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Stock Market & Retirement Planning

I'll be the first to fizzle, we have nothing for retirement. huge medical bills and limited income about wiped us out over the last 2 years and what we had is damn near gone. At 50 I'm starting over and it totally sucks, but having the opportunity to start over is a blessing in itself. Life threw us a few lemons so we're beginning to add some sugar to the water lol.
 
My wife and I both have 401k at work, and I have a Roth account that I put money into also. I have been putting about 16% away since I was 21 and according to my last statement have been doing well the last two years. My thought about putting this much away is I have never seen the money so I don't miss it. I have never traded on my own, but have thought about it, but have been working on paying down debt. I am only 30 so I have some years left till I can retire.
 
My fiancee and I both invest in our company 401(k) plans. My company has a Roth 401(k) option, so I put my money in there, and the match goes into the traditional 401(k), so there's some tax diversification built in.

I'm currently meeting with a financial planner to try to get some advice, but I have a suspicion that he might just be trying to sell me a whole life insurance policy, which I am not confident is an investment vehicle we need.
 
My wife and I make sure we contribute enough to get are full company matches. We leave our investments to a professional who also happens to be my father. I do need to get more involved and try to learn as much I can.
 
I have different funds for saving. I have a Deferred Comp plan through the state and a Roth IRA as well. Honestly I am not very good at saving. Making a budget and sticking to it is something I find very difficult.
 
Pretty much all I have up here is our RRSP/TFSA Setup.

Started much much later than I should have, working 15 years before setting a single penny aside for retirement. About 2 years in now, tucking away what I can. The investments made a decent return last year, but I shake my head when I think how much I could have socked away by now had I started even 10 years ago.
 
We plan for retirement and barely invest. I've got a 401k and a company retirement plan, the wife has something like a 401k. I participate in an employee stock purchase program, which is pretty much the extent of my investing. I mostly treat that as a savings account, just hold the stock for a rainy day knowing we probably wouldn't be disciplined enough to save the money if it wasn't taken from my check automatically.
 
A few years ago (I think 2010) I decided to dump my entire bonus into shares of Disney and Callaway. I bought Disney for $31.28, and Callaway for something like $5.06. Today DIS is $80.07 and ELY is $10.22. They are the only stocks I currently own, outside of IRA, 401k, and a few mutual funds. I don't really follow the market. I wish I had a talent for it, as I think it would be fun.
 
v.man said:
I'm already retired, but continue to invest as I did for my entire career. I remember when I started my career (yes I can remember back that far), my company had a stock savings plan that matched dollar for dollar up to 10% of my salary. I wasn't making much to start and my in-laws kept saying that I shouldn't be putting 10% off the top in the program, but we preferred to do without some things to always put away the max. Then, when I did start to make good money, I upped my savings percent. For years, I managed my own portfolio with pretty good success until losing about 1/3 of my account in the big market melt down. Now, I utilize a wealth management company that has been getting me about 18% average ROI since that time, despite being in their most conservative profile. That savings/investment philosophy for all those years along with always living well within our means has insured a very comfortable retirement for us an enabled me to do just about anything I want.
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Thanks for sharing. We've tried to live the same way. I appreciate hearing the good results from someone on the other side.
 
Me: 401(k), Roth IRA, General savings that I contribute to weekly
Wife: TSA (Tax Sheltered Annuity aka Teacher savings account) + Teacher pension

Also like everyone else here, deep down I'm secretly hoping that if I practice enough I'll fund my retirement through my PGA winnings :act-up:

My wife and I (30 and 29 years old) built a decent nest egg the old fashioned way...by saving. That being said, I'm nervous to risk losing by investing though I'm an accountant and understand the power of compounding interest. I need a financial planner! :)
 
My wife and I have been planning for retirement since we began working and diligently for the last 15 years. It started for both of us in our mid 20's by maxing out company match 401ks. In our early 30's we hired an financial planner and started diversifying more into individual stocks and some real estate. We got wiped out like almost everyone in the crash of 2008 but left most of our money invested after losing about 50% of our net worth. My company stock was down to $40 in early 2009 and is now $135. Her company stock is up 600% since the bottom 5 years ago. Our real estate investments weathered the storm OK and we are now on track to retire on or before age 55 in 6 years. We have a few rental properties that don't give us a great deal of cash flow but all of them will be paid off in the next few years. Together the rental properties will be worth about the same as our combined 401Ks. We have been lucky at times with our investments but also have made sacrifices in other areas so we could always put away at least 15% of our income towards retirement. We don't have fancy cars, boats, RV's or other toys. Until a year ago we lived in a house that was well below what we could afford and paid double or triple on the mortgage most months. California has amazing weather and has been a good place to work but the cost of living is silly and we are looking forward to leaving as soon as we retire. Our plan is to split our time in retirement 6-8 months in Naples, Florida and the other 4 months in Minnesota or Wisconsin lake country each year.
 
Erky said:
A few years ago (I think 2010) I decided to dump my entire bonus into shares of Disney and Callaway. I bought Disney for $31.28, and Callaway for something like $5.06. Today DIS is $80.07 and ELY is $10.22. They are the only stocks I currently own, outside of IRA, 401k, and a few mutual funds. I don't really follow the market. I wish I had a talent for it, as I think it would be fun.
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That ELY stock is heading in the right direction.
 
KnightLightPro said:
Currently putting money into my 401k at work. We have been basically living off of one income for a while so haven't been able to put back as much as I'd like. But, with new job prospects coming for the wife for work, hopefully will be upping my contributions.


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I do the same thing. We have a good 401(k) option with an ESOP, so I am trying to bank away as much as I can. Put in the tax free max last year, and hoping to do the same each year.

I don't trade stocks myself for a couple reasons: I don't have the time to really research and give it the attention I feel my money deserves and also because I feel like I would react emotionally to market swings and pull money out when I just need to keep it where it is.

With the 401(k) I just have to keep pumping some dough in and watch it grow over the long term with the mutual funds we have.
 
Miller Time said:
I have a retirement plan that will pay me 55% of my yearly salary after I've put in 30 years. Nothing beyond that just yet.
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That's not enough if you do retire after 30 years, you really need to start saving now. Trust me on this, I have been fortunate over the years with investments and at your age you can be very agressive.
 
I really need to start looking into this more. At 29 I have time, but not as much as I could have...
 
Erky said:
A few years ago (I think 2010) I decided to dump my entire bonus into shares of Disney and Callaway. I bought Disney for $31.28, and Callaway for something like $5.06. Today DIS is $80.07 and ELY is $10.22. They are the only stocks I currently own, outside of IRA, 401k, and a few mutual funds. I don't really follow the market. I wish I had a talent for it, as I think it would be fun.
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My absolute favorite right now is INVN, I bought last April and have sold and bought it 4 times, I have a couple thousand shares and don't really have a lot of my own money in it. This stock still has a lot of up side. I would never recommend a stock to anyone but you may want to check it out.
 
For those with kiddos I HIGHLY recommend you start a 529 plan today!! Put what you can in it. They are very easy and one of the best ways to try and help towards your kiddos college days. The cost of college is only going to go up.
 
My wife has a pretty good pension plan but up until recently the few hundred a month I put into RRSPs (canadian version of 401k) and our house was my retirement plan. Real estate is so stupid here that its really tough to have both so the plan was to pay off the house and sell it later to go into a condo/townhouse some place warm and sunny all year round. Something awesome happened a few weeks ago and we got employer rrsp matching at work. After meeting with the financial planner and adding this to the equation, things are looking good for a semi early retirement for both the wife and I.
 
I invest and am planning for retirement, but I don't like playing stocks and the finance world - it stresses me out. So I play it relatively safe, at least till my student loans are paid off (hopefully by next year at some point) - 6% of pay into 401k pre tax plus 3% employer match, about 3% into employee stock purchase, and a standard savings account for now. Will ramp that up going forward as 1) my pay goes up and 2) my student loans go away.
 
Been investing in my 401 for 15 years or so and putting the max allowed away every year. Besides trying to save everywhere possible. This year gave the 401 account to an adviser since I felt the mutual funds don't care about us small guys. The fee for the adviser was the same 1.25% and he has more of an incentive to increase my worth. The last fours years have been tough putting my son through college which costs insane amount. I would say any one with kids start savings big time. My wife and I try to live as frugal as possible and enjoy the special moments with no regrets. She also understands my need to play golf as much as possible.
 
I also enjoyed seeing ELY make a jump as I have held shares of them since the original Bertha. I was an advisor myself at one point in my career and now recruit for a large financial service company to find the next generation of advisors. Planning is crucially important, and finding good advice takes some common sense and homework on your part to make sure you are talking with the right type of person with the right level of experience for your situation.

I, personally, participate in our company's SIMPLE IRA up to the company match. In addition, I have life insurance and disability insurance to protect my income for my family should something happen to me.
 
I have a 403b from my previous jobs and a 401k from my current one. Fortunately I started when I was 20+ years younger.

The stats that are coming out about people who are in my age bracket and have essentially no retirement savings are truly scary.

We started working with a financial adviser last year and it has given my wife and I some confidence that we might actually be able to retire someday without having to live on cat food. Highly recommended... just find an independent one and not one who's being paid to sell you their employer's products.
 
I have 2 Roth IRA's and a plan from work. One IRA is from previous employer. The 2nd one is from annual contributions. I have 2-3 funds for the majority of money. And I dabble in some stock trading with another portion. Last year, my IRA's returned 55-60%, as I was on a roll with a few stocks that I got into (and out of) at that right time. But, that made up for the 2-3 previous years that weren't so friendly to most people.


Everyone should be maximizing whatever they can with a work matching plan, along with the tax free IRA contributions. And, you should've started yesterday.
 
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