I'm pretty happy with the recent report. I don't intend to cash it in until retirement in 5 years. I have been monitoring it for 37 years so I reckon I have a pretty good idea of how it is performing. Btw, Trump has only been in power for 2 years, so the level of my informedness has nothing to do with any projected support of Trump.
Is that how far the office of the presidency has fallen since trump managed to get in, with some help from his pal, Vladimir? That's incredibly depressing. Had someone asked me only 3 years ago if we would have a "president" even worse than Tricky Dick, I would have said, "Hell, not likely!" Boy, would I have been wrong. Mr. trump is worse, and not just by a little bit. He's worse than Nixon by a large margin, and like I've said before, I voted against Nixon, so I'm very familiar with his time in office. Not only is trump worse, but he's far more dangerous to our country, our friends and our allies, who are quickly losing the faith in our country that they have had since WWII. Anyone who still supports trump at this point is either blind, deaf, dumb, or have their lips planted on Fox "News" so hard that it's a wonder that they can breathe. That includes some people here that I like, otherwise. How they can still ignore the obvious is a mystery to me. It truly is.
401Ks are strange things. If you are young and are actively contributing to your 401K then a bad market just means that you are buying more stocks and they will eventually go up again. So that is a good thing. If you have a 401K that you are no longer contributing to but are still keeping in hopes that it will increase and you don't want to withdraw from it, then it's bad. If you are close to retiring then it's really bad because that is taking money from your retirement.
There you go. I haven't contributed to that portfolio in over 15 years - but piled a lot into it weekly over a period of about 21 years prior to that.
Also make sure you're not putting it into mutual fund or managers with high operating percentages. You're pretty much giving away your compound interest growth away to people who don't necessarily know what they're doing
Why aren't you contributing? You should always be contributing to a 401K or an IRA every year, even if you do nothing but keep it as cash. I'll tell you why as I manage not only my own (I am a bit aways from retirement) but my mom's. She isn't able to contribute to it anymore as it was actually my dad's before he passed away. But she wasn't at 70.5 so I opened an IRA and contributed to that and just put into a short term bond index. Here's why. When she hit 71 I rolled her 401K into the IRA so now it's all one account. Now, when she does her RMD she just pulls out the cash from the bond fund first so she doesn't even have to sell long term positions. You do that so you get a tax benefit by putting into your IRA now when your income is higher, and then pay tax on it later when your income is lower and thus less tax burden.
Yup, you really only need to buy index funds and bond funds (depending on the current interest rates). Part of your portfolio in the S&P 500 index fund, and if interest rates are high, you can buy long-term or medium-term bond funds. The rest of your money can go into short-term bond funds.
I have been contributing to a 401K here in the States with my current employer, Republic Services since day 1. A modest 100 per week but it is already looking nice. 5 more years in that one will be a handy contribution to add to the previously aforementioned one. I also have another life insurance based one that matured a few years ago that I left in limbo. I may look at rolling that one (around 50K) into this current one.
I was just trying to figure out the timeline - the three companies I mentioned were the first to offer in 1982 - in 1983 half of major companies offered 401s - now it's 90+%.
I am not sure you can roll the cash assets of a life insurance policy into a 401K - I think you can only put money in as part of a contribution as an employee. You should try to maximize your contribution to the full amount as you get a tax break (I think $19k if you are under 50).
You're likely right on that. Have to figure out how best to invest that one now - don't want to squander a chance to create wealth at this point in my life but also don't want to move something that is "safe" for the time being. I appreciate the advice posters are offering.
How old are you and do you have kids? I'd imagine that if you have a life insurance policy, you have some kind of dependent that you want to be taken care of in the event you die.
61. 4 grownup kids - only two of whom are strugglers. Have a modest life policy thru RS. Missus is my first beneficiary.
