How to Salvage Your Retirement

WSJ on-line ^ | Brett Arends

[ntnychik]

I have neither big screen, nor cable, but we saved well for our retirement. Now 0bozo has his eyes on it. Our thrift just will give him more to hand out once he redefines “wealth” and “taxable income”, and caps what we can leave to our children. We might as well have bought the big screen and cable.

[Pontiac]

I paid into my social security all my life, dadgumit, and I want my gov’mint check!

Don’t worry you’ll get it!

And with that check you will be able to buy a loaf of bread (if your lucky).

[Pontiac]

Maintaining the fantasy of the “Social Security Trust Fund” is crucial in perpetuating the Social Security Ponzi scheme.

Which is why a few years ago they started sending out statements detailing your contributions and your projected payments upon retirement.

[magellan]

"The article doesn’t address the home equity of my contemporaries but it slams them for not investing in the gambling pits of the 80s stock markets?"

A lot of people don't have home equity, and the home equity market over the last decade has been a bigger gambling pit for most Americans than the stock market.

No money down, 30-year mortgages only build equity if housing is undergoing artificial inflation. Prior to the changes to the Community Reinvestment Act in the late 1990s, housing appreciated at a rate lower than inflation. Sure, equity is wealth, but the historical rate of return is on par with certificates of deposit. And how many people with artificially inflated equity traded it for bad debt with cash out refinancing? That is not like the 80's stock market, that is like borrowing from your bookie.

As for the stock market, one dollar invested in the S&P 500 Index in January of 1980 would be worth about ten dollars today, 20 years later. That equates to about an 11.5% annual rate of return. That includes the 1987 crash, the dot-com bust, the 9/11 aftermath, and the current financial collapse.

[DollyCali]

BTTT

sometimes a simpler, humbler life might be better than the comfy thoughts we plan..

[tubebender]

My contemporaries are in their 70s and 80s and damn few fell into the equity pit. My investments were in real-estate in the 1960s/1970s and my rental income is beyond my wildest childhood fantasies...

[CSM]

Live like no one else so that you can LIVE like no one else!

Thanks Diana for the ping-a-ling.

Dave Ramsey Fan Ping List.

If you would like to be added to the “Live like no one else, so that you can LIVE like no one else” list, feel free to Freepmail me.

[Stegall Tx]

My step children despite my efforts never keep a dime in their pocket let alone in a savings account.

I see this in my wife's family. Her father is one of those guys that can save without thinking about it, and their retirement plan is "He's going to die and leave us plenty of money."

And it's only one out of three in my family that has the finances to make plans beyond working.

[CSM]

It is our duty!

“But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security”