Welcome to City-Data.com Forum!
U.S. CitiesCity-Data Forum Index
Go Back   City-Data Forum > General Forums > Economics > Investing
 [Register]
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
View detailed profile (Advanced) or search
site with Google Custom Search

Search Forums  (Advanced)
Reply Start New Thread
 
Old 05-22-2018, 11:00 AM
 
Location: Pennsylvania
31,341 posts, read 14,180,545 times
Reputation: 27858

Advertisements

Quote:
Originally Posted by Thatsright19 View Post
I’ll never understand why anyone doesn’t take the match. Even if you have zero intention to save for retirement, you could take the money out every year or something and pay the 10 percent penalties and taxes and still come out ahead.

I guess I’m glad they don’t all take it because my wife and I wouldn’t be each getting dollar for dollar matches to 7 percent.
Winner.


Maybe if they taught this kind of stuff in the schools, instead of music and art....people would know better. Never mind -- it's more important that the students know who Mozart was.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message

 
Old 05-22-2018, 11:18 AM
 
30,876 posts, read 36,858,638 times
Reputation: 34467
Quote:
Originally Posted by mathjak107 View Post
we had no pensions in most companies in my working lifetime long before there were 401k's .
Thank you for saying this!

People love to act as though everyone got a pension in the "good ol' days". Reality check: They didn't. And many places with pensions had super long vesting periods (say 20 years). Then they'd lay people off just before they qualified. 1974 ERISA legislation was designed to end those and other abuses. It ended up making pensions more expensive, which meant employers eventually did away with them.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 05-22-2018, 11:21 AM
 
26,181 posts, read 21,485,820 times
Reputation: 22766
Quote:
Originally Posted by BeerGeek40 View Post
Winner.


Maybe if they taught this kind of stuff in the schools, instead of music and art....people would know better. Never mind -- it's more important that the students know who Mozart was.

Parents should accept some responsibility there as well
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 05-22-2018, 11:23 AM
 
30,876 posts, read 36,858,638 times
Reputation: 34467
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lowexpectations View Post
Parents should accept some responsibility there as well
I agree with that. The problem is most parents are financially illiterate themselves. So you have a "blind leading the blind" type of scenario in most cases.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 05-22-2018, 11:45 AM
 
Location: All Over
4,003 posts, read 6,078,677 times
Reputation: 3162
If your 401k has a match its a no brainer
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 05-22-2018, 11:57 AM
 
Location: Omaha, Nebraska
10,348 posts, read 7,938,733 times
Reputation: 27742
Quote:
Originally Posted by doodlemagic View Post
If your 401k has a match its a no brainer
Unfortunately there are a lot of people out there with no brains (at least when it comes to finances).
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 05-22-2018, 12:17 PM
 
9,359 posts, read 6,928,850 times
Reputation: 14767
I'd take a fully funded defined benefit pension plan any day where the investment risk is on the employer. In lieu of that I think a solid company match on a 401k is the next best retirement vehicle depending upon fund and management fee.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 05-22-2018, 12:28 PM
 
Location: Pennsylvania
31,341 posts, read 14,180,545 times
Reputation: 27858
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lowexpectations View Post
Parents should accept some responsibility there as well
Agree, but sometimes the parents are as clueless as the kids.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 05-22-2018, 02:25 PM
 
Location: moved
13,609 posts, read 9,647,657 times
Reputation: 23395
Quote:
Originally Posted by BeerGeek40 View Post
Maybe if they taught this kind of stuff in the schools, instead of music and art....people would know better. Never mind -- it's more important that the students know who Mozart was.
401K benefits are about simple math, and paying attention to detail. They have nothing to do with being financially savvy.

I would much rather live in a community of people who are aware of Mozart, and classical music in general, than of experts in 401Ks.

Quote:
Originally Posted by SWFL_Native View Post
I'd take a fully funded defined benefit pension plan any day where the investment risk is on the employer. In lieu of that I think a solid company match on a 401k is the next best retirement vehicle depending upon fund and management fee.
This depends entirely on the terms of each option. A 401K with no employer-matching, is inferior to a defined-benefit pension that vests after say 5 years. But what of a pension where the employee doesn't qualify for benefits until age 62? Say that the employee starts as a college-intern, at age 20... and quits after 20 years, at age 40. That's 22 additional years for inflation to ravage the pension, before the pension-payout commences. Compare that to a 401K plan with 7% matching, that vests after 1 year of service.

Defined benefit pensions are fantastic for older employees, whose present age isn't far from pension-eligibility age. Defined benefit pensions reward employees for being old, and only secondarily for staying a long time. Defined contribution benefits are great for employees who start young, taking advantage of compound-returns in the market. They all for early retirement.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 05-22-2018, 05:57 PM
 
Location: Warwick, RI
5,450 posts, read 6,242,661 times
Reputation: 9369
To the OP...if you were truly good with investments, you wouldn't even be asking this question.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.

Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.


Reply
Please update this thread with any new information or opinions. This open thread is still read by thousands of people, so we encourage all additional points of view.

Quick Reply
Message:

Over $104,000 in prizes was already given out to active posters on our forum and additional giveaways are planned!

Go Back   City-Data Forum > General Forums > Economics > Investing

All times are GMT -6. The time now is 08:32 AM.

© 2005-2024, Advameg, Inc. · Please obey Forum Rules · Terms of Use and Privacy Policy · Bug Bounty

City-Data.com - Contact Us - Archive 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37 - Top