Your Retirement... Don't Blow It!

[MA-Caver]

There are a lot of topics on MT lately about money... this one I think is relevant if not just as important to us the individual. I'm sure it's on our minds all the time (if not every minute of every-day) about if we are going to have enough to live at least comfortably til we're dead and buried.
There are ways to ensure that and there are ways to blow it out of the water.

8 ways to ruin your chances to retire

Sheyna Steiner
Monday December 29, 2008, 6:00 am EST
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/8-ways-to-ruin-your-chances-brn-13925607.htmlIf 50 is the new 30, then 80 must be the new 60. Good thing, because otherwise a lot of people won't be retiring before they draw their last breath.

Last year Bankrate's Financial Literacy survey found that one in five people expect to work until they die. This year one in five people say they're afraid they'll never be able to retire. It's true; we asked the same question two different ways, and the results are unsettlingly identical.
At this rate, the competition for greeting jobs at Wal-Mart will be as fierce as the struggle to get into Harvard.
For the dedicated workers who aspire to devote their entire lives to propelling the economy forward with their unceasing toil, the dream of not retiring can be achieved in any number of ways. We came up with eight.
Ruin retirement

Spend a lot
Save nothing
Ignore savings vehicles
Disregard taxes
Overestimate portfolio earnings
Miscalculate lifetime earnings
Adopt the ostrich approach
Be ignorant about investments

How's your parachute coming along? (no need for details or numbers...just in general)

 

[Phoenix44]

I make a contribution to my retirement fund every week. It's called the NYS Lottery. Because that's the only way I'm going to be able to retire!

 

[terryl965]

Mega Millions and Texas Lotery otherwise I am screwed.

 

[elder999]

I could "retire" today, if I wanted to. :bangahead::headbangin::lol::lfao::wavey::cheers: :2xBird2:

But I won't......:lfao:

 

[MA-Caver]

I could "retire" today, if I wanted to. :bangahead::headbangin::lol::lfao::wavey::cheers: :2xBird2:

But I won't......:lfao:

Well at least ONE of us is going to work ourselves to death...


... and it ain't YOU.

 

[Andy Moynihan]

Recent emergency expenses have required me to cash out a previous 401k( it was losing a grand a month anyway just sitting so it's just as well i saved what I could from that fate), but have a second one started up and have a credit union account into which some of every paycheck is wired, so it's not like I have *no* savings.

But I'm gonna be totally honest I don't think much about retirement because I really don't expect to make it to retirement age. *shrug*.

 

[elder999]

Don't expect to make it that long.

There is that, of course....:lol:

 

[stickarts]

I have been saving consistently for over 20 years yet it still seems like it won't be enough. It is a good emergency fund if nothing else.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

Hard to save for retirement when you're borrowing to cover today. Be easier for me if all my clients would pay on time, but I've got some 90+ days past due, and just wrote off several dead beats.

MT is part of my long term plan though, and I have a few other things things in the works. Won't let me travel the world, but should let me live comfortably if not in luxury.

 

[MA-Caver]

Hard to save for retirement when you're borrowing to cover today. Be easier for me if all my clients would pay on time, but I've got some 90+ days past due, and just wrote off several dead beats.

MT is part of my long term plan though, and I have a few other things things in the works. Won't let me travel the world, but should let me live comfortably if not in luxury.

If you're able to do THAT then ye should be thankful... presently my father and stepmother (both are in their 80's) have been living on roughly $1900 a month (combined retirement incomes), they used to go out and travel but since my father's blindness they really don't get out much anywhere anymore... at least not together... so they're living okay... what worries the kids (us) is whether or not their respective insurances are going to be able to put them into the ground decently.
Even as you retire you still have to think about your final destination and if there is enough to put you there without breaking your family's banks.

One of the other things that many folks fail to plan for is their eventual deaths... when I mentored as a financial adviser I learned that the best thing couples can do for their children is to have their funerals totally paid for: grave, coffin, flowers, ceremony, viking ship... whatever! So that they don't have to bear the brunt of it.
Saving up for at THAT is another thing folks should do... or at least make prior arrangements and have it all in writing and paid for.

Morbid I know but a realistic morbidity.

 

[Carol]

I feel like I keep getting kicked in the gut. My 401k got sliced and diced over the last few months. My one foray in to real estate was a bust.

I do keep saving but the one investment that has never, ever, done me wrong was education. I'm more towards a career that will serve me well later in life as well, such as one that I can easily do part time later on in life.

As for now though, I'm convinced that "prerequisites" is a curse word...because I always seem to say that along with my other curse words.

 

[Rich Parsons]

There are a lot of topics on MT lately about money... this one I think is relevant if not just as important to us the individual. I'm sure it's on our minds all the time (if not every minute of every-day) about if we are going to have enough to live at least comfortably til we're dead and buried.
There are ways to ensure that and there are ways to blow it out of the water.

How's your parachute coming along? (no need for details or numbers...just in general)

My parachute earlier today was doing great!

I checked what happened from 1/1/09 to 1/2/09 and I was up 25.3% in a single day. One single account was up 154% i.e. 100%+154% = 254%. I called the investment group and it took me some time but I got through to an advisor who was supposed to know about that account. They did have an e-mail running through their company that reported the fund in questions was in error. The error reported on the website was not known. (* Which is saying they cannot tell you and if it does not match the next time the get it correct in the account you could be upset and bring legal action. *) By the end of the day the total had been adjusted and I was only up 3.1% for the day which is great, and much mroe realistic.

 

[Sukerkin]

I am fairly convinced that I will not be able to retire until I at least get the mortgage paid off (when I'll be about 68).

I have a company pension that I pay into but that's not going to be worth a whole lot the way the financial system and the social demographic is going (it's current value is less than I've paid in because of the stock market debacle). I'm almost convinced that I'd be better taking the money I put into that and play the lottery with it.

 

[Gordon Nore]

The Ontario Teachers Pension Plan has been scrupulously well-managed and is in very good shape, so I am fortunate in that regard. The trick is that I switched to elementary teaching at the age of forty, a couple of years after being laid of from the college system, with only five years in. so I've got to keep working for a few years (I'm 49 this year.) The remnant of my pension from my previous union job is in a locked-in Registered Retirement Savings Plan. House is paid for. My son's post-secondary education is paid for thanks to the forethought of and money management of his grandfather.

One of my goals for this year is to start adding to my RRSP and start buying savings bonds again. We had some lean years as we were starting mid-life with a double lay-off, so it's only been in recent years that I've felt like I'm getting ahead. So this thread has inspired me, and I will make the phone calls this Friday after I get paid.

Which means it's time to save. A couple of years ago I cut up my credit cards and kept one only, with a five hundred dollar limit. I've never felt richer.

The way I figure it, there are two ways to learn about compound interest: 1) get yourself a credit card 2) invest wisely. Either way, you learn about interest.

 

[Sukerkin]

Nice points there, Gordon :tup:.

The only debt I have is my mortgage but such is the state of the world these days that even somone with a "good job" like me still has to have his missus working to cover the running costs of staying alive .

 

[Phoenix44]

In my next life I'm going to be a NYC school teacher. I'd be retired already.

 

[Gordon Nore]

...The only debt I have is my mortgage but such is the state of the world these days that even somone with a "good job" like me still has to have his missus working to cover the running costs of staying alive .

Best to the missus.

Hang in there.