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I helped my kids with retirement, you can call it interfering. They don’t have time to learn about all these things. Those precious young years are not to be waste.
They dont have time to learn about all these things??? Precious young years are not to be wasted??? hahahahha, you're killing me.
They dont have time to learn about all these things??? Precious young years are not to be wasted??? hahahahha, you're killing me.
They are busy with their jobs. Is that killing you enough? Many young kids don’t know about retirement or refuse to think they live that long to get to retirement. One of my kids owns a business since she graduated from college, how many young kids do you know that? The demand of running a business is their top priority, that’s why I have to make sure they know to save. My other kid works in high tech tech and some of her friends don’t even want to contribute to 401k even. She asked for my help to chose which funds from her 401k options.
Stop posting snarky comment for once. It doesn’t help anybody. There are enough adults here near retirement that don’t even have a dime for retirement, do you know why? Maybe when they were younger they didn’t think about retirement savings and investing.
$250 a month? LOL! For decades of my working life, I would have had trouble saving $50/mo.
I started my career making $14K/year in one of the most expensive cities in the world (San Francisco), so I know what it's like to make very little. I had a roommate & we lived in an old victorian flat in a great area of the city, I took public transportation to work downtown. Yet I remember I had no problem coming up with $50 for something I deemed I *really* wanted (something new to wear, a weekend away). Those priorities weren't about saving money my first year working. Priorities vs Excuses. Excuses are infinite.
I worked in a career field that offers a 20-year pension. So I knew many years in advance, I knew what year I was going to retire. It seemed prudent to me that I needed to invest and plan for that date.
You would think that everyone in the career field would do the same, but they dont.
When I neared my retirement date, I had to attend a school on being retired, I was in a classroom of 30 'almost' retirees. I was the only student who had planned for retirement. All the rest of them had no idea what they were going to do the next day, they assumed that they would get hired somewhere else. Realistically none of them had examined their finances to see if they could live on the pension. They had no idea, and for all those years they had refused to plan for it.
My pension is equal to minimum-wage [before the $15/hour increase], owning my home is critical to being able to support a family on my pension.
If I had never bought and paid off a home, I would not have been able to live on my pension.
Most people, easily 99 out of 100, will refuse to think about it, until the week after they are forced onto SS.
It appears for a significant number of people the very concept of not spending every dime they make the minute they get it is totally foreign, like it's burning a hole in their pocket. Does it never occur to some they may want something in the future? They have no goal? Nothing they want that they're actually willing to save for? Maybe their parents give them everything they ask for the moment they want it and don't blink an eye? I'm not talking retirement, I'm talking the ability to think beyond that moment or day.
I understood the basic concept, at 5 yrs old I knew if I was given 3 cookies and I didn't want them all gone immediately that meant I needed to not shove them all in my mouth as fast as I could.
I worked in a career field that offers a 20-year pension. So I knew many years in advance, I knew what year I was going to retire. It seemed prudent to me that I needed to invest and plan for that date.
You would think that everyone in the career field would do the same, but they dont.
When I neared my retirement date, I had to attend a school on being retired, I was in a classroom of 30 'almost' retirees. I was the only student who had planned for retirement. All the rest of them had no idea what they were going to do the next day, they assumed that they would get hired somewhere else. Realistically none of them had examined their finances to see if they could live on the pension. They had no idea, and for all those years they had refused to plan for it.
My pension is equal to minimum-wage [before the $15/hour increase], owning my home is critical to being able to support a family on my pension.
If I had never bought and paid off a home, I would not have been able to live on my pension.
Most people, easily 99 out of 100, will refuse to think about it, until the week after they are forced onto SS.
In my last job with my last employer which was municipal government.....Human Resources did everything short of beating it into people’s consciousness that THEY were the only ones responsible for their retirement. Even with a 401k match - FREE MONEY!- people did not respond. This was an employer that opted out of
Social security...so they really had to drive home to people that it was up to them to save.
I started that job making just short of $30k...and I saved. Once I hit a couple of raises...I saved the raise and operated as if I did not get it. Did that for years. Up to the point where I was saving $500 every 2 weeks. It hurt, but it was worth it. When they offered TDAmeritrade funds into our investments I signed up at HR...and the HR benefits person said I was only ONE of a handful of people to do this. The others were the high income administrators. People simply ignored the opportunity...at their own peril. Our portfolio from that origination is now worth over $700K.
It’s just unfathomable to me why people who seriously CAN save - don’t.
And when we started seriously saving in our mid 40’s...we also went to a financial planning seminar set up by the local university. We were there with couples in their LATE 50’s and 60’s...who had not yet started
It’s the makings of a tsunami of hurt. And I am afraid we all will pay.
I have been poor most of my life and somehow survived and managed to save at least 10 percent of my income for a rainy day. I had plenty of rainy days! I just paid myself first and put the money in a lockbox for longer term needs that could not be touched.
Again, I ask the same question: If you are poor and claim you are not able to save, what if your employer paid you ten percent less, would you survive?
Poverty sucks. It does not build character but rather fear.
We immigrated to this country and grew up poor. My parents still managed to save money.
I vowed that I would never be poor again, and saved money for my retirement. I know lots of people who made more money than I did and retired poor.
They simply did NOT know how to manage money. We don't teach personal finance in schools and quite frankly many people are totally bored with the subject.
So they end up working for their money, instead of having their money work for them.
I see it all the time particularly, with younger folks. Clueless, about finances and laying the groundwork for an awful future.
They are busy with their jobs. Is that killing you enough? Many young kids don’t know about retirement or refuse to think they live that long to get to retirement. One of my kids owns a business since she graduated from college, how many young kids do you know that? The demand of running a business is their top priority, that’s why I have to make sure they know to save. My other kid works in high tech tech and some of her friends don’t even want to contribute to 401k even. She asked for my help to chose which funds from her 401k options.
Stop posting snarky comment for once. It doesn’t help anybody. There are enough adults here near retirement that don’t even have a dime for retirement, do you know why? Maybe when they were younger they didn’t think about retirement savings and investing.
Busy with their jobs? So they are so busy they cant work and save at the same time?
Savers are busy with their jobs. Sometimes 2 jobs. I know people who started saving at 10 years of age, but they had parents who actually taught them that and showed them how to balance their lives and plan for retirement.
Excuses. Do you think you are the only person who lost their job along the way, had doctor bills to pay, had to go back to step one? More people have had setbacks in their lives, both financial and other, than dont. Who do you think skates thru life with no serious issues impacting them? No one does. So if thats your excuse for not saving, thats on you.
Excuses.
I don't think it's an excuse, I think it's mathematics. If your income is $2,000 a month and your basic, modest lifestyle expenses are $2,000 a month, what magic wand do you wave to be able to come up with money to save? I think Rodentraiser is correct...there are times one simply has nothing left to save. I've been there as well. Some months, not only is there nothing left to save, there is not enough to cover the necessities. Once I had a decent income, I continued to live as modestly as possible, and then yes, it became possible to save and I was fairly quickly able to save up enough for a down payment on a house. Others making much more marvelled at the fact that I was able to do so. I think those used to living on a low income make excellent savers, ONCE THERE IS SOME MONEY AVAILABLE TO SAVE!
I know people who started saving at 10 years of age
I had my first savings account at 7 yrs old. I still remember the day I got my own account. Couldn't even see up to the height of the counter at the bank. Opened that account with $2. LOL. And of course I loved having the physical passbook and the date stamp, and each visit I made to the bank was fun.
My dad saved a letter I wrote to him when I was 8 yrs old. My aunt was making me reimburse her for the cost of some candy I ate from a box of candy she had purchased and was not intended for me to eat. My aunt charged me $3. My dad was in the hospital at the time due to an accident, and I wrote him a letter telling him I was desperate and didn't want to take the money out of my savings account and maybe he would give me a loan? He gave me that letter when I was in my early 40s.
No, my savings weren't for retirement. Had no concept of retirement at age 7 or 10 or 15. But I slowly learned how to save for things I wanted and learned what it meant to earn interest.
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