I am worried about retirement.  Truth be told, I am only 25 years old, and I’ve got a long way to go.  The fact of the matter is: with the way things are going now and watching people go back to work after being retired and watching others postpone their retirement, I don’t want to be one of them.  I want to be old and gray and enjoying life on the road or comfortably at home, just like this little old lady in the picture at the top of this post.  I don’t want to be 70 and still working or looking for a new job.

I checked my 410k today and it has lost 40% so far. There isn’t a thing I can do about it. I hate that.  I guess I’m just not a good investor.  I realize I’ve got at least 30 years to make it up, but I hate logging in and seeing that I’ve lost that much.  I don’t think I’m going to look at it until November 15th, when I’ll sell the company stock that is matched by my employer.

I think that I’m going to set up an automatic transfer into an ING account set up specifically for retirement.  I’ll earn a guaranteed 3% and have the peace of mind, which I think is priceless. When things turn around, or when I get the guts to do so, I’ll make a decision to contribute that to our ROTH IRA or do something else with it.  I know that I’m probably worrying too much, but I’d rather be safe than sorry.

Are you worried about your retirement?

Posted under 401k, Retirement

This morning I logged in to check my 401k performance, and I braced myself for the worst.  I knew that I had lost money, but I wasn’t exactly sure of how much.  Right now my portfolio is down 22.9%.  Needless to say I am a little bummed.  I am looking at this as a learning experience.  I am still young, but going forward I am going to make sure that I have money for retirement set aside not only in my 401k, but also in a CD or money market account as well.   

Currently I contribute 6% of my pay to my 401k automatically each month because my employer matches $1.15 per dollar I put in, up to 6%.  It would be crazy if I didn’t do it, because that is free money.  The reason I have so much company stock is because when they match, they put it all into company stock.  Right now I wish I didn’t have that much company stock.  The reason I chose to put so much into the Franklin Templeton Foreign Equity is because it was doing so well historically.  It is currently performing second to worst. 

 As soon as things get better with the stock market, I plan on selling some of my company stock.  Hopefully I won’t lose a lot of money but who knows what the future brings.  I’ll update next month on the current performance then.  Hopefully I’ll be out of the red!

Posted under 401k, Economy, Investments, Money, Retirement