Anybody Buying Yet? Where’s the Bottom?

[Nick87]

I had good advice from parents about saving at a young age but didn’t take it unfortunately.

Wasted my 20’s not saving while raising a young family. Spent 8 years helping a guy build a company, didn’t contribute to any retirement the whole time. I had minimum rollover 401k from prior jobs. Finally realized about 2.5 years ago I was wasting time and left that job/company.

Now I’m sitting at 39 years old with only $50K retirement specific saving for both my wife and I. Playing catch up from wasted time unfortunately.

I saved quite a bit but that was as far as it got. I tooker a bigger beating on inflation on a savings account from 2020 to current from inflation than i think I could have ever taken investing it. Lesson learned.

 

[Nick87]

This thread shows how important Social Security is to our society.

There is and always will be a percentage of people who reach old age and do not have anything to show for their lifetime of labor.

Maybe, but more importantly how much we are in need of people to learn the importance of saving/investing. Imo.

 

[homers]

Social Security, as a retirement account, is a horrible rate of return. If one could opt out and be forced to contribute the equal amount as well as the company contribution to SS into an individual retirement account invest in the S&P, one would retire with a massive amount compared to SS. And your heirs would inherit the left over. That assumes one works at a reasonable salary for about 40-45 years. ~12.4% of annual earnings, average annual return of the S&P x 40-45 years. Of course,SS isn’t just for retirement and it was never meant to be the sole source of income during retirement.

 

[brymoore]

How Warren runs Berkshire Hathaway and his advice for his estate after his death are different. The estate has been instructed to invest 90% S&P 500 index and 10% short term government bonds for his wife. No cash mentioned.