retirement.

[goon]

I am rather new to the retirement investments and such. I have just been noticing that even as the market is suppose to be getting better, a lot of retirement accounts are losing money still. I am in a fidelity retirement lifecycle fund. Even though I am still young(30), I have only been able to put 3% every pay check and 2% employer matching because take home pay is tight so I can’t really put too much in to the account at this time, I am currently in a tradition pretax, but was thinking about switching to a roth option.

I talked to the "experts" provided through work, but felt more confused after talking to them. So I am just wondering what have other people been doing for their retirement savings? How much are most people putting aside? I would assume my tax structure is low so paying taxes now on a roth savings account I think might be a switch I could make. Also I was thinking of putting some of my contributions into a multisector bond fund and keep half in the lifecycle fund.

I am not looking for advice per say, but just to see what other people have been doing or thinking with their retirements. I didn't think I would care much about retirement (because I feel young, but will probably have to work for the next 40 years…..sigh) accounts until I noticed my year to date return on mine is losing money, so I thought, I might want to learn a little more about this and hear what regular people think, not just the so called experts.

[2002jack]

Re: retirement.

Buy lots of beer, drink lots of beer, recycle cans, put money into lunch box, bury money in backyard.....repeat.When you retire, dig up lunch boxes, and live the dream.

[goon]

Re: retirement.

Buy lots of beer, drink lots of beer, recycle cans, put money into lunch box, bury money in backyard.....repeat.When you retire, dig up lunch boxes, and live the dream.

Thats something I can follow. all these other plans are confusing.

[Prairiehaas]

Re: retirement.

Retirement? I'm in favor or it!

Seriously though, the S&P has an average compounded growth rate of over 10% from 1925 through 2010. With your time horizon you should expect the down years to be washed away by good years. The key is to put money into investments regularly and early.

[GopherHole]

Re: retirement.

All joking aside, you are still young and have many years until retirement. The best advise I can give is now is the time to be as risky as you feel you can be. You have many years to ride throught the hills and valleys of the market. I am less than 20 years from retirement and I have only a small percentage of my retirement tied up in relatively safe investments like bonds.

When the portfolio shows a negative or poor return, view it as a great time to be buying shares at a low price. Then crack open a beer and save the can for recycling income.

When returns are up and things are looking good, crack open another beer to celebrate. You can then choose the merits of recycling the can.

[goon]

Re: retirement.

All joking aside, you are still young and have many years until retirement. The best advise I can give is now is the time to be as risky as you feel you can be. You have many years to ride throught the hills and valleys of the market. I am less than 20 years from retirement and I have only a small percentage of my retirement tied up in relatively safe investments like bonds.

When the portfolio shows a negative or poor return, view it as a great time to be buying shares at a low price. Then crack open a beer and save the can for recycling income.

When returns are up and things are looking good, crack open another beer to celebrate. You can then choose the merits of recycling the can.

I also was thinking to leave what I am doing with my current lifecycle fund alone, but start contributing, to either a bond fund or something else, just to devirsify a little more so I dont put all my chips into 1 fund. I still toss up keeping in set as a tradition pretax, or if I should put into the roth for a new fund. I probably worry a little more then I should about it, but I want to be self sufficient enough finacially that through savings and retirement that I have a little nest egg eventually.

With my wife in the final weeks of getting her masters, so for 3 years she was barely working, now she will hopefully start full time again come janurary and I want to up my contribution to 5% and increase it by 1% every janurary as long as our money coming in is enough, so I plan to eventually get to 10-15% for retirement, Anyways, I appreciate the comments.

[Nidaros]

Re: retirement.

I am rather new to the retirement investments and such. I have just been noticing that even as the market is suppose to be getting better, a lot of retirement accounts are losing money still. I am in a fidelity retirement lifecycle fund. Even though I am still young(30), I have only been able to put 3% every pay check and 2% employer matching because take home pay is tight so I can’t really put too much in to the account at this time, I am currently in a tradition pretax, but was thinking about switching to a roth option.

I talked to the "experts" provided through work, but felt more confused after talking to them. So I am just wondering what have other people been doing for their retirement savings? How much are most people putting aside? I would assume my tax structure is low so paying taxes now on a roth savings account I think might be a switch I could make. Also I was thinking of putting some of my contributions into a multisector bond fund and keep half in the lifecycle fund.

I am not looking for advice per say, but just to see what other people have been doing or thinking with their retirements. I didn't think I would care much about retirement (because I feel young, but will probably have to work for the next 40 years…..sigh) accounts until I noticed my year to date return on mine is losing money, so I thought, I might want to learn a little more about this and hear what regular people think, not just the so called experts.

Goon, you on the right track in preparing for retirement. The more you can save the better you will be able to controll your destiny in retirement. I am not familiar with life cyle funds, in fact I did a google and found this:

Investopedia explains Life-Cycle Fund
Proponents of life-cycle funds cite the convenience to investors of putting their investing activities on autopilot through the use of just one fund, which is managed for them. On the other hand, critics of these funds say that their "one size fits all" approach is suspect. For investors who don't want to take responsibility for their retirement investing, a life-cycle fund may be appropriate. However, for those who want to take the time and make the effort to direct the management of their investments, life-cycle funds should be avoided.



Read more: http://www.investopedia.com/terms/l/...#ixzz1fnZ0yxqb

I have been living off an IRA invested in five different funds for about six years. I tracked it since day one and have a historical value that is not easily defined, but basically is the value of the fund the date I invested and I add the dividend earned and subtract the distributions. Comparing this historical values to market values, my overall IRA is about 84 per cent of historical costs, so we have not completely recovered from the dive in 2008. At the same time I am taking out 1200 bucks a month besides, so its making head way. I like the definition of a life cyle fun that I found and its good to depend on experts when you really dont want to get overly involved in the day to day investing. Stick with your life cycle and Fidelity is one of the better mutual funds.


I think putting some funds in bonds seems to be a good option as well. Balance does not hurt.

[Prairiehaas]

Re: retirement.

Goon, first you are ahead of the pack by putting any money away for retirement when you are. Kudos. Second, diversification is good but don't limit your yield too much. You are young and can hande significant risk. Third, your plan to increase the money you put away is good. The more you put away early the better, keep in mind though the money you put into the retirement plan must stay there until retirement, NO MATTER WHAT. So, don't put in money you might need. Put the money you might need into an accessable investment.

[Roy]

Re: retirement.

I am a fan of Jane Bryant Quinn. She gives great advice. Her book, "Making ther Most of Your Money" is a gem. Amazon has it online. It tells you what to stay away from (sales people calling them selves Financial planners, and also limited partnerships among other things) as well as what to invest in.

Look at Vanguard or another low cost fund family as your vehicle. Costs, over time, eat you alive.

Pay attention to asset allocation, stocks vesus bonds.

Pay yourself first!

Most of the annual stock market gains occur over about 10 trading days. Don't try to time the market.

It's your money, read, study, talk to people and take charge of your future!

[filbert]

Re: retirement.

DIVERSIFY!!!!!

DO NOT put all of your eggs in one basket.

Understand the various investment instruments (large-cap; small-cap; foreign-stocks; bonds of various kinds; REITs, etc., etc.) and do NOT, NOT, NOT throw everything into one of those categories. Spread your investments out as widely as you can. If you have a really, really, REALLY good understanding of a particular market segment (if you grew up the kid of realtors, for instance) then maybe you can weight your portfolio a bit towards toward that specific knowledge set, but generally, never, ever buy any investment instrument that you don't understand really, really well--buy broad-based funds instead, and the broader, the better.

And also, you should note well that broad stock-index funds (i.e. S&P 500, etc.) do tend to outperform more focused funds over time. In other words, the experts don't really know jack. Don't buy stocks, don't buy sectors--buy the market as a whole---as much of it as you can. Unless you absolutely know what you are doing, buy the entire economy rather than trying to pick winners. Because, as a general investing rule, unless you're smarter and have better information than everybody else, you're not going to be able to make a better "bet" than on the economy as a whole. And (as something of a born-again Hayekian) I firmly believe that nobody has sufficient knowledge to reliably pick winners and losers over time--unless of course you have control of the government and can (for a short time anyway) game the system to your advantage--something that ALWAYS ends badly for pretty much everybody in the end. If you or your close, personal friends don't happen to control the government yourselves, well, then, I'd suggest you don't try to play that game. Diversify. A lot. And stay away from specific sector plays.

So: Specialized knowledge=specialized investing. General knowledge=bet the entire economy, don't try to pick winners, because the people with the specialized knowledge will eat your lunch if you try to play their game.

Disclaimer: I am not an investment adviser. I am not an adviser of any kind. I run a freakin' college athletics discussion board, for crying out loud. I didn't even write this and you didn't read it. As always, Grasshopper, Choose wisely . . .

[NoVaJack]

Re: retirement.

I keep sending checks to this guy, Madoff, who promises these guaranteed returns through his web site, behindbars.com Haven't gotten a statemenbt yet but he says things are going even better than he expected.

[filbert]

Re: retirement.

And, having now read your original note, I continue to pontificate:

Put absolutely positively as much as you can possibly afford aside for your retirement. Then add a little bit to that. A bit of inconvenience right now will yield tremendous benefits 30 or 40 years down the road.

No, seriously.

Shoot for investing 15% of your income into your retirement. Then see if you can't squeeze 20% out of it. See if you can't get used to living on 80% of what you make. If you can do that, see if you can't make it 25%. The more you can put away now, the sooner you can retire (if in fact retirement will still be an option in the economy we all seem hell-bent for creating . . . but that's another issue entirely, not that I want to panic you or anything, but if you're in your 30's, your elders in their 50's and above have a LOT to answer to you for . . . if you're not mad as hell at me (age 52) and people older than me, you damn well should be . . .)

Anyway, as much as you absolutely, possibly can towards your retirement. Assuming that the mess me and my elders have left you will actually allow you a "retirement," that is . . .

I am rather new to the retirement investments and such. I have just been noticing that even as the market is suppose to be getting better, a lot of retirement accounts are losing money still. I am in a fidelity retirement lifecycle fund. Even though I am still young(30), I have only been able to put 3% every pay check and 2% employer matching because take home pay is tight so I can’t really put too much in to the account at this time, I am currently in a tradition pretax, but was thinking about switching to a roth option.

I talked to the "experts" provided through work, but felt more confused after talking to them. So I am just wondering what have other people been doing for their retirement savings? How much are most people putting aside? I would assume my tax structure is low so paying taxes now on a roth savings account I think might be a switch I could make. Also I was thinking of putting some of my contributions into a multisector bond fund and keep half in the lifecycle fund.

I am not looking for advice per say, but just to see what other people have been doing or thinking with their retirements. I didn't think I would care much about retirement (because I feel young, but will probably have to work for the next 40 years…..sigh) accounts until I noticed my year to date return on mine is losing money, so I thought, I might want to learn a little more about this and hear what regular people think, not just the so called experts.

[filbert]

Re: retirement.

I keep sending checks to this guy, Madoff, who promises these guaranteed returns through his web site, behindbars.com Haven't gotten a statemenbt yet but he says things are going even better than he expected.

Madoff got some of our money. Haven't seen any of it back yet. Don't really expect to.

[goon]

Re: retirement.

And, having now read your original note, I continue to pontificate:

Put absolutely positively as much as you can possibly afford aside for your retirement. Then add a little bit to that. A bit of inconvenience right now will yield tremendous benefits 30 or 40 years down the road.

No, seriously.

Shoot for investing 15% of your income into your retirement. Then see if you can't squeeze 20% out of it. See if you can't get used to living on 80% of what you make. If you can do that, see if you can't make it 25%. The more you can put away now, the sooner you can retire (if in fact retirement will still be an option in the economy we all seem hell-bent for creating . . . but that's another issue entirely, not that I want to panic you or anything, but if you're in your 30's, your elders in their 50's and above have a LOT to answer to you for . . . if you're not mad as hell at me (age 52) and people older than me, you damn well should be . . .)

Anyway, as much as you absolutely, possibly can towards your retirement. Assuming that the mess me and my elders have left you will actually allow you a "retirement," that is . . .

I would love to put away more but literally are going pay check to pay check. The wife will be a teacher asuming she finds a job to start next fall. Otherwise for now we can't put in more. I do want to contribute a lot more sooner then later obviously but that depends on the wifes job search. I am 30 and assume I will have to work till atleast 70 to retire unless great fortunes come my way. My goal would be to have enough where I would not need soc security to live with. That if I don't get any it wouldn't affect my quaility of life.

[RowdyRabbit]

Re: retirement.

About 4 months ago I switched from putting my 8% (and employer 3%) into my Traditional 401k to putting 15% (and employer 3%) into a Roth 401k. I'm pretty well diversified, but a little more on the agressive side since I'm "only" 30 and have a billion more years to retirement.

The idea of the Roth401k is that the tax hit I take now will "hopefully" be less than I'd take when I start withdrawing it in a billion years...(the tax rate now will be lower..hopefully)..

Over the past few years though, the market has basically done nothing and it makes looking at the statements a little tedious....I've hit a plateau.

Remember, when the market dips....buy more...it's on sale!