My retirement fund that I just started was worth $15k in December of 2021. Then, May of 2022, our area was hit really hard. My retirement plan went down to $7k. Today, it’s worth $11k. I lost $4k on my retirement plan. It’s invested in total market funds, some tech, some big cap companies, and healthcare. But every sector has been ravaged by the stock market changes.
The stock market averages are only true if you look at it for a really long time, like 30-40 years. In 10 years, the value can definitely go down a lot, but if you view it for the long-term, it will still be an improvement.
I understand that looking at it like that is unnerving though.
Needing to choose when to retire based on whether the stock market is up or down is a dogshit system.
That’s generally why when you’re younger people tend to put their retirement funds into riskier investments and over time as you get closer to retirement you move portions of your money into less risky things that don’t have the potential volatility of the stock market so that by the time you retire you don’t have to worry about the stock market dipping and blowing out your retirement funds. At least that’s one way to do it; obviously this isn’t investment advice and you should seek your own professional investment advice.
You don’t have to choose, just keep saving and investing for 30 years.
So if the market crashes the year before I want to retire I should just put off retiring for another 30 years.
Like one of the other replies mentioned, when you get closer to retirement, more of the money should get shifted from stocks to more stable but lower return investments like bonds and such that are not affected by a stock market crash. Usually you can set a retirement age in the management portal of your 401k and the management company in charge of your 401k uses it as a guide to move the money into the more stable investments.
Only 32% of people have 401k accounts.
45% of 18-29 year olds have a retirement account. That number keeps rising to 77% of people 60+ having a retirement account. source
You don’t need a 401k account to save for retirement. You can do this same savings/investing in an IRA or even an brokerage account (but you wouldn’t get the tax benefits). There are ZERO employer requirements to opening an IRA, you just have to be someone that earns money.
Earns enough money to set some aside for retirement.
Do you literally not even have $1 in your pocket that you earned for yourself? Thats all it takes to open an IRA and start saving for retirement.
You should have a nest egg by then that even in a crash, a year of withdrawal isn’t significant
I’ll let the vast majority of Americans who can’t afford to save up a nest egg because of wealth inequality that they are doing it wrong.
Also the ones who choose to retire because of medical issues who have to spend any money not in a retirement account before insurance pays out that they did it right, but they are fucked anyway.
The system is shit even if there are ways for the well off to work around it.
Thats not how to do it. As you approach retirement age (5 to 10 years out), you move your money out of riskier (but higher return generating) stocks and into safer (but lower performing) investments like bonds or even cash (actual cash, CDs, Tbills, etc). Generally you also don’t move it ALL out of riskier stock. You don’t need 100% of your savings on day 1 of retirement, so you convert a few years worth (5 maybe?) to safe stuff and let the riskier stuff ride usually gaining more value even after you retire.
I don’t see what’s so difficult to understand. If you can’t retire at 60, try again at 90. At 120, you really should consider an alternative. If you have to wait until 150, retirement will likely be a lower-priority issue. \s
No. If you’ve been saving for 30 years, then you’ll have 30 years of accumulated 10±20% annual gains, which should be something like 16x your start, but could be 100x if you’re lucky or 1x if you’re not. Regardless, an historic crash on retirement day may take that down to 12x your start, which is still pretty good, and will be fixed by the following couple years.
401k is the just liquidity for billionaires, some plebs benefiting from it is an unintended consequence and owners are working pretty hard to ensure it doesnt happent too often.