How's your retirement planning going?

[Queen of Hamsters]

I don't have children and no partner that costs me money, so I'm saving like a mofo. I am considering taking a loan for a house of my own, away from the city, but at the same time I have no debt and am unsure if it'd be a wise investment in this day and age, especially in my country where NOTHING is being done to keep the countryside alive...

All this land, and we import sugar snap peas from Zimbabwe... But I digress, my retirement planning is ticking along nicely.

[cuafpr]

had a great plan a nice savings/retirement then START II treaty was signed and obama directed a down sizing of the USAF 60% of my AFSC and year group got cut, i was one of them. quickly learned how fucked up the system was and lost everything i had saved, while if i had wasted the money or bought things that could be flipped/resold.. i wouldn't have to sell it b4 getting help.

Now retirement is basically a pipe dream and the best i hope for is to shift to teaching online from home around 60/65 vs the office grind.

[Raelbo]

There are a few things people should try to understand about retirement planning:

1) The objective of a retirement plan is to be able to continue living the lifestyle you did before you retired. What this means is that the amount you need to save is a function of how much you earn. In other words, your retirement savings needs to be a certain percentage of your income, regardless of how much, or how little you earn.

2) Kids make it tricky to save for retirement, especially if you have them later in life. They basically introduce a significant financial burden into your life, which means less money at the end of the month, or cutting back on your lifestyle (hard for most people) or finding a way to significantly bump your income (not always easy if you have them later in life).


If you take these two things into account, you have the basis for a sound strategy:

1) Live modestly from the start of your career. It's not so easy to migrate to a less costly lifestyle once you've been accustomed to living more comfortably.
2) Save aggressively when you're young. Budget 25%+ of your income towards saving from the start. Repaying student debt can come from this budget, but any new debt you take out should not.
3) If/when you have kids, you'll then have breathing room, and it's ok to reduce your savings to around 10%.

The classic mistakes you need to be aware of:
1) Not saving from the start: It's easy when you first start working to decide to reward yourself a bit and start saving next month/next year/in five years (once you have all the basics you need like a house and car etc). The reality is that it never ever gets easier to start saving. Learn to live off of the 75% of your income that you have left after your savings
2) Treating your house (that you live in) as part of your retirement savings. It's not. Having a house is a good idea, but you should not fund it from the 25% of your income earmarked for savings. The mortgage repayments should come from what's left after your savings. That being said if you want to apportion part of your savings budget to making additional repayments on the loan (to pay it off faster) then that is fine. But remember that when you start saving money on your regular loan repayments, to pay those savings back into your savings. If you pay your house off 10 years earlier, then you should take the money you would have been paying towards your mortgage and plough it back into your savings in addition to the budget you already for savings.
3) Buying stuff you want on credit: Don't do it. It's a trap! Rather save for the things you want and then buy them when you have the capital. If you need to take out credit to buy things you need, make sure you've payed them back before saving for things you want. Many people make the mistake of thinking that once they have that awesome thing, they'll be fine and can start saving. The temptation is to get a loan to buy the thing so that you can enjoy it earlier, believing that you'll be in the same spot once you've payed it off, only having enjoyed the thing for the interim. Reality is that we don't function that way. As soon as we get something we want, we immediately start focussing on the next thing we want. So really, we're never in that space where everything is sorted, that we have all the things we want and can focus on repaying them. It's far better to defer the purchase, save for it and then buy it. In the end you'll actually land up wanting a lot less of the things that end up making you poor in retirement.

[Witchblade77]

What's the point of two vehicles?
Gold seems like a good plan from what I've seen.

You just plan to live off your savings and investments once you retire?

different for different people, but there is always a chance that one needs to go into a shop for whatever reason - having a backup vehicle so that you don't need to rent one is very useful. also.. you, the person who so promotes marriage... cannot see why a couple might want to have 2 cars?

as for on topic, doing better then before. mostly on track. paying off mortgage, investing into retirement fund, just need to be more consistent at paying extra towards the principal.

[Deleted]

I see a lot of commercials about this and it makes me wonder.

Are you doing what is necessary to secure your future? What's your plan once you retire at 60-65? Will you be able to maintain your lifestyle?

Or will you be once of those people barely scratching out a meager existence?
@breadisfunny

What retirement? I don't think there will be a retirement once I get to that age. We will have to work until we die.

[frogger237]

You must be rich to pay somebody to do it for you.

There are some pretty scummy people in the world, it only costs $500-$3000 a year depending on the person.

[Rasulis]

That is a sad thing that is happening in Sweden indeed. The countryside is slowly dying.

This is probably true for a lot of advanced countries. I have done projects in Illinois, Tennessee and Texas, and all three states are full of little towns in the middle of nowhere that are dying a slow death. You see boarded up retail facilities and factories, office complexes with half-filled parking lot, and the nearest hospital more than 60 miles away. Unless the town is a tourist town, or lucky enough to have Amazon open one of their center there, this is the direction where a lot of small towns are heading.

This is not unique to the US. Japan is in even worse situation. If you spend some time in Japan countryside, you will notice the lack of children and young people. All you see are old people. Two years ago, China’s urban population for the first time in history outnumber their rural population. if not for tourism, a lot of towns in Europe are probably in the same boat.

[cubby]

Horrific. Mired still in student loan debt (still owe most of the original balance - both me and my wife). Three kids - love 'em but costly. Live in an expensive city. Both of us work, neither can afford to contribute to retirement yet.

Feels fucking hopeless.

[Queen of Hamsters]

That is a sad thing that is happening in Sweden indeed. The countryside is slowly dying.

And it holds true for so many other countries.

It's retarded of functional, stable countries to outsource their production to countries where the situation is not quite so stable. If there's another World War, a ton of western countries won't be able to produce enough food to support their own population.

[metzger84]

i keep my retirement plan in one of my drawers - a gun and one bullet

[Narwal]

I put away 10%, company matches 9.6% of my salary. I also have a good pension in line with this company. I don't actually know how that match is so high, but I see the raw number and calculated to my salary it's 9.6% I may have to look for their matching rules. I thought they only matched 6%.

Oh, I think I get it:


Division/Unit Traditional 1% - 6% Contemporary First 2% Contemporary Next 4%
All U.S. Divisions
(except as follows) 100% 300% 100%

I must be contemporary. First 2% I put in, they put in 2% x 3.00 = 6%. The next 4% I put in, they put in 4% x 1.00 = 4%. Which is equal to 10%, I could drop 4% off and get the same amount from them.

The numbers are a little lower this year, 96% 288% 96% which is why I calculated 9.6% from them instead of 10%.

[cuafpr]

401k and railroad retirement

my dad has that and its gold..... better than DoD even maybe minus health care but still SOLID!

[Rasulis]

I put away 10%, company matches 9.6% of my salary. I also have a good pension in line with this company. I don't actually know how that match is so high, but I see the raw number and calculated to my salary it's 9.6% I may have to look for their matching rules. I thought they only matched 6%.

The Company can choose any percent matching contribution scheme. It is capped at 18k if you are less than 50 (combined contribution limit of 53k), and 24k if you are over 50.

- - - Updated - - -

You only have to go back to WW2 where people in the cities here had to send their kids to the rural areas to "fatten up".
How would that roll now, when 120 000 farms have ben laid to waste the last 40 years.
Self sufficiency should be a nations first priority.

Actually agriculture output for the US is at an all time high. The problem is that the ones that can be automated barely provide any employment. As for the ones that can’t be automated and require human touch, no U.S. citizens want to do them.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

We kept both the condos we lived in when we were young and single. It was an rough doing it when we were younger but now the rent we get from them is nice income and adding in when we retire 2 401ks and my pension with the kids grown and gone then.. things should be alright.

[Knolan]

My country public retirement plan is fucked and I am 99.999% sure that I won't get a single penny from it (which sucks big time since I can't refuse to pay it).

So far I have a very small retirement investment, some saved money and a part of my own house. Since I am considering migrating and I am still young I still do not have a plan. If I stay / come back to my country I plan on investing on some real state plus low risk investments. So I basically plan on living by being a landlord plus some investment returns.

[anveena]

I'll have social security so everything will be fine

[StayTuned]

I see a lot of commercials about this and it makes me wonder.

Are you doing what is necessary to secure your future? What's your plan once you retire at 60-65? Will you be able to maintain your lifestyle?

Or will you be once of those people barely scratching out a meager existence?
@breadisfunny

The fuck do I know how it will be in 45 years from now on.

I pay into my pension fund/public retirement plan, but since I started working late with 27 after all that bazillion and gazillion educations I've gone through, I am some 9/10 years late to the party. I have no idea how much €/month I will get once I reach retirement.

Now, on the other hand, because that is the sad truth, I am happy that my family isn't a shit place to be born in - it's not a free pass either, but at least I will have things to inherit and make more money off so I believe that I should have a quite OK retirement.

[Queen of Hamsters]

You only have to go back to WW2 where people in the cities here had to send their kids to the rural areas to "fatten up".
How would that roll now, when 120 000 farms have ben laid to waste the last 40 years.
Self sufficiency should be a nations first priority.

100% agreed. Sadly, politicians don't seem to be thinking ahead in any other ways than in regard to their own careers.

[Tennis]

What retirement? I don't think there will be a retirement once I get to that age. We will have to work until we die.

Some people have defined pension plans which pay 60%+ of their salary after retirement.