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I come across tons of people in my world complaining about their diminishing 401k's ALL THE TIME. For some, it's almost wiped out. And while I can empathize with them, I am not willing to shed a tear for these people aka sheeple. This is what happens when you let other people manage your money
And there is only one to blame - YOU.
I'm 30 and I'm already diversifying my assets in several countries. Why has it been so difficult for people who have worked 30 to 40 years?? When I see aged folks doing carts in the grocery store, it breaks my heart. I always help the frail old man push a train of 10 to 15 carts back into harris teeter. And he thanks me, each time. But the truth is I grocery shop twice a week and he's there more than that I believe. He should not be doing that kind of work at that age. How did these people come this far??
OK but that doesn't refute what I stated. A monkey could've made money had they invested in pretty much anything after the crash until now. It's done nothing but go up.
The dow hasn't doubled since 2009.
Whatever the case, regardless of who shot john and who did what when, I am more comfortable picking my own stocks than being in managed funds. But that's just me.
I am doing okay with my 401k but my IRA is doing much better... I agree 401ks are a scam, they are loaded with 90% WORTHLESS crap to choose from and the other 10% aren't that much better... the fees are too high considering the amount of money these funds have... but I don't run the government and the government isn't interested...
the choices in your 401k and the types of expenses all boil down to your own company and who they went with and what funds your company chose to make avail.
blame the un-knowledable people in charge in your own company.. i know i was part of selecting who to go with in our company as well as what fund choices we wanted to offer to employees. i was very careful to make sure the choices enabled them to make up well balanced portfolios since i was the fund guru there and the only one with a clue on that committee when it came to investing.
once again everyone wants to blame eveyone and everything for their own lack of knowledge..
Last edited by mathjak107; 10-25-2010 at 03:14 AM..
the choices in your 401k and the types of expenses all boil down to your own company and who they went with and what funds your company chose to make avail.
blame the un-knowledable people in charge in your own company.. i know i was part of selecting who to go with in our company as well as what fund choices we wanted to offer to employees. i was very careful to make sure the choices enabled them to make up well balanced portfolios since i was the fund guru there and the only one with a clue on that committee when it came to investing.
once again everyone wants to blame eveyone and everything for their own lack of knowledge..
Damn, wished you had picked the funds at our company. We have a large cap growth mutual fund with an expense ratio of 2%, and we have NO SMALL CAP fund. But we do get a an employer match of 100% up to 7% of our salary... so that is pretty sweet.
My company has about 15 to pick from and also something called tradelink where we can setup and trade outside what the company offers on pretty much every stock. But reading through it they seem to have a fee for everything.
So you pulled your $$ out at the lowest point, re-invested it, and think you are smart because you recouped your loss on your own?
It's not that you were smart it's the market that did that. I sold everything out of my 401k and put it in emerging markets when the crash happened and I did the same and that was in a managed 401k fund.
401k's allow you to purchase the same mutual funds you'd be buying in a IRA/Brokerage account (albeit a smaller selection for liability sakes). You'd pay virtually the same expense ratio investing outside of the 401k as you would if you buy it protected in a 401k. In some cases less.
While they are the same funds -- your choice is extremely limited. In our cases (husbands and mine with three different 401k's) each 401K had a 6-8 mutual funds in one or two affiliated fund companies to choose from instead of the over 8000 mutual funds out there. At one point, hubs and my 401K were managed by the same company and we had the same funds.
And even though they were supposed to be aggressive growth -- since we worked for very conservative banks, they weren't really aggressive, they were still very conservative. I was doing much better on my own with our savings money...
So after we left our jobs and started our business, when it was nice and stable I took the money out and reinvested it into IRA rollovers. I've done way better than our 401ks would have.
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