So, like many boomers, I have a 401k that represents basically my entire retirement fund. Unlike many boomers, I am under the age of 50.
I'm sure there's plenty of other millennials, and possibly even younger generations, who have simple, relatively hands-off accounts from jobs where you just diverted a percentage of your paycheck. It's not flashy or trendy, and it's kinda old-school - like the employers we got them from.
With the market being about as stable as a cement mixer full of nitroglycerin, what are we to do?
I've thrown some pocket change into the Meme War on Wall Street, but if this triggers a collapse, there goes my 'retirement' (as though that could ever happen given current trends). What should I and people like me be looking out for?
As a just regular person without any insider financial or tax expertise, I've been going through the retirement thing for a year or so.
Several things have become clear to me: Your retirement funds will be seized/taxed/inflated to shit by the time you get there, if indeed you do ever get there. I cannot tell you how many of my 20something friends never made it to age 60. And after 60 they were dropping like flies, they never got a chance to use their retirement savings at all.
Having savings is a good thing of course but government has made it almost impossible to hang onto them over the long term. If you run into expensive medical problems (as I have) they are going to steal your savings that way. Having savings/assets disqualifies you for any kind medical financial help. I have Medicare parts A,B, and D and I'm still in a pickle as my medication costs - $18,000- a month.
Save as you like, but my advice is don't get too wound up about it. Spend the money now and have the time of your life. You never know how long that will be.
Even though I wrote an entire novel in this thread about my retirement and investments with almost no mention of generally fun stuff, I want to second this. I've been on the opposite side of some discussion with friends that feel the need to save away every dollar for their mystical retirement at the cost of not having fun now. They think I'm stupid because some book told them to max their retirement accounts out and I don't. On my side, I don't think of them at all when I've traveled somewhere fun, or driving my totally impractical car, playing a video game, or whatever fun thing I'm doing.
At this point I save a lot because I never succumbed to lifestyle inflation as I grew in my career, and I'd like to be done with corporate life by the time I'm 40. I see my coworkers who are still in cubicles well into their 50s or 60s, and something just seems off about that; and that's not where I want to be at that age.
And I do max out my retirement accounts, but that's because I also have a large taxable portfolio, and the retirement accounts let me rebalance my asset allocation without having to worry about the tax implications.
That's for sure. I've targeted age 50 myself. Not that I couldn't be out of it sooner, but I'm getting quite close to 40 as it is, and I'm in a good spot right now in that I have a super flexible corporate job that I enjoy doing.
The lifestyle inflation thing I something I think a lot of people get stuck in, particularly ones that inflate themselves into debt to inflate their lifestyle. I've probably done a little inflation with respect to fun things, but I've kept my housing costs way down to counter that. Having the cheap house in the slightly older part of the nice neighborhood has really been a good move for me.
I'm getting the distinct sense that I'm at a fork in the road that is my career that I will either need to publicly embrace "woke" or not be able to work for Woke Capital anymore. And that's if my refusal to embrace WuFlu restrictions don't end it first. 40 is probably optimistic; I'd say making it to 2022 is a 50/50 proposition.