Well, you say that now. If ten years on, we're in the middle of the worst bear market in history, the song might sound different. (It ain't over til it's over.)Thank you for the reminder that we are very lucky to invest in this age. Just one generation back and the options were very different.
Yes and no. My parents were/are (my father died years ago) very intelligent people, and I wouldn't describe either of them as "faint of heart" (they lived through some challenges in their lives most of us have never had to face). At the time they began earning enough money to save (starting in the early 1970s), the concept of investing your retirement savings in the stock market simply wasn't as prevalent and taken-for-granted as it is now. At that time, pensions were still very common, the IRA had just been established and wasn't very popular, the 401k had yet to become available, and a major alternative to pensions was annuities - employers and employees could both contribute, similar to 401ks today. So I can't really blame my parents for putting their retirement savings into variable annuities. The understanding, I think, was that annuity income would supplement social security and pension income, and they weren't thinking of leaving an inheritance to their kids.
My point is this retirement "system" that's been cobbled together, whether annuities or stocks, is just a mess.
I do agree that "luck" plays a more important role in our good outcomes than many of us uber-planners like to admit.
Statistics: Posted by Claudia Whitten — Sat Apr 06, 2024 1:26 am