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Make that three of us, the same page is getting crowded.
What exactly did they do to have their IRA wiped out?
Seriously, what exactly would someone have to have done to have a wiped out IRA, anyone consistently DCAing into broad index funds is about to back where they were before the **** hit the fan. Who are these people? What stocks do they have?
From the people that I have seen that "wipe out" their investment savings, they either withdraw money early with penalties or what they invested in, wasn't really an investment but some kind of get rich quick scheme. Or they foolishly did not diversify their investments.
From what I have found in this world whether it's investments, your health, your house, your car, etc. you better do your own research and do it well.
Its really not. If you are picky with stocks, like I am then there is definite room for growth in a 3 year span. 15 years is a long time. My income should be ALOT bigger in 15 years so making say 20% on an investment over 15 years just isn't worth it.
GOOD LUCK... i have been picking stocks since 1987... if i had to pick just the right stock at just the right time in just the right market in just the right sector and do it in a 1-4 year time frame id just go to vegas...
i have done it from time to time but no where near the accuracy i would want to consider that investing and not speculating.
I'm beginning to wonder about the wisdom of saving for retirement, although in my case, the magic age isn't all that far off! (about 6 yrs) I was divorced 7 yrs ago. I have lived very frugally so I could put some money into cd's and IRA's. Was it worth it?
Right now I have very poor health insurance because I have many pre-existing conditions and that's all I could find. It runs over 600 a month with a total deductible of $5,000 per year. Most meds I really need aren't covered and are very expensive (no generic). Any care I need in several areas which involve pre-existing conditions are not covered. You could very well say I have catastophic coverage only. But I thought I'd be okay because I pay off credit card bills every month (use them for the points they acrue) and am very thrifty. My ex was covering my insurance. Just recently he announced he won't cover as much.
I have 1,350 coming in monthly. my extra costs in meds is about $100, plus now an additional 250 a month. i have no expendible income and no more ability to save. I am disabled but cannot get SSD because not enough credits during last 6 quarters. I will have to start taking the money out of savings. I might just be able to manage to cover it till I'm 66 and can get on medicare (at which point my income goes down to $1,000 a month. At that time i can cash in my IRA's which amount to little over 25,000.
And if I should get sick before then, I guess I could declare bankruptcy......so what's the point in scrimping now to make that money last? Why not go blow it on doing a few things I've never had the chance to do in my life (like travel out of the country---or even travel IN the country)! I've worked my entire adult life very hard until unable to do any more. But since got very low pay, most went on just getting by. Should I now continue to buy clothes/stuff at good will, try to skip meds so will last longer, not buy meat, etc just so can GET BY a few years longer?
After all, what's the future look like for me? I'm sick, in pain much of the time, not expected to get better. I'm thinking about going out now and spending it. I love plays and musicals---but seldom go because tickets too high. Need decent furniture (mattress/box springs about 25 yrs old), but keep limping along so I "won't be a burden to my sons" just a little longer. I think declaring chapter 7 bankruptcy allows me to keep some household goods and furniture, a house valued up to a certain amount, and car valued at up to $6,000.
my grandmother always refused to allow herself anything new etc. so she "could pay the nursing home" when the time came. No matter how much I pleaded with her to enjoy some things because if it came to a nursing home, any small amt she'd saved would be gone within 3 months, she never would. Seems like I'm, in essense, following her philosophy. I was so darn proud of myself that I'd managed to save a bit out of my "income". Big joke. And the joke is on me.
With one big medical bill I could lose it all. So what's the answer?
It's attitudes like the ones from the OP, which are why a vast amount of baby boomers are now facing very shaky retirements in the next 5-10 years. Go ask some of them if they wished they had started saving more and planning when they were in their 20's and 30's (or even 40's and 50's).
It's attitudes like the ones from the OP, which are why a vast amount of baby boomers are now facing very shaky retirements in the next 5-10 years. Go ask some of them if they wished they had started saving more and planning when they were in their 20's and 30's (or even 40's and 50's).
Here's Wikipedia's breakdown, which seems to meet the general consensus:
The Baby Boom Generation is the generation that was born following World War II, about 1946 up to approximately 1964, a time that was marked by an increase in birth rates.[citation needed] The baby boom has been described variously as a "shockwave"[9] and as "the pig in the python."[10] By the sheer force of its numbers, the boomers were a demographic bulge which remodeled society as it passed through it. In general, baby boomers are associated with a rejection or redefinition of traditional values; however, many commentators have disputed the extent of that rejection, noting the widespread continuity of values with older and younger generations. In Europe and North America boomers are widely associated with privilege, as many grew up in a time of affluence.[9] One of the features of Boomers was that they tended to think of themselves as a special generation, very different from those that had come before them. In the 1960s, as the relatively large numbers of young people became teenagers and young adults, they, and those around them, created a very specific rhetoric around their cohort, and the change they were bringing about.[11]
Generation X is the generation generally defined as those born after the baby boom ended, and hence sometimes referred to as Baby Busters,[12] While there is no universally agreed upon time frame, [13] the term generally includes people born in the 1960s and 70s, ending in the late 1970s to early 80s, usually not later than 1982.[14][15][16] The term had also been used in different times and places for various different subcultures or countercultures since the 1950s.[17]
Generation Y, also known as the Millennial Generation (or Millennials),[14][18] Generation Next,[19] Net Generation,[20] Echo Boomers,[21] describes the next generation. As there are no precise dates for when the Millennial generation starts and ends, commentators have used birth dates ranging somewhere from the mid-1970s[22] to the early 2000s.[23] Today, many follow William Strauss and Neil Howe's theories in defining the Millennials. They use the start year as 1982, and end years around the turn of the millennium.[24][25]
Generation Z, also known as Generation I or Internet Generation, and dubbed the "Digital Natives," is the following generation.[26] The earliest birth is generally dated in the early 1990s.[27
All these generational names are basically marketing devices, and mean nothing.
The baby boom was a demographic fact from 1946 to about 1960- where each cohort was larger than the one before it. Around 1960, birth control and the completion of family birthing from WWII vets, etc., led to smaller cohorts.
An attempt to call "a generation" people who are born 18 years apart is absurd, especially in times of social change. If the background is moving so fast while one becomes an adult, a generation can be three years or something.
All these names, except for the statistical reality of "baby boom" were all invented by marketers.
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