• DearOldGrandma@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    Either you weren’t contributing for decades, or you literally only contributed $10-$20/mo for ~30 years. If your job provides a 401k option, with tax write-offs and everything else you should have been contributing a lot more to maximize its future utility. This is assuming your employer wasn’t even matching.

    Either you aren’t telling us the full details, or you haven’t fully been contributing for decades.

        • Hobo@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          https://lemmy.world/comment/8024551

          I don’t even know what that is, man. I worked, I didn’t play with stocks.

          4th option confirmed. Everyone that has a 401k in some capacity, and isn’t sure how they work, please go check your 401k elections right now. It isn’t really “playing stocks” but just putting it somewhere that isn’t cash equivalent. Otherwise your money is depreciating in value from inflation. This is your chance to learn from WarmSoda’s mistake and hopefully will keep you from making the same mistake!

          • 🖖USS-Ethernet@startrek.website
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            8 months ago

            Figured. A lot of people just straight believe everything they are told and remain ignorant to how things work. If your job offers any type of benefits, fucking read all of the documentation and if you don’t understand something, ASK QUESTIONS! So many people I work with are oblivious to some benefits available to them and when I try to explain, “hey this one thing is basically free money”, they shrug it off. Whatever, your loss.

    • WarmSoda@lemm.ee
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      8 months ago

      You know what you should do? Instead of heeding our warnings you guys should attack us and tell us we’re wrong.

      • _tezz@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        Look stranger, no one is saying you’re wrong to call out the problems with the economy. Everyone is on your side there.

        They’re saying that you personally made a mistake, and that’s one that other people can and should avoid for themselves. If after 45 years you REALLY TRULY only have like $2k USD in your retirement account then you messed up somewhere. That’s almost impossible the way compounding interest works.

        Many 401ks are not actually invested by default, it’s up to the account holder to assign those funds themselves. Guessing that’s what happened to you. Unfortunately this isn’t widely known for some reason and companies don’t bother to educate employees about it.