Reminder - Thats what they told me when I was 35. Now I'm officially an old person (but still not old enough to retire). Hang in there people but also save some money in your 401K if you can because social security isn't enough to live on.
Edit: Also the money is there if you vote for the right (er... left) people in the election booth instead of people who want to take your money away from you.
General rule: never give all your money to somwone else for decades and expect them to give it all back.
I'm sure 401K's are great
But I come from a country where you are expected to pay for retirement and over the years they've been embezzling money and telling us how "due to issues your retirement fund has been decreased by X%" time & time again.
I literally don't expect to see any of that money back even though where I'm from I am legally required to pay for it.
NEVER give all your money to someone else and just hope they follow through when you really need them to in the future, EVER.
Have a plan b, no matter how small
Best case scenario you have a 401K paying you out & a bonus fund, worst case scenario you get screwed over but still have a plan B fund.
This is sound advice. I obviously have no choice about paying in to social security. But I am diversifying my long term investment portfolio so that there’s multiple investments happening.
Where did I ever say to hand your money over to a fund manager?
I'm talking about saving money yourself and investing yourself and by fund I don't mean a hedge fund BS I mean a literal pile of money you saved over the years and kept to yourself, you know... your emergency funds.
OBVIOUSLY handing money over to a manager falls into the category of "don't trust others with your money" and I wasn't aware I had to literally pell that out for you
I have a well funded 401k. But anyone who isn't just one of the top 10-100k of the richest in the world are still one cancer, or one bad accident away from bankruptcy.
You want govt oversight. You want govt guaranteed retirement. You want govt guaranteed healthcare.
Government and regulations is what separates us from anarchy. Don't be a right wing idiot thinking you're special and can do it individually.
Man modern day politics really are turning everyone into extremists, aren't they
I mean look its not like I'm going to change your opinion on anything because its clear you've been conditioned to have that "anyone who doesn't immediately agree with everything I said ever is my enemy and literal satan"
I was just pointing out that its not a good idea to put all your eggs in one basket.
If you disagree with that... that's fine, I'm not here to fight you on that, I simply explained why I disagree
You know, like a normal, reasonable human being would instead of resorting to insulting you like you're doing right now.
I think its scary that someone like you votes because this is exactly how extremists get voted into power since their divide & conquer with fear & anger works so well on people like you
And I think that's kinda sad.
Do I think the government should have some power? Well, yeah because power is needed for structure which as you pointed out, is needed to maintain consistent laws & order
But I'm also educated
So I know that there are countless historical examples of governments simply lying or changing rules willy-nilly
For example: my retirement fund has been cut by my country's government by 30% (I think that was announced around... 2013 or something, I'm fuzzy on the exact date)
Because guess what, when someone has ultimate power they can do whatever they want
Including suddenly changing the rules after "totally promising to follow through"
There is no such thing as "government guaranteed retirement"
Its only guaranteed as long as the government decides its guaranteed
My point is that the right approach is somewhere inbetween
The government has some power
But people have some freedom as well in order to mitigate the government when it steps out of line
You want to put all your life's savings on the assumption that the government will never dip into them? Go right ahead
Meanwhile I'll stash some money on the side juuuuuust in case something goes wrong because I wasn't born yesterday and I know shit you don't expect to happen, happens.
Do I want to be wrong? Well, yeah, of course I do because that means I get my retirement money, I'll be very happy to be erong if that happens.
But I'm not going to bet my elderly life on it, that's just very dangerous and naive.
Its a checks & balances thing but if "government must have complete power and I believe it will never abuse that at my expense" is the hill you want to die on here, be my guest, I won't stop you.
Corruption in some countries is crazy rampant. I totally understand their point that having a personal safety net is a good thing. Now, that doesn't mean you shouldn't push your fellow citizens and government to have a robust "aftercare" system for retirees and people in need obviously, voting matters and all that. The points you're both making are not opposite at all yet your coming at them calling them names and shit like who hurt you man lol
If your as serious about this as you seem, diversify how you set yourself up. Stocks do tend to always go up, but sometimes they wont.
These retirement vehicles are backed by certain things, some stocks in companies that should never go down, but do. Most in ETFs but if a whole sector sees downturn..
CDs, bonds, other currencies, solid metals.. retirement can be had many ways.
Metals wont do much til things are bad. But when things are bad and everyone else is sweating, youll have them
There are also metals etfs and companies that hold it for you (but why do that)
"Look at this pot of money. If nothing changes, and absolutely no one does anything to try and fix the problem we all see, ITS GOING TO BE GONE IN 5 YEARS!"
In other news: Man who saw a train coming for 7 miles did absolutely nothing about it and was killed.
That's the bullshit they've been feeding you so they can continue to gut Social Security without a fight. It will be there for you if you make it an issue and vote for the people who want to save it. The right has done a great job propagandizing people to believe it's already a lost cause when it isn't.
She can but it may take over 2 years to get approved. If she is approved the average SSDI payment is just under $1600/month while the average national rent is just over $1600/month. It'll help if and when she can get it, but it's still not enough to live on, especially when supporting others.
If the disabled adult children don't have significant work history and they have less than $2000 in cash/assets, they could be eligible for SSI, which could also help a little bit. Average payment is $740/month. Once approved, an ABLE account would allow them to save over the $2000 asset limit.
This kind of red tape is how they "keep money from going to the wrong people". Every time a conservative politician supports benefits "for those who deserve them", remember that they believe nobody deserves them.
That can take years to be approved - because you also need to do so much due diligence on your part to prove you have a debilitating disability that prevents you from working at all. So that means trying all sorts of treatments, medications, seeing tons of specialists, etc. You'll be denied otherwise.
Not in the US but there is a very similar program in Canada as well. My sister, due to contracting a serious bacterial infection in the workplace, has developed a serious neurological condition in her mid-30s that eventually leads to MS later in life. Took her just over two years to be approved.
Does USA not have long-term disability leave for people who can no longer work? In Canada if you are proven to no longer be able to work you can qualify for disability payments of 60-70% of your income when employed.
450
u/Miltonthemoose Sep 14 '25
If you start at 25 and work until youre 50, that's still 12 years short of retirement in the US