• BakerBagel@midwest.social
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    11 hours ago

    Back when i had jobs that had 401k plans, all the calculators said i needed over $1 million to retire at age 70. Meanwhile i was living paycheck to paycheck trying to put something in there. How tf am i supposed to squirrel away 7 figures when i have mever made $40,000 in a year?

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      7 hours ago

      How tf am i supposed to squirrel away 7 figures when i have mever made $40,000 in a year?

      Compound investment is supposed to do a lot of the heavy lifting. At a 7% rate of return, your money doubles every 10 years. So, assuming you set aside $6k of that $40k/year ($500/mo), starting at age 22, you’d have $1M at age 60 and $2.2M at age 70

      https://www.bankrate.com/banking/savings/save-a-million-calculator/

      But here’s the trick… You’re looking down the barrel of 40 years of inflation. So, if you’re earning $40k in year one (let’s say, the year 2000) and you’ve been on the job for 25 years without getting a raise, inflation has reduced the real value of that income by roughly one half.

      On the flip side, let’s assume you’re keeping up with inflation (and that $500 you’re setting aside is increasing at the same rate). Then the math gets more complicated and I can’t help you anymore. But the point is you get to $1M sooner, simply because $1M in 2060 is worth a lot less than $1M in 2000.

      Had a broker explain that - at my current rate of savings - I’d be looking at a $4M retirement account by age 62. But then he dumped some ice water over my head when he noted “That’s only going to be worth around $1.1M in modern dollars by then”. Suggested I actually up my savings, because $1M only really feels like a lot until you try to live on it for the rest of your life.

      • BakerBagel@midwest.social
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        7 hours ago

        I am lucky if i have $300 in my bank account after all my expenses each month, and i live in a cheap town working a 9-5 job. I have no health insurance and have had to cash out multiple 401k’s to cover emergency expenses in the past 4 years. Saving for the future is an absolute joke since i can’t even afford to live today.

      • Rooster326@programming.dev
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        8 hours ago

        Having kids, and returning to multi-generational homes might be the only way one is retiring these days.

        Good luck on that one.

        • AlecSadler@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          7 hours ago

          My wife and I have no kids and live with family and we’re still dubious on retiring 😹😿

          (granted part of this is due to losing all our money*2 during covid when some local businesses shuttered)

  • niktemadur@lemmy.world
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    10 hours ago

    Make sure you put some OIL aside for the future.
    “What… you mean like salad oil?”
    And my work here is done, I am OUTTA HERE!
    “Wait! Did you mean like olive or peanut oil or…?”
    (crickets(forever))

  • doleo@lemmy.one
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    13 hours ago

    People are still car dependent in that future? Fuck it, I’m out.

      • rumschlumpel@feddit.org
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        9 hours ago

        Look at those ridiculously large pickup trucks and SUVs - they’re already used as weapons! There’s been an uptick of people intentionally driving into crowds, amok-style, in recent years, too.

  • supercargo@r.nf
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    17 hours ago

    Make sure you put some money aside for the future.

    The money:

    • rumschlumpel@feddit.org
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      17 hours ago

      It’s not boomers vs. millenials, it’s billionaires vs. commoners/workers/have-nots. Don’t let them divide-and-conquer you.

      • MellowYellow13@lemmy.world
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        10 hours ago

        Boomers have supported, and voted for the status quo and these billionaires for decades upon decades at this point. And are still supporting the dictator Trump.

        So yeah your take is bullshit. George Carlin had it right, sorry not sorry.

        • explodicle@sh.itjust.works
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          9 hours ago

          90% of my millennial friends have been voting for the status quo for decades too. We’ll see how progressive they are once they’re the most conservative ones in the room, and they aren’t oh so painfully forced to vote for the status quo.

          • 𞋴𝛂𝛋𝛆@lemmy.world
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            7 hours ago

            This oversimplified dichotomy is asinine. No group of people are some monolithic Borg mind. These types of tribalism are toxic useless. Russians would call it convenient idiots. It is tribalistic dogma revealing poor fundamental logic skills typical for a culture derived from the inbred Puritan penal colony European rejects.

            • explodicle@sh.itjust.works
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              7 hours ago

              It’s because America uses “first past the post” voting. Look it up. If you immediately realize that no honest intelligent person would support that, you’d be right.

          • arrow74@lemmy.zip
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            6 hours ago

            We’ll see how progressive they are once they’re the most conservative ones in the room

            Ah yes the popular myth of becoming more conservative as you get older. It used to be true because you would get a job, have a family, and retire. Suddenly your biggest concern became lower taxes so you could spend that money elsewhere. Rest of the country be damned.

            Except now significantly less people are doing those things because they have a lot less money than their parents did.

            All growing old has done is made me way more left. I can see and understand so much more about how the world is fucked up.

            • explodicle@sh.itjust.works
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              6 hours ago

              Me too. I’m saying that they’re currently being dishonest about supporting progressive values, not that they’ll change.

        • rumschlumpel@feddit.org
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          9 hours ago

          Younger generations aren’t much better. Look at the age distribution of Trump voters: https://navigatorresearch.org/2024-post-election-survey-gender-and-age-analysis-of-2024-election-results/ (IDK if this is a good source, feel free to provide one that contradicts it if you find one. But it’s consistent with pretty much every poll I’ve seen on this topic, even in other western countries). The gender split is a lot more pronounced than any generational split.

      • GreenShimada@lemmy.world
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        17 hours ago

        It’s that Boomers have participated in, and been behind the wheel, of most of the stupid, enabling moments of the 20th century. They built this world and got pissed when inequality they built to lock up money for themselves wasn’t sustainable.

        Then they blame everyone else because they have no self-reflection due to lead levels in their blood causing cognitive impairment and aggressive behavior. My favorite was a meme all over facebook saying “Back in my day we didn’t have plastic soda bottles…” Yeah, who TF changed it, genius? YOU ALL. Sure wasn’t me running all that stuff when I was 6 years old.

        • Rothe@piefed.social
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          15 hours ago

          Again, you are conflating age for wealth. Lots of boomers did no such thing, and were as poor and powerless as you are. The powers that be got you good with the generational strife propaganda, so you don’t focus on the actual class war problem.

          • MellowYellow13@lemmy.world
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            10 hours ago

            Most of Boomers did said such thing. How tf you think Trump got in power, magic? You ever check out what Facebook looks like? You are confused as the people you are screeching about.

        • halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world
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          17 hours ago

          Sure wasn’t me running all that stuff when I was 6 years old.

          Yeah we didn’t go to the trophy companies at 6 years old and demand they start making participation trophies, Deborah. Our generation didn’t start that shit.

          • Feydaikin@beehaw.org
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            4 hours ago

            My friend, there is no political side on earth that isn’t guilty when it comes to the sad state the globe is in.

            And very few individuals that haven’t indulged in the sin of convenience that keeps the spiral going downward.

            • rumschlumpel@feddit.org
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              1 hour ago

              Feydaikin with the “both sides” take

              IMO, there are political parties that aren’t perfect and political parties that are speedrunning complete annihilation of the biosphere and human rights.