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.
people confuse markets here with poor investor behavior all the time. they either speculate in individual stocks , try to market time or just do the wrong thing but then try to blame ,markets , yet markets have only gone higher .
That is the thing about people discussing financial matters on an internet forum.
You don't really know what anybody is doing because everything is anonymous and nobody is accountable for their real actions.
That is the thing about people discussing financial matters on an internet forum.
You don't really know what anybody is doing because everything is anonymous and nobody is accountable for their real actions.
Exactly. Even in Bogglehead land, they don’t all invest in index and they time the market quietly. That’s what I notice, one woman went from 80% in equity to 50% equity all of sudden, she didn’t think she was timing the market.
Job loss is a fact of life for most anyone who works for a living
I know people who lost jobs in 2008 and it took them more than 2 years to find a new one since hiring was frozen solid for so long, some of them lost homes, had to raid 401ks etc. and essentially start over. So it's just amusing when all these CNBC/Forbes financial media outlets print articles like "if you started investing at 25" you would have millions and since you did not it's all your fault... well, if only life was such a straight line, in reality it's a curved road for most!
I work in tech and my industry has changed as well, mass importation of cheap labor under the devious lies by business that there is a shortage (there ISN'T!!!) has decimated wages... even though they are still higher than the median they used to be a lot lot higher. The politicians are hand in glove with the businesses since they get kick backs and support in their campaigns.
Two of the main things I did that hugely increased and enabled me to hang on to my net worth were:
1. Not getting married - although I came close I did not go through with it, thank goodness! Marriage is just unnecessary these days, just live together without all the legal liability.
2. Not having kids - just way too expensive, this was OK in the 60s, not now.
The reality is almost 40-50% of marriages end in divorce , self included ,so it is not usuallly possible to avoid unless you want to stay together and live a phony life together and put the marriage on life support
Well from a mathematical stand point if 50-60% of first marriages don’t end in divorce that means that most won’t have to deal with it
Two of the main things I did that hugely increased and enabled me to hang on to my net worth were:
1. Not getting married - although I came close I did not go through with it, thank goodness! Marriage is just unnecessary these days, just live together without all the legal liability.
2. Not having kids - just way too expensive, this was OK in the 60s, not now.
While not everyone's cup of tea, if someone asked me what's the secret to retiring early with millions, you just nailed it!
I was referring to @macyny, she seems to be holding individual stocks.
I expect old age will cost a lot of money, this is why I have not spend any of my retirement money. It’s there for old age. My husband and I are still in the young and healthy stage of retirement, people in my bridge club refer to us as the teenagers of old age club, lol.
We have a healthy discretionary spending budget(sort of), so it’s easy to cut spending when we can’t travel.
I got news for you, if you are in a bridge club you are old.
I'm confused on the last part. To make up for the 50% loss in '08 all you had to do was sit tight, the market returned that 50% in a year and a half, then went on a tremendous run that's still ongoing. The only way one would have to continue to work till age 78 as a result of that crash was if you pulled out at the bottom. That would be on you, not the market.
Other than that this is a great post full of excellent points.
Workds outta my mouth. Wish she would come back and explain.
FWIW, my mom says the same thing about her small IRA; how it never "recovered". I kept asking her about it and turns out she pulled it out of the market and never bothered to reinvest it until many many years later. Sheesh.
I'm confused on the last part. To make up for the 50% loss in '08 all you had to do was sit tight, the market returned that 50% in a year and a half, then went on a tremendous run that's still ongoing. The only way one would have to continue to work till age 78 as a result of that crash was if you pulled out at the bottom. That would be on you, not the market.
Other than that this is a great post full of excellent points.
We didn't pull our money out of the market. Our accounts were managed by Oppenheimer and Chase. Chase was the worse as they had our accounts in a Growth portfolio. We didn't know that until we did take our money away from them in 2010. We could have been part of a class-action lawsuit but didn't because we had moved and didn't receive the notice of it. We weren't the only people who they hurt. Our original agreement with them was for a Conservative portfolio. We had all the papers with our signatures. It wasn't until after the crash that we found out the broker put us into a Growth portfolio without our knowledge. She was fired by Chase and a lawsuit against Chase was started.
Oppenheimer had most of our money in mutual funds, bonds and a few individual stocks. I'm not sure index funds existed then but if they did our money wasn't in any. Some of these stocks went under. Some never recovered. Those are gone.
In 2011 we took our money from them and started investing ourselves.
I'm only telling our story because all the planning in the world could not have prevented what happened. Yes maybe if we learned how to invest and did our own research but there was no time in our lives during that period. We worked long hours. Had two children (adolescents) going through some tough times of their own.
We managed to recoup a good deal of money due to a great market. It would have been much better if we hadn't lost so much at a bad time. Husband had to start drawing down (RMD's) in 2005. We would have that money sent to Chase and Oppenheimer to be invested. Our house was on the market at the worst possible time to be selling real estate. House sold in 2010 and we were moving to Florida.
My point is that life doesn't follow a defined script no matter how much you save or how much you planned.
Now I manage everything and do fear we could run out of money. I think we'll be okay but do worry about the future.
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.
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.
but eventually one of the big three get most of us
