Posted on 04/21/2010 7:19:36 AM PDT by Kaslin
The college student will graduate soon and will hopefully be employed soon, and the mortgage is down to about $30K. So we should be able to start saving much more aggressively in the next year or so. But I do worry/wonder about how inflation, taxes, etc., will throw up unforeseen challenges in getting through retirement. I always thought it would be a good idea to put a couple refrigerator boxes aside for a last resort abode....
They keep pushing us closer to an ‘Atlas Shrugged’ type scenario. If they try to seize our wealth and/or guns then CW2 is upon us.
Anytime that someone buys or sells stock, the stock is bought from or sold to a "market maker," whose job is to ensure liquidity in the market so that trades can always be facilitated. In selling, for instance, you'll sell to the market maker, who will hold the stock until someone wants to buy, then he'll sell it to the buyer.
1) Social Security payments will be effectively $0.00. The Ponzi Scheme will collapse.
2) 4% annual spend presumes stocks do well; make sure lots of your stocks are outside the U.S., at least until the 0bummer Communism is politically finished.
3) 4% presumes low rates of default on the bonds you hold. Avoid too many U.S. government (Fed / State / Local) bonds. They have so many unfunded liabilities (read: union retiree benefits) that many government bonds will default.
4) 4% presumes the U.S. dollar will not become worthless through a period of hyperinflation due to fiscal deficits and / or monetary expansion. Protect yourself with anti-dollar investments in foreign stocks and bonds (unhedged), gold, oil, TIPS (if they don’t default), etc.
Just a few thoughts.
one of my relatives is a dairy farmer...I was thinking of finding farmland near where he ultimately decides to set up shop and then rent it to him to pay the taxes until I’m ready to use it...
along those lines, fertilizer may also be a good investment if food is expected to be at a premium...
” so their prices will begin to drop and will steadily decrease as more and more folks retire. So even if your 401K and IRAs are worth a cool million now, in 20 years they may be 1/3rd of that price.”
Excellent point. The 401 program is doomed. Not to mention, most people lost 1/3 or more of their holdings in the past 18 months and that isn’t going to cahnge anytime soon.
401(k)s are appropriate for financial instruments. The prudent investor will invest in other types of investments, and will steer those other dollars in that direction.
One fundamental message of the Book of Job — you can’t plan for everything. Sometimes you’ll get slammed for a reason beyond your control. I’m not the type to have cases of non-perishables and ammunition in storage for the apocalypse.
Do the best you can ... get out of debt, be liquid, well-invested, and well-prepared ... and let God handle the rest. If its your time to suffer, its your time to suffer. If its your time to go, its your time to go.
SnakeDoc
“I’ve been thinking about investing in farmland...”
Even better would be in ammunition.
Any posters know of outfits who stockpile purchased ammo like they do for gold?
Am thinking in years it will greatly appreciate and can be used as excellent barter.
It is! Other than a little debt on my credit card and an almost-paid-off Saturn, we are debt free.
The other thing I'd suggest - hide your money in a safe at home. Don't use the banks. Or if you use a bank put your cash in a safety deposit box. You want it some place you can get your hands on before the govt does.
Please explain
As serendippity would have it the average household income in the USofA is 44,000 and change.
Anybody see a problem here?
Should have said median dumdum.
Great post. Fidelity has a calculator in their retirement planning section that lets you play what ifs and plug in historical market performance numbers for the past thirty years or so to see how recessions affect retirement. That 4% withdrawal from savings each year appears to hold up very well.
This is just me, but the 401K is a government program and I just don’t trust it. Even if we were to stabilize and the Feds stopped their endless encroachment, I still think the hundreds of billions people socked away would be too tempting for future politicians. “It’s not fair that they were able to save” will be the cry of the day”. I stopped a long time ago. Demographics are not our friend.
see “ridesthemiles” post.
“............the median income in the US right now is 32,000.00 per year.......if you own your home and automobiles, this amount is more than enough to live very comfortably...if you are frugal, you can scrape by on 24k per year...just make sure you are debt free, and you will be surprised at how little you can live off of...”
Agreed.
“If they try to seize our wealth and/or guns then CW2 is upon us.”
That’s a fact.
AMEN to that.
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