Let's talk 401K's
 

A very depressing topic right now.



We had our annual 401 meeting at work. Here's the situation: I'm 21, I've been in this industry for the past four year (tool&die/composites) I dont plan on staying at this job all to long (a year, MAYBE)

My gross income is just under 21k/year. The company will match upto 6%. We use Principal financial for planning.



I have yet to decide what I want to do. A riskier long-term plan sounds about me. I plan on putting in more than 8%



thoughts?

Good time to be dollar cost averaging. Be certain to take the 6% match at a minimum; no better money than free money.

Some might contribute to a Roth after you've met the 6% match.

$30k by age 30 = $1mil at 65y/o.

At age 21, you've got time on your side for retirement planning and "fee money" is exactly what a company matching formula is. Not putting in the maximum on the matching is really shooting oneself.

Things are cheap now and you have 40+ years. Pour every penny you can possible spare into it, or a Roth IRA.

Or you can put your extra money in mason jars and bury them in the ground like my Wife's Grandfather did.

He thought the government was going to steal all his money, but by the time it came to digging some of it up, he forgot where he buried most of it.

After he died, metal detector sales were big in the family.:rolleyes:

My 401 is a 287.

B

Definitely take advantage of your company's match and put in whatever extra you can afford to and feel comfortable with. You're definitely looking long-term at your stage and theorhetically there's lots of buying opportunities out there. At 38 I'm sticking with my higher risk (80/20) but will become increasingly conservative as I close in on retirement. In a year or two I'm going to sit down with a financial advisor and see if I'm on track for where I want to be. I'm currently down about $75K but it's only a paper loss. For now. I hope.

My father is the first family member in our company to even consider partial retirement in his mid-60's (great-great-grandfather was 89, great-granfather was 92, great-uncle was 93 when they took their cars away from them to keep them from coming in, and grandfather died at 87 and still active to that point) so it's somewhat of a novelty. He had planned on it 2 years ago but we had an off-year so he stuck around to reach his target number. It's too late for me to knock 30 years off his retirement age but I'd like to have that option in my early 60's.

If you think that's a depressing topic at age 21, consider what it would be like if you were 54 right now. You have plenty of time, though. You can afford to take some risks at this point in your life.

yep. At least do 6 percent, but at only 21k gross, I would probably not do more as you will not have much money to pay bills and keep up the mercedes. I am 24 and I also contribute 6%. I am going to bump it up to 15 as soon as I get my fully funded emergency fund, but that extra 9% is going into a roth IRA.

Jeez Dee, at 54 you'd have another 30+ years left in you if you were in my family. Talk about depressing. :D

I came across this article today while looking up 401k plans a little. I'm not sure how reputable this paper is, or how these discussions will turn out, but it might be worth considering before making any decisions on these plans.

Please note, that I did not post this with any political intent, the title of the article says the Dems are pushing this, but it was not my intention to start a whole political debate about who would do what and why they are right or wrong, but rather to point out that the Government may have more power to alter these plans than the average person thinks they do.

http://www.carolinajournal.com/exclusives/dems-target-private-retirement-accounts.html

My 401K is down to about a 200.5K right now. Sigh, oh well, I can't touch it for another 6 years anyway.

Thats like my dads retirement plan, dieing.

It's actually kind of sad but the business was really all my g-father and gg-grandfather had and in reality what kept them going for so long. I'd imagine that was all stemmed from living through the Great Depression and thinking it could all disappear at any time.

My father is very much a busy body but he does have other outside interests, hobbies and projects to keep him busy so at least a partial-retirement for another 4-5 years, then full retirement after that, is something he is very much looking forward to. My mother? I'm not so sure! :D

My family does the same thing, my grandfather died young for us at 81. He was going to build two houses this year. Everyone has outside interests, we just like to work.

I'd like to get myself in the position where I don't have to work. Than I'd probably take 6 months off a year to sail and work the other 6.