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I’ve been very slowly getting more open and candid with the idea that I’m not going to be around to retirement age. The men in my family have incredibly rough odds, starting at 50, and I don’t think I’m going to be the one to beat the odds.
Healthy or not, constantly rolling this knowledge around my head—even voicing it —has helped to put a lot of things in perspective—even if it hasn’t yet instilled a YOLO mentality.
I’m on the Smith & Wesson retirement plan myself
Playing solitaire with a pearl-handled deck.
…oh, that’s poetic…
It’s from “Carmelita” by Warren Zevon. Great song!
65 is too optimistic of a number for zoomers like me. 50 seems more reasonable.
I quietly take a truly unhealthy regimen of stimulants before I go to the gym, and every man in my lineage either died of or was diagnoses with heart problems.
A heart attack at the gym sounds like an admirable death, “they died trying to better themselves” kind of thing. Bonus, I look good now.
It’s bullet proof gym motivation too, the worse day I have, the harder I cardio.
Things never work out the way that you plan.
It’s a fine line between a clean noble death and being the guy who strokes out on the treadmill, falls, gets his nut sack wrapped up in the belt.
Don’t be the guy stroking one out while getting their nuts tugged, got it.
cool, what stimulants?
Usually Bang, adderall(Im prescribed this), and ephedrine. When my body can no longer hang with that, I’m cool with it shutting down.
bang should be a schedule 1 drug, it’s the worst thing i can imagine putting in your body lmao
Fun fact: you can withdraw from your 401k. While there is a hefty tax penalty, you still can do it. Maybe you can get a down payment on a house or pay off student loan debt. Just make sure you withhold taxes from your payout. Don’t get caught with that bill at tax season
Especially handy if you have a job with good matching and instant vesting. Of course, this is not finacial advice, but it is an option that exists.
In Switzerland there is a retirement fund similar to the 401k from which you can withdraw if you definitely leave the country or if you want to use the money to buy your main house.
Yep, my plan is to pull all the money from my 401k as soon as my employer funds are vested. Paying down debt and living a comfortable life now seems like a better bet than hoping retirement happens.
You can use $10k from your 401k for a down payment on a house with zero penalty. If you’re married, then your spouse can do the same. So now you have $20k for a house down payment! With an FHA loan you can buy with as little as 3.5% down, which your $20k should cover 3.5%. Weee!
Heh, here in Australia I’d need over $100,000 for a down payment.
Many are 20% here, so really I’d need over $200,000 just to make the initial payment.
You need that here in the USA too, but with an FHA loan, or a first time buyer program on a conventional loan the percentage needed is reduced. Although they hit you with some pretty hefty fees when you take advantage of those programs. The FHA charges an up-front fee, and conventional loans hit you with PMI which equates to hundreds of dollars per month.
Why even bother with a down payment, lots of loan options out there for 0%
In most cases, it’s better to save up for a down-payment to cut off a chunk from your loan along with the portion of interest with it. You also tend to be able have loans with better options available to you.
Those are usually harder to get and carry higher interest rates.
You can also borrow against it sometimes. Basically b3ing a low interest loan to your self with the fees being lower than the penalties
You have to pay it back within 5 years, though.
100% its a loan. Useful for things like down payments or cars, etc. Things that help you save money/make money reliably enough to pay it back.
Still better interest then any other loan too
Or have to pay off the entire loan within a year of leaving the job
Bold of you to think we all have 401ks.
I imagine there is quite a dispersion of ages on Lemmy
Age has nothing to do with it. I’m 46 and I don’t have a 401k. I’ve never worked for a company that offered me one and I can’t afford such a thing out of savings I’ve never had.
If this is your plan you’re probably better off rolling it over into an IRA, and then doing a qualified distribution. There are a number of qualifying events that can be used to avoid the penalty for early withdrawals.
Gonna just make sure I die at 50.
over 50 is overrated
…been over fifty for awhile, can confirm…
My retirement plan involves laying down in a ditch off a highway in Colorado with an amazing view of the Rockies during a freezing winter night and just falling asleep. Social Security will not exist when I reach retirement age. I have a pension through work, I contribute to a Thrift Savings Plan, none of it will be enough, and I refuse to contribute more to either (as my Boomer parents both (of course) suggest), because to me I am literally throwing that money away. I will never see that money, the markets will crash, I will be left with nothing anyway, there’s no point.
I used a chunk of my 401k as an interwst free down payment on my house.
This is… An unhealthy mental stance to take. The markets have pretty consistently gone up for just about a century now, its about time in the market not timing it. Yeah it will go up and down, yeah we really might see a recession in the next few years, but 20-30 years from now, money you’ve invested will be worth considerably more and you’ll likely feel quite different when the time rolls around.
I worry about you, grasshopper_mouse. If you really feel this way, please talk to someone.
“You don’t understand! Right now is the worst times, and my specific suffering is the worst and most hopeless in history! This is the end!”
The copium some people have about gov work is absurd, GS pay raises don’t match inflation AND (at least in the IT field) typically pay worse than industry standards, for…
- slightly cheaper insurance benefits
- faster time off accrual (assuming you stick around for 3 years for 6 hours per pay period or 15 for 8 per pay period, which is only for annual leave. Sick is capped at 4 hours regardless.)
- a pension that a political party absolutely intends sweep out from under you (that you pay more into than any of the folks in your office that very been there since before 2010 ish)
- a 401k by a different name.
Oh, but it’s also “more stable” (we’re definitely not facing a shutdown deadline on the 8th and 22nd of this month, which is somehow more confusing in news coverage because nobody covers who is/was affected which shutdown deadline or if the march 8 shutdown is still possible).
That does sound a lot more peaceful than my retirement plan of: using my 2nd amendment rights on myself lol
Hey, I’ve tried that one before, it doesn’t work that easily. I think you might need to do some drugs or get really drunk for it to work properly. Alcohol would work well because it encourages blood flow to extremities, making you feel warmer while making you go faster but I think ketamine would be the best way to go
If people could plan for retirement during the cold war when nuclear annihilation could happen at any time then you can plan for it now.
Pretty sure ecological and climate collapse are not the same thing as, eh, maybe they’ll drop nuclear bombs, maybe they won’t.
Obviously, they’re not exactly the same. My point is people still planned ahead even though there was a chance the world would end. And people should do that now, because I think it’s more likely that civilization will continue.
I hope I’m gone before the crumbling even starts.
Yo look around.
Fuck
FUCK.
Did that for my student loans, unfortunately society didn’t collapse… But I learned If you ignore it long enough they go away 😅
That’s funny, thinking that people get to retire at 65. For me it’s 68.5 years, but that will probably be pushed backwards before then.
I want to retire every 7-10 years. I definitely hope I can still work hard beyond 68.5 years young.
The advantage of a self-employed mindset, I suppose.
Yeah I am betting it will be 75 for me and I am only 43 now.
I’m only 30 so I’m looking forward to enjoying my 150’s in retirement.
You’ll have a whole 10 years before they grab you for the Near-Death Star
Yea, being 33 and a moderately successful freelancer I don’t see myself retiring… pretty much at all, if the current trends keep trending
Moderately successful sounds real nice.
In 60 years all you dumb fucks are gonna be old and broke as fuck and demanding the next generations pay for your stupid asses through higher taxes.
Save your fucking money. The world might not end.
So… what’s currently happening and has always happened? The current average social security payment is $1800. Which isn’t even enough for rent and bills in most places. There are a lot of old people that worked blue collar or service jobs, payed taxes their whole life, saved what they were told and could. But they retired at 65 and planned on dying at 75, the average life span. Now they’re 80.
So here’s the thing- social security shouldn’t be your only source of income. That’s what savings are for. That’s what investments are for.
I’m not saying it’s great or I agree with it, but saving for retirement is something that should be a priority from the beginning
Ooh la la, look at Mr. Money Bags over here with extra cash to save for retirement.
If you go all the way to retirement age without ever saving a dime, there is some self reflection to be done
Not necessarily your fault. Some careers just don’t pay anything, and some areas only ever have low paying jobs, and some people are disabled etc etc.
A lot of people are born poor, live poor, and die poor. Getting out is the exception.
Right?! All these people who think that there are just well paying jobs, that cover your expenses plus some, are just sitting there while we ignore them and choose to be poor.
I’m in my 40’s going back to school again trying to do better. I’ve changed jobs roughly every 4-6yrs to get better pay and hours. I got stupid lucky to find 2 people to buy a house with right before the market went to shit. I’m making better money than ever in my life but still living the same. Gas, taxes, food kept a steady rise, along with the school loans I never made the promised income for (from the schools recruiters, career aids, etc) thus am still repaying.
Poor people aren’t lazy. We’re just poor.
Imma bet most of us are the kind of people that would never take advantage of someone else for our personal gain. Most old acquaintances I’ve met back up with who are doing much better off, I can’t say that I would do what they did for it. I’ve been called things and scoffed at when I’ve said I have personal morals, and told how it interferes with making real money. Absolutely not saying anyone making good money isn’t moral. It does narrow down the scope of opportunities though.
(Addressing the US because I live there) Even people with “middle class” incomes are living paycheck to paycheck these days. How can you contribute to a 401k when you can’t even maintain a balance in your savings account? Let alone other investments, etc, even if you do know what you’re doing with the various financial instruments.
The cost of living is beyond the pale right now anywhere in the US where you actually stand a chance at making decent money, so your choices are to A: suffer now under severe self-imposed austerity, saving a pittance for retirement knowing that you’ll still almost certainly wind up destitute in old age, or B: enjoy your youth to the extremely limited degree that you’re able to, have the odd nice coffee or dinner with friends, and then also still become destitute in old age.
Frankly, a huge percentage of the US population are simply fucked, and given the political landscape where you are given a choice between the “do nothing” party on the center right and the “eat the poor: serfdom now” party on the far right, you can’t blame people for having absolutely zero hope. As for me, I’m extremely privileged to be a dual citizen of the UK/US so I’m going to be running back to Scotland as soon as humanly possible. Come what may, at least Scotland’s position on poor people isn’t to let them die on the streets like it is here.
I’ve long maintained that if every US citizen got to experience the basic social safety nets that even the UK provides, politicians would find themselves strung up by their intestines in short order. I think people here just really lack context as to how truly distopian this country is.
Getting out may be an exception but self-defeating right away, like a lot of people in this thread, isn’t the way to become the exception.
100% agree.
Exactly. Boomers spent all their money in the 80s and are now broke and surprisingly not dead yet. They should have saved more.
Retirement being supported through taxes rather than individuals choosing to save would be far better. It’s wealth based so people who can afford to save for retirement are already doing it by default, and people who make an egregious amount of money are taxed so those who can’t afford to save for retirement aren’t left to rot.
Same concept as other social services, really. Having the means for basic survival should be guaranteed by society, especially for people who can’t support themselves.
Fair, but I think there should be a personal responsibility component. Not as big as it is now, but some.
Like, UBI, I agree sounds like a good idea. But also if people want a better retirement than the bare minimum, they should save more during their working days.
Are you wealthy? Like really, really wealthy?
Im talking multiple properties owned and owning a successful business kind of wealthy.
If not the “personal responsibility” phrase was invented to dupe people just like you.
What part of letting the elderly rot, starve and suffer because they didn’t make the “right” choices sounds good and moral to you?
Holy cow, how did I never think about saving my money? It’s such an obvious solution! I can save so much by just saving! Sure, after rent, bills, and other expenses I only make about $100 of profit every month, but if I just save that $100, I’ll only have to work 16 years for every year I’m retired. By the time I hit 96, I’ll have enough saved to live to the age of 100! And then when you factor in high interest savings accounts, I could even retire at 95!
Yeah yeah. I’m not talking to you, I’m talking to all the idiots in this thread who refuse to save money even though they could
You’re getting angry at people which don’t exist
Literally the next response down from yours rofl
Literally the next response down from yours rofl
You linked me to a comment which is explicitly telling people to save money. You melon
First of all, fuck you and your matriarchal line back to the mud your family crawled out of. Don’t try to insult me, I’m better at it.
Second, for some reason when I try to link the comment in question, lemmy only lets me link the parent comment (mine). Even clicking the “get link” button brings me to the parent comment.
Which, if your head weren’t made of vanilla poundcake, would be a minor inconvenience since I literally told you to look the next comment down. But, you know, since you’re differently abled, I’ll quote it for you:
The world will be fine. Its human society or specifically the working class who are fucked. Mostly by food scarcity due to drought and/or climate collapse.
We are already in the age of mass die offs, and low level extinctions, by the early 2030s mass extinctions will be the norm and by 2050naround 50% of all crops globally will fail on average. And that’s only if thing stay the same trajectory as they are now. Major events like the gulf stream collapsing could make things much worse much quicker.
So I think I will just spend my money enjoying life while I can, before the global famines happen :)
- @gmtom
Bro you suck at insults.
You’re the one who can’t link something right and you come and behave like this? You shouldn’t be a member of the human race.
I didn’t even make it past the first paragraph. You legitimately made a terrible insult, then told them to take a seat because you’re better at shit talking. For the future, don’t brag about talking shit as a forn of talking shit. It just comes off as insecure and really kills it.
In 60 years, you will be dead. The world will be fine. You, however, will not.
I’ve seen what happens to people who outlive their money. It isn’t pretty. You might think you’ll just keep working, but there’s a lot of things that can make it so you can’t work.
I’m sure a lot of people commenting can’t afford to save, but if you’re someone who can afford to do so and you’re just not prioritizing it, you might come to regret it.
The world will be fine. Its human society or specifically the working class who are fucked. Mostly by food scarcity due to drought and/or climate collapse.
We are already in the age of mass die offs, and low level extinctions, by the early 2030s mass extinctions will be the norm and by 2050naround 50% of all crops globally will fail on average. And that’s only if thing stay the same trajectory as they are now. Major events like the gulf stream collapsing could make things much worse much quicker.
So I think I will just spend my money enjoying life while I can, before the global famines happen :)
I don’t want to hear a PEEP outta you when you’re old and broke
I still have my mandatory pension as a backup so even if a miracle happens I won’t be that broke.
Sounds like I should be investing in dry beans, rice, sugar, and other non-perishables.
And maybe some ammo.
How are people so dense?!?!
If they stop contributing to their retirement accounts then my contributions will be in jeopardy!!!
It’s a pyramid that benefits us all…eventually.
…when my forebears ask about my retirement savings, i point to my interest, insurance, and rent fueling theirs…
No
Pretty telling that so many comments here immediately blame the proletariat. The fucking power of propaganda. Christ, we’re so fucked.
Nobody is coming to the rescue and we’re on a timer.
If everyone else wasn’t so lazy and evil, I could retire sooner and more comfortably.
I’m uniquely underpaid, overworked, and unlucky. No one else is like me. No one will ever sympathize with me. So its just me against the world.
The only thing I can do to change my lot in life is to throw in harder with a high profile ultra-wealthy industrial captain in the eternal war against foreigners, corporate rivals, and the unemployed.
Yes, yes, blame the other crabs in the bucket. That’s the way to the top, for sure.
Also, the “woe is poor me & my wholly unique predicament” trope is yet another spoonful of bullshit you’ve been fed. We’re all underpaid, overworked, and unlucky — and no one is different in that. Begin the sympathizing with yourself, and see we’re all against the fucking world out here.
You do you, at the end of the day, though. The only thing at stake is your happiness.
Do you need it pointing out that the reply was sarcasm?
I’m told its undetectable for Americans, which I guess makes sense if you grow up in a country where about 1/3 of the population is genuinely insane.
As an American, I noticed the sarcasm just because lemmy has a very anticapitalist user base, but on any other platform I’d be genuinely concerned that it was written by one of the 50% of my country’s population that actually believes that …
Yes, yes, blame the other crabs in the bucket. That’s the way to the top, for sure.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifteen_Million_Merits
The only thing at stake is your happiness.
If only. You’re living a very blessed existence if happiness is the only thing you have to worry about.
Hey, if you’ve got all the answers, what’s the problem, guru?
Do as the Buddha, abandon all craving, and you will reach Nirvana.
I’d be wary of any ties to religion — even the seemingly most benign, friendo. 🫥
It’s true that Zen Masters rejected all religions, and that Gautama was an illiterate Prince who did a bunch of dumb stuff before promising others he could bring them eternal happiness…
But the whole “friendo. 🫥” thing?
Why y’all gotta patronize?
Gluttony and materialism, I’d say. We all could have rich and wonderful lives. A few percent of us want more. And they try to make the rest think that that’s the right thing to do for everyone, even if that’s technically impossible.
I’m pretty sure that’s the root of all evil. You are welcome.
With climate change and fascism in a dead heat, I like my chances.
This is a really bad coping mechanism to rationalize failing to develop important skills and to justify giving up. We have at least 200 more years of misery in store before it’s all over, in my opinion.
