Seriously, if a burglar decided to break in and steal all of our stuff, they'd be pretty disappointed. Many of our "treasures" are things that we use all the time that I really doubt they'd be looking for to collect some quick cash. I doubt they'd want to haul off the pressure canners and the shelf of Mason jars...
I kinda like it that way. Not as much stuff to own me.
I totally laughed when I read this. We are the same way. It's not that we don't have valuable things, it's just that nobody would ever find them as they are not out in the open. I can only imagine their first assessment of our place.....WTH? A flip phone, slow DSL with a $100 refurb Chromebook, a 10 year old TV, a CD/radio on the counter, old VHS tapes in the living room cabinet, wedding keepsakes in the china cabinet. Going thru the house would be even more disappointing to them. Especially if they got to the bedroom and someone was home......they'd be sorry they entered. If they wanted our cash, they'd have to spend quite a bit of time looking for it and even more time trying to get at it. Yeah, good luck with that.
I don't trust retirement. Companies go bankrupt and so do governments. The trick is to diversify, in my opinion. It was explained to me this way. If you have one income and it brings you $100/mo and it fails then you have nothing. If you have 100 incomes that each bring you $1/mo and one fails then you still have $99.
Retirements are great if they are part of a larger plan including savings and other income.
Live under your means. We bought this house less than two and a half years ago. We will have it paid for this year or next. We pay cash for cars.
I agree 100%! Retirement is not just an account that is labeled as such. You are smart to have assets (as well as a retirement account) that are paid for. Those assets could be anything you are an expert in (or not) such as equipment, parts, property, comic books, PM's, cash, tools......basically anything that has value to someone else. If our retirement account went dry, we'd have lots of other ways to bring in money like selling hard assets. If the stock market took a dive, it still gives us other ways to gather income. Plus, if you have no debt, having a large income is not necessary.
Being debt free is a great thing however it does have a drawback. Once you no longer have credit cards and bank payments then shortly thereafter you have no credit. If you do need to make a major purchase on credit you can not as your credit rating has vanished due to not making credit payments. I am debt free as well as my gal. Our home and all land and vehicles are paid off.
I do not agree with this. We have been debt free for at least 8 years and only use our credit cards for online purchases for the most part, which is well under our max credit limit, which I have told them I do NOT want increased. Discover card supplies you with your credit score and our last score was 825. I only have 2 major credit cards with a couple of store cards that I hardly ever use. However, I have never made a late payment on any of my bills and I pay in full every month. I just mention this so that people don't think they have to use credit in order to get a good score. The only reason I even care about my credit score is b/c a good score lowers your insurance rates. I also like to keep an eye on it as an early detection to fraudulent activity or ID theft.
It’s going away at the federal level. Military retirement system is now a matching 401k. As the government service employees phase out that too will be turned into a low to modest return savings plan. The government is starting to put the responsibility on you, not just pay you forever for doing 20 years. Now the states and the local counties need to follow suit. Fire, police and city officials have amazing retirement benefits but it’s spending tax dollars twenty years into the future. My PD gets life benefits for as little as two years service. While I am great full for what they do, I don’t know any other job that offers benefits close to what they can. As long as the numbers stay low, it’s sustainable for now.
I think this is a good thing and I know it is transitioning in the high schools here to individual plans. The amount the schools are paying in retirement funds is a big percentage of the overall budget. It was a crazy amount that I read, but I can't remember now what the actual number was. This is one reason why you can't throw money at the schools and make them better.....b/c most of that money is being spent on staff that are no longer there.
I think pensions are empty promises....kinda like SS. If you trust the sources of that pension, then more power to you. I trust no one! I've always maintained my own retirement account, but I started saving in my 20's. I made sure my kids did the same thing. They got a Roth IRA for a graduation present. I wish they would put more into it while they are young.....I'm still working on them. I don't like the whole idea of pensions and I really don't like the idea of state and government employees getting pension b/c the taxpayer is on the hook for it. I much prefer folks take responsibility for their own retirement instead of relying on taxpayers. If they personally decide not to, then so be it.....they can personally suffer the consequences. I do indeed feel bad for the folks in this article that the OP posted about. It's not fair that those folks trusted their employer to make good on their promises and they failed. My heart truly breaks for those folks.
The only way to avoid that in the future is to not make unfounded promises in the first place! That goes for both private and public sectors. I know I'm dreaming here, but wouldn't it make sense for high schools to discuss this issue and make it a requirement for students to pass a personal retirement coarse before graduating???? Pipe dream......I know. The schools don't want to talk about independence and responsibility.......
