[public] too hot (hot damn), like a Dragon Ball in __________
I generally find that a lot of what Ramit Sethi says makes sense and/or is just good advice, but this one line from his recent emails is something I can't let pass without comment:
Too many of my readers end up in a situation where they saved and saved and saved . . . but never learned the skill of spending. Do you want to end up 70 years old with millions in the bank, having agonized over your spending all along the way? Would you even know what to do with that kind of money at 70?
to which I can only respond: if the alternative is running out of money in retirement, then YES!
between the continued low interest rate environment (and my expectation that my generation, being the "boomerang" generation and therefore substantially bigger than the Xers and Zers, will have a further depressing effect on rates when we hit retirement age), the widespread lack of trust in our politicians to fix Social Security before the trust fund is depleted in the 2030s, increasing longevity, and health care costs rising faster than general inflation, I don't see how else I can expect to be self-sufficient at that age.
(I'm also bombarded at work with news briefs analyzing the current US retirement crisis, so I'm probably more sensitive to these things than most people are.)
and this is even though I've been saving for retirement since age 21 and I've actually been hitting those milestone targets that it's trendy to attack on social media as hopelessly unrealistic and out of touch for the average Millennial. (twice one's annual salary saved by age 35? I had that even at the bottom of the March 2020 crash!) even with that, I still don't feel secure about my future retirement. that is how little faith I have right now in the future state of inflation, interest rates, equity returns, and my own earning power.
so I don't trust the government to keep me out of poverty in retirement, I can't in good conscience allow myself to become a drain on the system anyway when there are so many people out there who need the help way more than I do, I don't have any hypothetical future children to count on, and even if I did I would never ask them to prop me up like that, just as I would certainly hope my mother never asks me to.
I can't count on anyone else to keep me afloat, so I need to ensure that I save sufficiently now to do so. this has been my way of thinking for as long as I can remember.
(and that's why I identify as libertarian.)
now it would be all very easy to say that I got this mindset wholesale from my father, who from an early age impressed upon me the importance of saving for retirement and not trusting Social Security to be there when the time comes. he might have gone a little overboard sometimes, like how in the 1990s he had a spreadsheet tracking his retirement accounts every business day (I've only ever updated mine quarterly). but he did end up getting to do a lot of worthwhile and spendy things in his later years, like building a basement room for watching movies, adding a heated in-ground pool, taking lots of photographs, and going on substantial vacations with the family (often not including me because I judged/assumed I couldn't afford it), sometimes road-tripping all the way from coast to coast and once even going to China. so I'd say it paid off for him.
besides, I haven't seen anything yet to indicate that his paranoia was wrong.
This entry was originally posted at: https://scintilla72.dreamwidth.org/764505.html. Please comment wherever you prefer.
Too many of my readers end up in a situation where they saved and saved and saved . . . but never learned the skill of spending. Do you want to end up 70 years old with millions in the bank, having agonized over your spending all along the way? Would you even know what to do with that kind of money at 70?
to which I can only respond: if the alternative is running out of money in retirement, then YES!
between the continued low interest rate environment (and my expectation that my generation, being the "boomerang" generation and therefore substantially bigger than the Xers and Zers, will have a further depressing effect on rates when we hit retirement age), the widespread lack of trust in our politicians to fix Social Security before the trust fund is depleted in the 2030s, increasing longevity, and health care costs rising faster than general inflation, I don't see how else I can expect to be self-sufficient at that age.
(I'm also bombarded at work with news briefs analyzing the current US retirement crisis, so I'm probably more sensitive to these things than most people are.)
and this is even though I've been saving for retirement since age 21 and I've actually been hitting those milestone targets that it's trendy to attack on social media as hopelessly unrealistic and out of touch for the average Millennial. (twice one's annual salary saved by age 35? I had that even at the bottom of the March 2020 crash!) even with that, I still don't feel secure about my future retirement. that is how little faith I have right now in the future state of inflation, interest rates, equity returns, and my own earning power.
so I don't trust the government to keep me out of poverty in retirement, I can't in good conscience allow myself to become a drain on the system anyway when there are so many people out there who need the help way more than I do, I don't have any hypothetical future children to count on, and even if I did I would never ask them to prop me up like that, just as I would certainly hope my mother never asks me to.
I can't count on anyone else to keep me afloat, so I need to ensure that I save sufficiently now to do so. this has been my way of thinking for as long as I can remember.
(and that's why I identify as libertarian.)
now it would be all very easy to say that I got this mindset wholesale from my father, who from an early age impressed upon me the importance of saving for retirement and not trusting Social Security to be there when the time comes. he might have gone a little overboard sometimes, like how in the 1990s he had a spreadsheet tracking his retirement accounts every business day (I've only ever updated mine quarterly). but he did end up getting to do a lot of worthwhile and spendy things in his later years, like building a basement room for watching movies, adding a heated in-ground pool, taking lots of photographs, and going on substantial vacations with the family (often not including me because I judged/assumed I couldn't afford it), sometimes road-tripping all the way from coast to coast and once even going to China. so I'd say it paid off for him.
besides, I haven't seen anything yet to indicate that his paranoia was wrong.
This entry was originally posted at: https://scintilla72.dreamwidth.org/764505.html. Please comment wherever you prefer.