Yea I don't really have a retirement plan. If it isn't climate change then its the capitalist system that will bleed me dry until the end. Currently I'm trying to save so that my mom can...
Yea I don't really have a retirement plan. If it isn't climate change then its the capitalist system that will bleed me dry until the end.
Currently I'm trying to save so that my mom can retire...maybe, but even that isn't looking great. Guess il try eat well exercise and hope for the best for me.
As a word of caution, many of us who grew up in overly religious environments heard a lot of folks say they didn’t need a retirement plan because Jesus is coming back any day. SPOILER ALERT: Jesus...
As a word of caution, many of us who grew up in overly religious environments heard a lot of folks say they didn’t need a retirement plan because Jesus is coming back any day. SPOILER ALERT: Jesus still hasn’t come back and those people have been bitten in the ass by their lack of planning.
Of course, climate change is a far more legitimate concern but even still, it’s best to plan for the future and not need the plan than to be old with no means.
Regarding the capitalist system, I can’t help you there but at the very least if you have a job with a 401k match then try to contribute to the match if possible! If you don’t have that then… best of luck. It is tough out there and all we can do is our best.
Or in certain circles, saving is considered not just pointless, but actively bad. Saving for your retirement is a show that you don't have faith that the saviour will come back soon. It is...
many of us who grew up in overly religious environments heard a lot of folks say they didn’t need a retirement plan because Jesus is coming back any day
Or in certain circles, saving is considered not just pointless, but actively bad. Saving for your retirement is a show that you don't have faith that the saviour will come back soon.
It is infuriating to watch from just outside those circles as the people within them struggle as they age.
Wow, I didn't know that. That seems pretty insane to me as someone entirely outside of the Christian sphere, especially considering that not only is it doctrine in every major sect that I'm aware...
Wow, I didn't know that.
That seems pretty insane to me as someone entirely outside of the Christian sphere, especially considering that not only is it doctrine in every major sect that I'm aware of that the second coming is not known to man, the Bible explicitly calls out multiple times that not only does man not know, man will never know until it happens and even Jesus himself doesn't know. Only God "the father" does.
If you want to hear the gospel around it, televangelists would be where you would hear it. I don't know why you would want to do that to yourself, but there is plenty to be found there. If you...
If you want to hear the gospel around it, televangelists would be where you would hear it. I don't know why you would want to do that to yourself, but there is plenty to be found there.
If you tell people that saving money is wrong and then ask for donations, they are more likely to donate.
This is my thinking too, partially because even within my meager 30-something revolutions around the sun I’ve felt regret for not planning better when I was younger, despite having the...
This is my thinking too, partially because even within my meager 30-something revolutions around the sun I’ve felt regret for not planning better when I was younger, despite having the opportunity, which has left me trying to play catchup now.
I'm jealous that you even had the opportunity to. At this point, I have some money saved up in a retirement fund, but until and unless I start getting paid way more or move out of the Bay Area and...
I'm jealous that you even had the opportunity to. At this point, I have some money saved up in a retirement fund, but until and unless I start getting paid way more or move out of the Bay Area and live somewhere dirt cheap (neither is looking to happen anytime soon), my retirement will be meager, and we will have to live off Mr. Tired's retirement (if we don't have to touch it soon to pay our current rent - we would rather move back in with our in-laws before that happens).
Totally understand. It wasn’t until I was able to move out of an HCoL city following the pandemic that I was really able to start seriously saving. What I would’ve been able to put aside back in...
Totally understand. It wasn’t until I was able to move out of an HCoL city following the pandemic that I was really able to start seriously saving.
What I would’ve been able to put aside back in my mid twenties to early thirties would’ve been maybe $200/month early on and double that later on. That isn’t much, but if I’d invested an averaged out $300/mo in the S&P 500 starting in early 2015 my retirement account would’ve been worth about $76k today.
If the S&P 500 continues to perform as it has on average (a huge assumption given the state of things but let’s just run with it) and I continued investing $300/mo for the next 35 years from that point of $76k, that’d land me at about $3.6m by age 70. On the other hand, if I just started $300/mo now from zero and made no effort to catch up, at age 70 I’d have less than a third as much at $1.1m.
The combined snowball effect of regular small contributions and investing has huge potential in the long run but I didn’t understand that when I was young because nobody I knew (family, friends, otherwise) had money and so I wasn’t taught it. It would’ve been tight at times but had I known the long term payoff for saving I would have.
Investing is the way to go. Anyone who wants a good intro should check out Boglehead ~3 fund portfolios for statistically "safe" investments with ETFs. On a more risky note, buying calls or...
Investing is the way to go. Anyone who wants a good intro should check out Boglehead ~3 fund portfolios for statistically "safe" investments with ETFs.
On a more risky note, buying calls or selling puts at the end of the month or year seems to work pretty well, as everything seems to drop at these times when people close their positions or sell off stock. Options are pretty intense though, not for the weak of heart.
JP Morgan now has two dividend ETFs, JEPI and JEPQ, that are "copies" of their special funds for super rich people. They seem ok. I put a little into JEPQ, and it pays for my VPN and Netflix each month at least. My position is also up ~5%, so similar to a HYSA. Monthly cash dividends, and a bit of capital gains over time is nothing to complain about. If I had a million bucks I could probably put half into these and retire early, living off the monthly dividends. Too bad I don't have a million bucks :(
Consider finding a remote job in the bay area and look at housing in cheaper locations. Sometimes with company policy and/or laws they may pay less if you move out of state, but this is something...
Consider finding a remote job in the bay area and look at housing in cheaper locations. Sometimes with company policy and/or laws they may pay less if you move out of state, but this is something you could research. This could jump start your 401k and Roth IRAs with a bay area salary and low cost of living in a small town.
My job is 90% remote. There's just the 10% that can't be done remotely that causes me to have to be in the office from time to time. I also really love the Bay Area. I've lived all over the bay...
My job is 90% remote. There's just the 10% that can't be done remotely that causes me to have to be in the office from time to time.
I also really love the Bay Area. I've lived all over the bay and haven't found a place I don't like yet (except maybe Marin a little bit).
What really needs to happen is Mr. Tired needs to get a new tech job and we need to start saving again with his salary. We use mine for living expenses save for rent, and his is only going towards rent so we were able to save plenty, It's just been a hard year with him being out of work all 12 months of it.
Not saving never seems like a reasonable conclusion to me. When you put money in your retirement account, it doesn’t magically disappear until you hit retirement age. You can always withdraw it...
Not saving never seems like a reasonable conclusion to me. When you put money in your retirement account, it doesn’t magically disappear until you hit retirement age. You can always withdraw it from the account early and pay some taxes (at least in the USA).
I understand why people might feel the way described in the article, but it could also be rationalization for just wanting to live beyond your means now. (Edit: See child comments for context.)
In my mind, even if the worst of climate change comes to pass, death by natural disaster might just come for me sooner. People still save even knowing a freak accident could take their life any day. Climate change is absolutely an Earth-threatening crisis, but at an individual level, climate change is just another way we could die too young. Using that as an excuse not to prepare for your future is just being fearful of a premature death letting your fear of a premature death control you.
Can you expand on this, because I didn't see any support for the "not saving because climate" perspective in the article, or in the abstract of the study (the full text of which is paywalled) The...
Can you expand on this, because I didn't see any support for the "not saving because climate" perspective in the article, or in the abstract of the study (the full text of which is paywalled)
The closest I found was
Participants in the study expressed both fear and hope when discussing retirement planning. Some imagined worsening climate conditions, leading to hesitation or apathy about financial investments. Others envisioned futures shaped by sustainability, government action, and community initiatives, motivating them to align their investment strategies with their more optimistic outlook.
But that doesn't indicate a trend of not saving due to climate
Yup, you’re right. I often cut things from my responses for brevity when I forget why I added something in the first place. I didn’t read the attitude explicitly from respondents in the article as...
Yup, you’re right. I often cut things from my responses for brevity when I forget why I added something in the first place.
I didn’t read the attitude explicitly from respondents in the article as written. It sounded instead like the authors were expecting to find that, and didn’t (emphasis mine).
“We expected there to be a group of people who see climate change as a reason to save more, while others want to use their resources now and enjoy life,” Helm says.
“But I was happy to see proactive coping strategies in their savings behavior. We are generally more concerned about millennials, because they tend to have lower retirement savings than other generations before them. Financial literacy, particularly among younger people, is comparatively low.”
I was just providing my rationale for why I agree with that, but I totally didn’t provide that context in my response. Thanks!
I have a hard time with your framing, because Climate Change isn't a freak accident, it is a future our world is collectively slow walking towards. It's easy to say "Don't live in fear of...
I have a hard time with your framing, because Climate Change isn't a freak accident, it is a future our world is collectively slow walking towards. It's easy to say "Don't live in fear of something that could happen," but people aren't living outside of reality, their fear is very much rooted in a clear and inescapable end.
The thing is, "climate change" is unlikely to directly kill you if you live in the developed world. That is, a heat wave, or a freak storm, or a flood is still very unlikely to be the cause of...
The thing is, "climate change" is unlikely to directly kill you if you live in the developed world.
That is, a heat wave, or a freak storm, or a flood is still very unlikely to be the cause of your early death. It's certainly more likely than if there were no climate change, but it's still massively unlikely in anyone who is currently alives lifetime. There's a higher chance that you'll die in a war indirectly caused by climate change, or lack of access to health care exacerbated by the economic strain of climate change, or your retirement may just be worthless due to the economic damage caused by climate change, but still, none of those things are guaranteed. Most likely, your life will just be some amount of worse than if there were no climate change, and you'll live a similar lifespan as if there were no climate change.
So it doesn't really make sense to massively change your personal retirement plan to account for it, besides the obvious like don't plan on retiring on the coast.
If a massive comet were careening towards the earth and was projected to hit in a few years with 99% certainty, the calculus would be different, but that's not specifically the situation we're in.
You very well might be right and fear is a completely natural thing to feel but it will also make you miserable if you focus on it. — Epictetus An end in some ways but who is to say what will...
You very well might be right and fear is a completely natural thing to feel but it will also make you miserable if you focus on it.
“The chief task in life is simply this: to identify and separate matters so that I can say clearly to myself which are externals not under my control, and which have to do with the choices I actually control. Where then do I look for good and evil? Not to uncontrollable externals, but within myself to the choices that are my own…”
— Epictetus
their fear is very much rooted in a clear and inescapable end.
An end in some ways but who is to say what will happen next. The meteor was an end for the dinosaurs and a beginning for mammals. The fact is that one day everything will end. Humanity will die off, the sun will explode, the universe will experience heat death. It could be today, tomorrow, or a billion years from now. You’re free to dwell on that as long as you’d like but you would probably feel better if you try to focus instead on the present moment.
I’ll do my best to briefly explain the nuance of the framing I like to use. Climate change is a global crisis that effectively guarantees a whole host of awful things will happen to a lot of...
I’ll do my best to briefly explain the nuance of the framing I like to use.
Climate change is a global crisis that effectively guarantees a whole host of awful things will happen to a lot of people and animals.
At a political and social scale, this requires action.
It’s also true that awful things happen to people all the time. There have been and currently are terrible natural disasters, horrible wars, and famines. If you are affected by these at an individual scale, there’s not a whole lot you can do. So, you do your best in the situation you are in. At an individual level, you must accept the pieces of reality you cannot control.
The biggest differences I see with climate change are (a) this is preventable (or at least at this point, damage can be mitigated), and (b) this will affect pretty much everyone. But those are things that change the social reality and not the individual reality.
It’s okay to be afraid. It makes a lot of sense to be afraid. But the fear will paralyze you if you let it, so you just have to move with and towards the fear.
When I was about 25 I realized the worst thing that could happen is not only do I make it to 30, but I make it to 100. Since then I've been planning for that scenario. Its going okay so far.
When I was about 25 I realized the worst thing that could happen is not only do I make it to 30, but I make it to 100.
Since then I've been planning for that scenario. Its going okay so far.
Yea I don't really have a retirement plan. If it isn't climate change then its the capitalist system that will bleed me dry until the end.
Currently I'm trying to save so that my mom can retire...maybe, but even that isn't looking great. Guess il try eat well exercise and hope for the best for me.
As a word of caution, many of us who grew up in overly religious environments heard a lot of folks say they didn’t need a retirement plan because Jesus is coming back any day. SPOILER ALERT: Jesus still hasn’t come back and those people have been bitten in the ass by their lack of planning.
Of course, climate change is a far more legitimate concern but even still, it’s best to plan for the future and not need the plan than to be old with no means.
Regarding the capitalist system, I can’t help you there but at the very least if you have a job with a 401k match then try to contribute to the match if possible! If you don’t have that then… best of luck. It is tough out there and all we can do is our best.
Or in certain circles, saving is considered not just pointless, but actively bad. Saving for your retirement is a show that you don't have faith that the saviour will come back soon.
It is infuriating to watch from just outside those circles as the people within them struggle as they age.
Wow, I didn't know that.
That seems pretty insane to me as someone entirely outside of the Christian sphere, especially considering that not only is it doctrine in every major sect that I'm aware of that the second coming is not known to man, the Bible explicitly calls out multiple times that not only does man not know, man will never know until it happens and even Jesus himself doesn't know. Only God "the father" does.
If you want to hear the gospel around it, televangelists would be where you would hear it. I don't know why you would want to do that to yourself, but there is plenty to be found there.
If you tell people that saving money is wrong and then ask for donations, they are more likely to donate.
This is my thinking too, partially because even within my meager 30-something revolutions around the sun I’ve felt regret for not planning better when I was younger, despite having the opportunity, which has left me trying to play catchup now.
I'm jealous that you even had the opportunity to. At this point, I have some money saved up in a retirement fund, but until and unless I start getting paid way more or move out of the Bay Area and live somewhere dirt cheap (neither is looking to happen anytime soon), my retirement will be meager, and we will have to live off Mr. Tired's retirement (if we don't have to touch it soon to pay our current rent - we would rather move back in with our in-laws before that happens).
Totally understand. It wasn’t until I was able to move out of an HCoL city following the pandemic that I was really able to start seriously saving.
What I would’ve been able to put aside back in my mid twenties to early thirties would’ve been maybe $200/month early on and double that later on. That isn’t much, but if I’d invested an averaged out $300/mo in the S&P 500 starting in early 2015 my retirement account would’ve been worth about $76k today.
If the S&P 500 continues to perform as it has on average (a huge assumption given the state of things but let’s just run with it) and I continued investing $300/mo for the next 35 years from that point of $76k, that’d land me at about $3.6m by age 70. On the other hand, if I just started $300/mo now from zero and made no effort to catch up, at age 70 I’d have less than a third as much at $1.1m.
The combined snowball effect of regular small contributions and investing has huge potential in the long run but I didn’t understand that when I was young because nobody I knew (family, friends, otherwise) had money and so I wasn’t taught it. It would’ve been tight at times but had I known the long term payoff for saving I would have.
Investing is the way to go. Anyone who wants a good intro should check out Boglehead ~3 fund portfolios for statistically "safe" investments with ETFs.
On a more risky note, buying calls or selling puts at the end of the month or year seems to work pretty well, as everything seems to drop at these times when people close their positions or sell off stock. Options are pretty intense though, not for the weak of heart.
JP Morgan now has two dividend ETFs, JEPI and JEPQ, that are "copies" of their special funds for super rich people. They seem ok. I put a little into JEPQ, and it pays for my VPN and Netflix each month at least. My position is also up ~5%, so similar to a HYSA. Monthly cash dividends, and a bit of capital gains over time is nothing to complain about. If I had a million bucks I could probably put half into these and retire early, living off the monthly dividends. Too bad I don't have a million bucks :(
Consider finding a remote job in the bay area and look at housing in cheaper locations. Sometimes with company policy and/or laws they may pay less if you move out of state, but this is something you could research. This could jump start your 401k and Roth IRAs with a bay area salary and low cost of living in a small town.
My job is 90% remote. There's just the 10% that can't be done remotely that causes me to have to be in the office from time to time.
I also really love the Bay Area. I've lived all over the bay and haven't found a place I don't like yet (except maybe Marin a little bit).
What really needs to happen is Mr. Tired needs to get a new tech job and we need to start saving again with his salary. We use mine for living expenses save for rent, and his is only going towards rent so we were able to save plenty, It's just been a hard year with him being out of work all 12 months of it.
It sounds like you have a plan started. I hope you guys get things figured out!
I'm a fan of imagining multiple futures. In many of those futures, having savings turns out to be useful.
Not saving never seems like a reasonable conclusion to me. When you put money in your retirement account, it doesn’t magically disappear until you hit retirement age. You can always withdraw it from the account early and pay some taxes (at least in the USA).
I understand why people might feel the way described in the article, but it could also be rationalization for just wanting to live beyond your means now. (Edit: See child comments for context.)
In my mind, even if the worst of climate change comes to pass, death by natural disaster might just come for me sooner. People still save even knowing a freak accident could take their life any day. Climate change is absolutely an Earth-threatening crisis, but at an individual level, climate change is just another way we could die too young. Using that as an excuse not to prepare for your future is just
being fearful of a premature deathletting your fear of a premature death control you.Can you expand on this, because I didn't see any support for the "not saving because climate" perspective in the article, or in the abstract of the study (the full text of which is paywalled)
The closest I found was
But that doesn't indicate a trend of not saving due to climate
Yup, you’re right. I often cut things from my responses for brevity when I forget why I added something in the first place.
I didn’t read the attitude explicitly from respondents in the article as written. It sounded instead like the authors were expecting to find that, and didn’t (emphasis mine).
I was just providing my rationale for why I agree with that, but I totally didn’t provide that context in my response. Thanks!
I agree. I honestly felt like this article didn’t say much of anything lol.
I have a hard time with your framing, because Climate Change isn't a freak accident, it is a future our world is collectively slow walking towards. It's easy to say "Don't live in fear of something that could happen," but people aren't living outside of reality, their fear is very much rooted in a clear and inescapable end.
The thing is, "climate change" is unlikely to directly kill you if you live in the developed world.
That is, a heat wave, or a freak storm, or a flood is still very unlikely to be the cause of your early death. It's certainly more likely than if there were no climate change, but it's still massively unlikely in anyone who is currently alives lifetime. There's a higher chance that you'll die in a war indirectly caused by climate change, or lack of access to health care exacerbated by the economic strain of climate change, or your retirement may just be worthless due to the economic damage caused by climate change, but still, none of those things are guaranteed. Most likely, your life will just be some amount of worse than if there were no climate change, and you'll live a similar lifespan as if there were no climate change.
So it doesn't really make sense to massively change your personal retirement plan to account for it, besides the obvious like don't plan on retiring on the coast.
If a massive comet were careening towards the earth and was projected to hit in a few years with 99% certainty, the calculus would be different, but that's not specifically the situation we're in.
You very well might be right and fear is a completely natural thing to feel but it will also make you miserable if you focus on it.
— Epictetus
An end in some ways but who is to say what will happen next. The meteor was an end for the dinosaurs and a beginning for mammals. The fact is that one day everything will end. Humanity will die off, the sun will explode, the universe will experience heat death. It could be today, tomorrow, or a billion years from now. You’re free to dwell on that as long as you’d like but you would probably feel better if you try to focus instead on the present moment.
I’ll do my best to briefly explain the nuance of the framing I like to use.
Climate change is a global crisis that effectively guarantees a whole host of awful things will happen to a lot of people and animals.
At a political and social scale, this requires action.
It’s also true that awful things happen to people all the time. There have been and currently are terrible natural disasters, horrible wars, and famines. If you are affected by these at an individual scale, there’s not a whole lot you can do. So, you do your best in the situation you are in. At an individual level, you must accept the pieces of reality you cannot control.
The biggest differences I see with climate change are (a) this is preventable (or at least at this point, damage can be mitigated), and (b) this will affect pretty much everyone. But those are things that change the social reality and not the individual reality.
It’s okay to be afraid. It makes a lot of sense to be afraid. But the fear will paralyze you if you let it, so you just have to move with and towards the fear.
I'm saving for "the lingering", when I can no longer work but am not dead yet.
When I was about 25 I realized the worst thing that could happen is not only do I make it to 30, but I make it to 100.
Since then I've been planning for that scenario. Its going okay so far.