Retirement Planning

[Ozz08]

I'll get a decent pension. Which when I retire should be 5800- 6500 a month and my wife has put 20% into her 401k for the last 9 years. Assuming I collect my full pension and she keeps up her contributions we should be sitting in ok shape.

 

[dotman]

I'll get a decent pension. Which when I retire should be 5800- 6500 a month and my wife has put 20% into her 401k for the last 9 years. Assuming I collect my full pension and she keeps up her contributions we should be sitting in ok shape.

Lucky dog, I won't even get social security lol.

 

[Ozz08]

That pension amount is just a projection I got from a retirement meeting I went to last year. Could very well be less than that but that amount would be best case scenario. I got a long ways to go for retirement though lol. I just hope my body isn't so beat up that I can't even enjoy it.

 

[dcestnik]

At age 28 I'm 16% and at age 26 my wife is 14% to 401k and our match is 6%. Got out of college with out ever having a credit card, loan or cell phone contract. Didn't even have a credit history at all when I went to buy a truck and should have kept it that way. At least now all of the vehicles are paid, house is less than we could afford on a 15yr fixed and the loan for my masters was an 'investment'. I still regret buying two new trucks and a dirk bike on a regular basis.

Seriously to anyone getting out of high school or college - never finance anything except a maybe an easily affordable house.

 

[dotman]

Pretty amazing how fast the cash builds when there is no debt to pay on.

 

[Yukondog]

Pretty amazing how fast the cash builds when there is no debt to pay on.

Bingo! Well said!

I cant wait to pay off my house. Dang thing is I work for myself and all available capital has to go into the machine to make it run. My goal is to have my new 30yr mortgage paid off in 10 years . This is my only debt, and it is a blood sucker at that!

 

[ScottR_EHJ]

The best thing I ever did for my finances was work hard and stay disciplined at getting out of debt. I read several of Dave Ramsey's books and 2 years later and am whole lot more stable with my money. I have money in a retirement account growing, but any extra has gone to paying off the loss on a house I never should have bought, and other debts acquired to getting it in shape to sell. The only thing I will ever get a loan for from here on out is a house. Saving for the future is huge, and in the future 10% will be going into retirement.

 

[Matt Cashell]

I have a full 20 year retirement plan, and supplement with a 457(b). The kids get 529 plans. I am with Luke, I want to retire fairly young and enjoy a hunting retirement!

 

[In God We Trust]

I put 10% in and my company matches 5 which is a total of 15%. I also am in line for a pension after 30 years which will put me at 54 years old after 30 years with the company. I am now 31 and when I was younger I would spend all of my money on toys and not save anything, that is a bad way to live. Now I save and buy what I can afford. I wish I would have started earlier, but I started at 28 which I am ok with. I agree that you need to save and plan for retirement that way you can own a little slice of heaven.

 

[luke moffat]

I have a full 20 year retirement plan, and supplement with a 457(b). The kids get 529 plans. I am with Luke, I want to retire fairly young and enjoy a hunting retirement!

Yep, that is the goal. Have 12 years until the house is paid off and this time next year I won't have any other loans (currently have two car payments which will be gone by then.) I just checked, putting away 12% into my 401K right now with a 7% match from the company= 19%. I believe the wife is doing 15% of hers with a 3% company match. Plus the pension from the my company. So HOPEFULLY I'll be able to retire before I reach Methuselah status. Especially after the house is paid off when I am 40 years old and really start putting the money away.

One thing I don't do is any after tax into the 401K. I aim for whatever the max is allowed for the year I am allowed to contribute and call it good. If its after tax money then it goes towards advanced payments on my highest interest loan at the time.

 

[thru-hunter]

I have admittedly neglected directly funding my retirement instead choosing to divert funds to pay for the wife's education and home improvements. The opportunity came up last year to have a family member who was just starting a construction company build me a 30x45 shop for about $25k less than it would be worth so I capitalized on it. I have now about maxed out my properties equity potential and am working on trying to pay it off in the next 8 years. Honestly I realize it's a pretty poor "investment" since you have to sell it to realize any equity return but owning EVERYTHING I have is a key goal.

The big positive is that my wife went from not having a viable career to nearly matching my income. The way I see it I could have invested the roughly 25k I spent on her education and it would be worth about 33k now which is equivalent to just under 1/2 her current annual earning. Now that was an investment with impressive return!!

 

[Yukondog]

Sounds like sreekers went thru a tough time but is taking his punches and coming out on top. Keep the storys coming. This is good reading for everyone. So much to learn and many ways to overcome the savings hurdle. It is a hard balance between living and saving. I still struggle with it all the time. Matter of fact the wife and I got into a slightly heated discussion again last night. It is not easy, at least not for me.

Matt

 

[dotman]

It never is an easy thing but it is worth it. My problem that I had was I wanted to do and have everything when I was in my 20's since my family didn't have much when I was growing up. I went crazy, not as crazy as some but crazy. I just wish I would have listened and not needed immediate gratification and saved more earlier on. Lesson learned and i'm just lucky I didn't create a huge mess to get out of but I hate to think how much money I threw away towards stupid things, I bet over 100k easy when you take a 10 year span from 18-28 even though I started to settle down around 26.

Now when i'm at work and I hear people in their 40's aren't putting away I feel sad for them.

 

[ScottR_EHJ]

Not having debt is a huge thing. I graduated from college in the spring of 2006 and bought a house at my first job, and was making good enough money that at first it wasn't an issue. My problem at age 22 was that I didn't have enough foresight to see that if the rental rooms quit my budget would get tight quick. I traded in a paid off vehicle for a 5 year loan. 6 months out of college I had committed myself to to two major payments and wasn't nearly prepared as I thought I was for the mortgage. Fast forward to 2008 and my house had lost nearly 20,000 in value and the boom in town slowed down to a crawl and the roomates who were offsetting the cost of the mortgage had dried up. The guitar lessons that I had been giving had also slowed down significantly the year before because I felt like I was too busy. The only relief I had was that gas prices crashed, but that corresponded with the boom leaving town and the roomates.

So, I ended up taking a job in my hometown and living with my parents. 3 hunting seasons ago I read my first Dave Ramsey book and haven't looked back since. The truck has been paid off, the loss on the house is gone, as well as extra payments into the snowball plan. All in all, close to $40k has been paid off in 2.5 years.

Next up is paying off the trailer I just bought(18 months). I will be living debt free at that point, with the exception of my wife's student loans. I just got married so those weren't part of the equation for getting out of debt. But now that I control my finances and they don't control me its not going to be a problem.

I will be pouring into my retirement account as soon as this trailer is paid off and will be setting up a set amount as soon as I figure in some of the extra summer income I will make mowing lawns. This also helps cover gear purchases.....

 

[MOHunter]

Lots of plugs for Dave Ramsey. I agree wholeheartedly. I have also seen several comments about student loans and imagine there are many folks dealing with these things - even those not-so-recently out of school. Disclaimer: I must be very limited in advice I give online due to strict government regulations - so this is very general advice.

The way your student loan works depends on several factors including whether it's a federal or private loan, if you want to consolidate, and how much your income is after graduation. Generally speaking student loans are very sticky. That is, the government usually will not let you default even in a bankruptcy situation. The interest can be quite low on federal loans but it's there until the debt is gone. Private loans have more flexibility but usually cost more.

My thoughts on student loans are that you want to get them paid off as quickly as possible. I hate seeing people in their 40s running around with these stupid things because they just haven't gotten around to paying them off. It may not always make the most sense from a numbers standpoint, but I think most of personal finance is behavioral - not mathematical. That is, the feeling and freedom from having the loans paid off can often be far greater than any interest savings by arranging your loans and investments in a certain way.

Like Dave Ramsey would say - kick aunt Sally (Sallie Mae) to the curb and be done with her!

 

[dcestnik]

Snowballing debt is one of the best ways to clean up. Spending less than we make is a prerequisite...

 

[Rent Outdoor Gear]

This is awesome guys - I love hearing about people who have figured it out! It's a constant battle, but coming out on top in the money game is a great feeling of relief... Nothing in my mind is more of a drag than money issues (except maybe not going hunting) - which again, is a symptom of money issues. Time is the next hurdle, but being financially stable is a big step in the direction of creating more time too! Hopefully all these stories will inspire the guys out there that aren't on the right path to do some reading and get things turned around. It can seem daunting, but if you don't turn it around it's going to get worse...

 

[marshrat]

I wish I only had 5-10 years to pay mine off. Just in case, you may want to get started now. LOL.

 

[rodney482]

I have my police pension that I will draw 50% of my pay at 20 and age 52.

I also have an IRA that should be close to $175,000 when I hit age 60

My wife has a Roth that should be over $100,000 by the time she can draw out of it.

We also have 2 universal life insurance policies that we can draw out of.

The way I have it set up, we will have more $ when we retire then we have now.

and no payments

 

[J-Daddy]

I'm just depending on all my wife's life insurance... She's probably got about $5-6 Million on her now...I just have to make sure she goes before I do, lol.