Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Have You Saved Money For Retirement?

My feeling is that those investments firms will get most of your gain, as a fee. miles

I retired last year at the age of 52. Worked for 30 yrs 9 months and loved my job. Could have retired at 25 years at the age of 46. Financial Advisor said if I worked another year I would make $160 more a month on my pension. I get a 2-1/2 % raise every year to my pension. Go figure?
I live in Hawaii, I get free medical, I don’t really watch my spending now. pension is almost like play money after the bills are paid. I saved quite a bit during my whole career and I think I made the right decision.
I have a Roth, an ira and a government pension.
Took six trips this year, one to Japan and two hunting trips. Going back to japan in 2018 and probably every year after.
Enjoying life, waking up when I want to, going to sleep when I want to. Not gonna work another job. Don’t want to be commited to anything.
My wife quit her job after 24 years and has to wait 11 more years for her pension to kick in.
I always told my workers to save more for retirement even though we have a good pension but most don’t listen. Within a month after retiring I got a bunch of phone calls inquiring how I did it. I told them the same thing, PLAN FOR RETIREMENT!
Some say you have to enjoy now which is true but I’m loving life at the age of 53. I’m still in good heath and can still hunt, fish and travel when I feel like it.
My investments made quite a bit this year. Now I’m wondering how much taxes I will have to pay.
Enough of the bragging....
Life is great!

I would suggest Vanguard Index funds!

I played around a lot with stocks and made much more money but the headache of doing so ruined all the fun.

Now I am invested 90% in low cost Index funds owning the complete market.. I spend my days with Hi-Fi, reading and guns instead of watchings stocks go up and down.

Are you willing to learn about investing? (ie. reading)

To give an opinion on the last paragraph about your perception of "older guys and guys in the know that have investments . . ." giving investment advice is a highly regulated professional service. Giving investment opinions is what we do on the fire. I am very careful about giving my opinion because if someone follows my recommendation and it doesn't turn out well for them, then I will be the one they blame. I don't like being in that situation. In your situation, I think dollar cost averaging in your mutual fund accounts is probably the best idea, since you do not currently have the willingness to educate yourself in the finer points of investing. When I was your age, I was the same way. The light did not come on for me until a dozen years ago, and I'm 65. I'm a real Johnny come lately to the investing game, but I dove in head first and have read hundreds of investing books and spent hours on Seeking Alpha to help educate myself. Anything written by William O'Neil "How to Make Money in Stock" and a subscription to "Investors Daily" would be my recommendation for you. However, if you are not ready to commit to educating yourself, I'd put that $1,000 back in your pocket, before you piss it away.

The baseline with my pension is my wife would get 60% if I died before her. I was able to increase that amount to the maximum of 70% at a cost of
$14.00 a month, so to me it was a no-brainer, as she will get that amount for the rest of her life.

My wife and I started investing at the rate of $100 a month. That doesn't sound like a lot these days, but back then, I was earning only $1000 a month and she wasn't working at all. After bills and all, we rationed ourselves to a weekly allowance of $5 each. Not daily. $5 a week. But that $100 came out of the paycheck every month, before anything else. "Pay yourself first" was the motto.

It's four decades later now, and let's just say that we, our daughters, and our grandchildren need never worry about money.

i invested heavily in beanie babies and huge rear projection tv's and have a quonset out back full of them. so ya, i'm good to go.

I'm saving, but need to save a lot more over the next 15 years.

In 15 years you will do fine if you bear down now!

The secret is time (not an original thought). Even at a modest gain of 5%, you'll quickly start building real money. 5% of $1000 becomes 5% of $100,000, and then 5% of $1,000,000...

I reall enjoyed this thread on retirement. My Story is Went to sea at 13 to work on salmon trollers. Bought my own troller at 16. Realized that all the cute chicks were with the guys that had the Nicest cars. Invested in a 1960 Pontiac Bonniville Convertible at age 19. Married at age 20 with one son and another one on the way.Had an old Realtor tell me to invest or speculate in real estate at 20. I told him I didn't have any money and he showed me that I didn't need much Made several millon by age of 45. Got all my things in order to go bankrupt at age 49. but missed it by not having all my eggs in one basket. I had saved 560 acres of Old Growth Timber that we 1031'd in to a Manufctured Home community. Quite speculating and went to straight income property investments at 52. Today I am 76 and really enjoying my semi retirement. Wife has been saving since 1990. I think she has everything paid off. I spend most all my time collectiong , speculating, Antique guns. Just spent a week at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester and the think that I still have some life left in me yet. Oh , I also started smoking at age 13 and quit at 50. Not proud of it , but it is a fact. None of my 3 sons have ever smoked, thank God...........Dick

I'm pretty good for the first week or so.

Rubbish.

I'm retired. I don't have a damn thing. Probably can't afford the dirt to cover me when I die.

At the rate Warren Buffett and Donald Trump have added to my portfolio over the past year, I should have no complaints when I hand it up.

Hellofva good story right there. Best of luck!

I am sad for you if you really believe that. Sounds kind of like an excuse for never having invested in the stock market.

Viking, If you go to those brokers, it does not matter what company. I depends more who you end up with as an advisor. You may get the best adviser in the state, and the advisor next to his office may be a disaster. Some care , some dont. I went through three advisors and none cared. The last one was an absolute disaster. As for older people not giving advise, I have seen the same thing. It was and still is so hard to get advise that people will walk away. I decided to educate myself. You say it isn't your thing. Maybe not but you will be very surprised how well you can do if you read for an hour on how to do it. The easiest way is go with Fidelity or Vanguard. I have Fidelity , walked into their office and they did everything , and I mean everything of me, and I only put in $ 10 K in at first cause I had my money with the other advisor . I quickly started to see that I was beating my advisors ideas. One day I called my advisor, they said they'd call back . After six weeks of no callback I rolled it into Fidelity. Now Viking , dont yawn yet, this is how simple it is . An advisor will not " take all your money in fees" Like EDM sais RUBISH. They will however most likely take 5% of your money up front for themselves and 1% expense ratio after that. If you give them 10K , you will end up with $ 9,500 in your fund cause they take 5% up front. After that your fund will return 7% but they will take the 1% expense charge . so, they will take 1/7th of your profits . When the account gains. Their advise is not worth it in most cases. Here is how easy it is. set up an account, put it in any S&P 500 fund (,FidelityFUSVX) some in a madcap fund I have IJH and VOE. So simp it is sad people like you think they can't do it. Cause you are in mid 40's I would start some bonds when ya turn 50. Remember , fidelity will do this for you and charges are extremely low. I am setting up a ROTH for my nephew over Christmas. He is in Wyoming in the Airforce base there. My son is 20 and buys ETF's and stocks Has a ROTH too. So easy , even a Viking can do it.

I used the 4 legs of a stool investing scheme.

One was emerging stocks ,fidelity contra and Magellan.

The last is in a fixed account.
The first 3 are up all the time but there are quarters when the fixed does somewhat better.

Thing is to look and read about firms before laying down the funds.

I spend time on firearms/hunting forums (mostly this one) and on personal investing/early retirement forums. I think that if the people on the investing forums started offering opinions about guns, I think they would MAYBE get as twisted around as some of the posts in this thread, but then again maybe not.

Generally accepted rules of investing:
1. Max out any retirement benefit for which you get an employer match before anything else.
2. Max out tax sheltered savings before after tax savings.
3. Diversify across uncorrelated asset classes.
4. Minimize transaction costs.
5. Time invested is more important that timing of investment.

Online brokerages have greatly assisted with personal investing. Kiplinger's Personal Finance October 2017 had the following rankings of online brokers:
Best for mutual fund investors: Schwab
" " ETF investors: Schwab
" " active stock investors: Merrill Edge
" " investors on the go: E*Trade (mobile platform)
" " for managing cash: Fidelity
" " for retirees: Vanguard.

I have accounts at TD Ameritrade, Schwab, Vanguard, and Merrill Edge, and they really have very strengths and weaknesses.

There is absolutely no need to pay an advisor or high fees for financial products (even though I cannot convince my elderly mother or Mother in law to drop their ("because they are so nice")).