out for them. Even the baby boomers are struggling to retire.

I plan on really working on my health, so that I can work and enjoy my later years as much as possible and not spend it in and out of a hospital or in a nursing home or living off my children. Not that I could afford one.

 

[Gloom-is-good]

I also have an issue with this putting away all your money for later. Again I think this is a scam to get people to leave their money in accounts so that others can take advantage of it.

I'm not guaranteed tomorrow. So I will live today.

I plan on really working on my health, so that I can work and enjoy my later years as much as possible and not spend it in and out of a hospital or in a nursing home or living off my children. Not that I could afford one.

All of this ^ thanks @Christina!

But for real, I read that by now I'm supposed to have like double the amount of my annual income saved for retirement and I'm like "with what money..???"

I do have a financial advisor* and they've truly given up on convincing me re: saving more since anytime we talk I'm like "how about yolo?"
They're all "what's your annual budget for travel?" Ummm.. budget..? No, if I want to go on a trip, I budget to go on that trip. Reasonably, my only limit is how much time off my employer lets me have.
*they manage my portfolio of $1500

I'm not waiting to retire to do all the things I want to do when I have the physical/mostly monetary means to do it NOW.

 

[shortkut]

My current and past jobs have all offered 401k with employer match up to 4%, so that’s what I’ve been contributing for the past number of years.

 

[Tubby23]

Australia has this compulsory thing called superannuation, so I have 10.5% of my salary automatically put away until I'm 60 which is the earliest age of access.
Most people pay very little attention to theirs, but I actively control mine in the hope of maximising the balance for when I retire.

 

[Christina]

We have whats called social security in the USA. Everybody pays into it with their payroll check. The idea is the younger people paying in will be funding the retirees. So it's not people paying into their own accounts. You can retire at 65 (67 for people my age) to get full pay out.

Not only is SS not enough to live off of, it has been miss managed and the funds will be running short projected in 2037. It also banked way too much on the birth rate going up and up. The USA now has a falling birth rate because people can't afford to have children and just more people in general not wanting kids.

So nobody is surprised the US fucked that up. Us younger Americans are smart enough to know we will not have Social Security payouts.

 

[Tubby23]

We have that too, we don't call it Social Security but it's the same thing. I pay roughly 32% tax to cover SS, Medicare etc for everyone and obviously get access myself.

Then we have the mandatory personal superannuation I mentioned, so my employer makes a mandatory payment on my behalf worth 10.5% of my salary to that. Which is then mine personally to manage as little or as much as I want but can't be accessed until 60. Then I would also qualify for a social security pension at 65.

 

[A Vaguely Ambiguous Username]

I have the same as @shortkut with the 401k match. I also have a Roth IRA that I pay into.

I was lucky enough to turn an internship I had my last year of school into a full time position right as I graduated and have managed to work my way up since then. I honestly still can't believe it most days.

But like most millennials my retirement plan mostly boils down to inheritance potential, and mostly from my wife's side.

 

[shortkut]

But like most millennials my retirement plan mostly boils down to inheritance potential, and mostly from my wife's side

You plan on inheriting debt too?

 

[Gloom-is-good]

You plan on inheriting debt too?

Wait.. is that a thing????

 

[Rachel]

wow! This thread is worrying me but not surprising. No one is putting away the recommended 15% yearly?

This is an example of why I wish we could all just admit that the 401k concept doesn't work on a macro level, it has failed. It only works if you put enough in it. We are going to have big, big problems soon with impoverished elderly (we do right now, but I mean moreso).

That's not to say I know which solution is best. Pensions were probably great until it led to broken promises and a lot of stuff beyond your control. I have been very curious about Australia's superannuation. At least that is not a pyramid scheme that I can see, it's your money, and you are forced to do that. If everyone is forced to save, maybe it helps with inflation too?

Anyway, my husband and I are behind on retirement but we are catching up. The online calculators are hard to interpret because I've been jumping up on salary. We're just trying to do the best we can. Another main point is I want my mortgage paid off before I retire. I am not counting on SS but I believe there will be some small amount for us. My house will probably be worth something if I need to move into assisted living or something. I also firmly believe 200k in annual salary is the new 100k.

If anyone wants a (sad) laugh:

https://www.investors.com/etfs-and-funds/retirement/you-need-this-much-retirement-savings-at-your-age-and-income/

I also read something like, if you save a dollar in your twenties that is 16 dollars in your sixties; eight dollars from your thirties, four dollars from your forties, and two dollars from your fifties.

 

[Crystal]

wow! This thread is worrying me but not surprising. No one is putting away the recommended 15% yearly?

Hard to do that in my financial position, but I would if I could. I did have a lot of savings before I quit my 'real job,' but of course that all dwindled away because of life. Ah well, one day!

 

[Benzine]

I may have been blithe in my response.

NZ has a pension for all, and we also have our employee match saving schemes.

We also plan to fully own a house and what not blah blah blah.

 

[Christina]

Wait.. is that a thing????

Yes and no. It can get a bit complicated, but if you say want the house your parents leave you, and they still have a mortgage, you'll have to take on the debt to get the house. But just because somebody leaves you something doesn't mean you have to accept it.

Saw another depressing thing recently that baby boomers money is being siphoned away as private equity firms are starting to buy nursing homes. We really can't win.

 

[Smacktard]

We have whats called social security in the USA. Everybody pays into it with their payroll check. The idea is the younger people paying in will be funding the retirees. So it's not people paying into their own accounts. You can retire at 65 (67 for people my age) to get full pay out.

Not only is SS not enough to live off of, it has been miss managed and the funds will be running short projected in 2037. It also banked way too much on the birth rate going up and up. The USA now has a falling birth rate because people can't afford to have children and just more people in general not wanting kids.

So nobody is surprised the US fucked that up. Us younger Americans are smart enough to know we will not have Social Security payouts.

Many social security programs around the world are ponzi schemes and it pisses me off to no end that this fact goes ignored.

I don't have any national or job-based retirement programs that I pay into since I'm a contractor, so I have to manage my financial situation myself. I have some property development investments -- one of which should start paying within the next year, and I'm hoping I can continue making investments like these in the future. Meanwhile, I'll be putting most of my money in an index fund similar to SPY, but which automatically reinvests dividends so that I don't get taxed 30% on dividend-based capital gains.

Uncalled-for moment of honesty:
I'd be much closer to my financial goal if I hadn't gambled money away on individual stocks in the stock market, but some lessons are learned the hard way, and this...:

I have issues with the stock market and think the whole thing is a scam for those that are not the big players siphoning off money from everybody else.

...took me too long to learn.

 

[The Eye in the Sky!]

Retirement savings has been a huge part of my adult planning since I left college.

I don't trust return projects on IRA and 401k. None of my mine perform as well as I was told they would, even accounting for the market difficulties. We have a 401k, two Roths, and an IRA from a rolled over 401k. Recently I've been keeping more than I probably should liquid since I'm getting between 5-5.25% guaranteed interest. It's been outpacing my investments all year, and once the rates start going down I'll think about investing more.

Even though my mortgage is only 2.875% I'm still paying an extra 45% payment every month and will have it paid off by 2029. Having a paid off house and annual taxes at $2400 and $600 insurance is worth any investment lost in my position (In 12 years of owning the house, my taxes have only gone from $1800 to $2400 annually which is nice... though no one plows the roads and our town government is almost non existent lol). Reducing my basic living costs is my plan rather than maximizing return until I own it outright.

I've always tried to save a combination of liquid/investments at 15% annually. Our 401ks account for 7% of that. Once we had our second kid, for 3 years our savings was only 401k, but since 2019 our total yearly savings percentage according to Monarch Money is 22.6, 40.3 (Covid actually was a boon for us), 23.6, 22.4, 14.2 (did a lot of house work in November - it was 21% before that).

Gonna keep doing this until the house is ours, then I've told my wife she can shut her business down and do something in the schools/volunteer/part time. Unfortunately I get to keep working until I die early since tall people live shorter life spans.

 

[A Vaguely Ambiguous Username]

You plan on inheriting debt too?

They don't have any. They bought in SoCal in the early 80s for next to nothing and now have more than one house worth over a million thanks to just being there.

 

[Ben]

Me, reading this thread, living paycheck to paycheck*.

It sounds like some of you had parents/schools who taught you how to navigate life.

My partner's got some amount of savings, but I intentionally have no insight/access into that as I don't want my financial curse to rub off on her.

I've got some stock that my company gave me years ago, but I have no fucking clue what I'm supposed to do with that, so I've just ignored it. I don't recall if I have any kind of 401k, it's possible, but I don't know what I'm supposed to do with that many K's either.

My plan had just been to die before it became an issue, but the kids kinda ruined that.

(*Not I don't make decent enough money, I'm just terrible at regular-human-things.)

 

[The Eye in the Sky!]

Yeah, my dad drilled this stuff into my head, and I actually had a course on financial discipline in college as an elective. It was either that or yoga.

I've also not done anything fun (ie: costing money) in my life until recently, it's all just been saving. So I have missed out on fun to be frugal, so there are two sides to every coin.

 

[Smacktard]

Yeah, my dad drilled this stuff into my head, and I actually had a course on financial discipline in college as an elective. It was either that or yoga.

I've also not done anything fun (ie: costing money) in my life until recently, it's all just been saving. So I have missed out on fun to be frugal, so there are two sides to every coin.

Call me elitist if you like, but anyone who chooses yoga over a practical financial discipline course is not spouse material.

 

[GwJumpman]

I've contributed to a 401(k), IRA, and HSA but I've been thinking of easing off aggressively contributing to them because what if I just die before I hit like 70 years old (where retirement age will probably be by the time I'm "allowed" to rest)

 

[A Vaguely Ambiguous Username]

It sounds like some of you had parents/schools who taught you how to navigate life

Lol no. I just did what my brother's didn't. Been saying for decades that I was going to aim to be in the middle of how they were, which ended up with me, as the youngest, being the most responsible who in also does well speaking with people.

My wife, on the other hand...oh hell yes for her. She got that drilled into her.

 

[The Eye in the Sky!]

I've contributed to a 401(k), IRA, and HSA but I've been thinking of easing off aggressively contributing to them because what if I just die before I hit like 70 years old (where retirement age will probably be by the time I'm "allowed" to rest)

This is something that I've recently struggled with and have eased off a little bit. What is the point of spending your entire life saving for a time when realistically you might not live to, or if you do, you physically might not be able to do it. Covid really gave me time to reflect on this, seeing how the world can completely turn upside down without warning.

So three years ago I started allocating $100 per week into a vacation fund/spend account so that we can balance this out a little. So far it has allowed us to go on two family vacations that we would have never gone on, and gives us the money to do spur of the moment things if we choose to. If you can swing it, I recommend that.

 

[A Vaguely Ambiguous Username]

Do you call it your Pie in the sky fund?

 

[The Eye in the Sky!]

No, but I can rename it in Wealthfront so maybe I will!

 

[MrDawn]

Nothing. I can't afford to live now, I'm going to be working until I can't move.

Quite the same here. My paychecks have failed to keep up with inflation.