Comments on: Why No One Saves for Retirement

By: anne

anne — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 00:27:06 +0000

it sure isn’t mom and dads world anymore…. companies cut your wages… and, who will quit … not too many jobs… so you take the cut… maybe not happy… but you have a job.and,401′s are gone or loss intrest. not much to be done in saving.. the cost of just living is way too high for our pay checks…. then serious illness sets in.savings lost in hospital bills medical tesrs and doctor bills and meds.so what you may have had is lost to illness. but then you stress because you can hardly work but have to and worry how can you work until age 70. pretty scary world.and worry about if you have to take disability… then how can you make it. and all the waste of our hard earned money being wasted in our leaders hands… what if they had to get cut in pay just to be in leardership and pay for all the average american people have to not being able to do anymore than the average joe.maybe then years ago … we would not be in the mess we are and yet money in leadership is still wasted and loop hole to get more out of our earning to pay off more and more that was wasted… i don’t know how more simple to say this.we are the ones who are sinking more and more by waste.i guess we will just have to sink in trying to pay off all the monies wasted. everyone including the gov. should buckel down on a very tigh budget and prices should go down as to where we can live.. to pay off the budgets of waste… if we all are killed off from working sick and no rest …. who will be the slaves to work off the budget?it was our hard earned monies that was spent and now we have to work more years on less of our earned money.what can we do… work!

By: Glen

Glen — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 18:57:23 +0000

The uncomfortable silence around the retirement issue is deafening. They say save, but if you are trying to pay off something like food, rent, fuel, entertainment, with money that you are not earning enough of in the first place, this is just not possible.

The cost of living is going up, and the paychecks are getting smaller. This isn’t our mommy and daddy’s world anymore.

The question is, what will our children’s children do about it? And the troubles may come far sooner than we imagined: People are fast approaching retirement age and the income generated are increasingly not ending up in people’s pockets.

By: Dennis Beaman

Dennis Beaman — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 01:20:11 +0000

I don’t believe the plethora of options is a major reason for not saving as much as say, the Japanese, do. When you you consider the tax rates, the cost of housing over the last 20 years, the cost of college, and other costs associated with running a household and raising children, there just is no money left until the kids have left the nest and your house is paid for. And with home equity loans so cheap over the years, it was very easy to use that money to buy “big boy toys” instead of pay off the house. That led to the house not being paid for early enough to start saving.

By: Chris Hooper

Chris Hooper — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 01:43:17 +0000

That’s a scary fact about 401k savings. I don’t understand why the US government has not mandated contributions to retirement savings. There’s no way the government can afford to support millions of retirees that haven’t saved for the future.

By: Gail

Gail — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 15:59:06 +0000

We stash what we can away for retirement, but it is difficult as self-employment income can flucuate so much. We do though work towards the goal of getting the house paid off before ‘retirement’ and also a rental property paid off to add income to our later years. As self-employed people no one will be telling hubby that he has hit mandatory retirement age. He has plans to work till he is dead. And by the way he is always battling health concerns just as I am, but keeps on working as sitting back with his feet propped up is not an option.

By: Jo

Jo — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 17:27:01 +0000

Speaking strictly for myself, I find it difficult to set aside money for retirement because of needing it all due to the high cost of needs. Inflation is happening at a rate far faster than our incomes, which hasn’t increased in the least in the past 20 years.

And with every subsequent administration and the same old farts in Congress, it’s become more and more difficult to save. If the big banks and Wall Street have their way, fooling around with risky derivatives (redundancy, I know), we can pretty much kiss our retirement funds au revoir!

NOTE: I am not trying to turn this into a political response, but you know that it IS political.

By: Chris

Chris — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 13:27:23 +0000

I don’t think that people are unaware of their futures. If they saw their parents comfortably retire because they were smart enough to have saved throughout their lives then they took that lesson to heart. And probably the parents taught them the value of saving.

On the other hand, If they saw their parents working a part time job in their 60′s to make ends meet, then they would again realize the importance of having savings for retirement.

There are many more things in life that you have to save for besides retirement. For the material things you want and unexpected emergencies for example. People should naturally get in the habit of saving by having a percentage of their paycheck automatically moved into a retirement account.

I know for one that I don’t want to working a part time job in my 60′s or 70′s. The question is, how much is enough to save for retirement.

By: Bben

Bben — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 10:37:28 +0000

I did just that – socked away money in a 401k. Then, the year before I retired both of my 401k plans lost about 60% of their value. So much for saving for a rainy day. Luckily my backup plan is working so far. Social security and a part time job. I did pay off all of my debt before retiring. One of my 2 401k plans had enough left to make a large down payment on a small home and my mortgage is under $400 a month. So I will not be living on dog food. I arranged my finances so my mortgage and all monthly bills will be covered by the social security. Unlike most, my part time consulting job does come with a decent salary and full time benefits. It also leaves me plenty of time for grandkids. And it does keep me busy some of the time. However, my dream of traveling more has been shelved.

By: Bern

Bern — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 00:32:00 +0000

What’s troubling to me though is how the people that are saving are losing money in the process.

Many put their funds in qualified “savings” plans like the 401k. But these plans are losing money today. These funds have no guarantees, which people are finally realizing.

Saving money isn’t the answer…only part of it. It has to fit well within your financial plan. Where people put their “savings” can be costing them their retirement.

By: Target2025.com

Target2025.com — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 12:37:50 +0000

The human brain is perfectly suited for future gazing and has evolved to do so. From the first instance of agriculture, when the first seed was planted systematically for the future nourishment of the group (about 10,000 B.C. in Syria), and if you and the unnamed author considered the events leading up to that moment, you woud have realized that we have thought about the future. Even planned for it.

Your numbers concerning who and who isn’t using the company-sponsored plana are far off the mark as well with half of those who have access to 401(k) plans using them and 45 million households invested in an IRA of some sort. We are programmed to see the future yet we are unable to understand it in large part because we are so consumed with the present.

If people realized how little it took to invest in their future (as little as 5% pre-tax contribution would not have any effect in the net take-home pay of the in-the-present thinkers) would they see it as a reasonable? Of course they would.

The problem isn’t us; it’s them. We don’t trust the process and can’t reason the risk. We don’t understand the need for a plan so therefore disdain the idea. My guess is there were quite a few harsh winters in our ancestral past with huge portions of the group dying before someone said: “perhaps we should plan for this when the weather is nice.” Plans are for disasters and in retirement, poverty is just such an event.