401k?

AmyM

AmyM

New member
Last Sunday it was a little disheartening to see that we had lost 25%. I checked it just a few minutes ago- we have lost 39% this year. That is a whole lot of money. Hubby's is highly diversified so it could have been worse- but honestly I am still a bit nauseated just from looking at it. If he was retiring in 5 years I'd be freaking out. At least we have time since retirement is a minimum of 30 years away.

We used to put a lot of money into it but about 2 weeks ago we dropped to put in only what his company matches. With the cost of living going up, we just can't afford to keep putting 10%plus into it. I think the worst thing we can do is to panic and put nothing in because we are young...so we're just keeping our fingers crossed right now.

Do any of you have 401k's and how much have you lost? Is yours highly diversified? I've always wondered why you can't have your own money with these things. It has to meet certain emergency requirements or you have to be a certain age...weird. I sure would like to take that money out and pay the house off. I think it would be better spent that way than losing so much in the stock market, but we know I can't touch it so that's wishful thinking. I'm just thankful the only debt we have is the house.
 
Last edited:
We are in the same boat. I glanced at my paperwork this week and nearly died.
We have lost into the capital of one of our accounts. I cannot peak at our large acct.

But I am looking at the bright side. We have a smallish mortgage. We have enough plain savings to cover our living expenses for 1 year.

My major fear is medical cost. We have $20,000 a year for one son~if he stays in remission. I just pray my husband keeps his job.....this is the week that will tell it. So please say a little prayer.
 
I'm afraid to look so I'm hoping it isn't too much! LOL!

DH's parents are living on their retirement now and they are severely hurting right now as they have lost a ton.
 
We have a 401k and right now it's doing terrible (-35% for this year), but really, for those of us our age (30 years till retirement), this could be really good for us. We haven't dropped our contributions because I feel like we have good funds picked, so it's like the stocks are going on sale, so when things (hopefully) pick up, even if it's 5 or 7 years away, then we'll be doing really well then because we bought when it was low. Does that make any sense to anyone but me? ;)
 
That makes perfect sense, actually. Investing right now IS buying low. As long as history repeats itself, the market will eventually turn around and things can theoretically work out in the end. I feel for the people who were hoping to retire in the next few years (I don't mean that to sound trite...it completely sucks), but for those of us who are years and years away from that, it doesn't have to create panic.
 
ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...we put all our eggs in ONE basket..i TOLD him NOT to............we are SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
well, do i really need to say it?! nuts and bolts....we are SCREWED! sorry..rudeness...but defintiley NOT what we needed after a HUGE business loss of mine....{stupid scrapbook store..grrrr....} makes me SICK! I try not to look and see what we have lost..but it is A WHOLE LOT! RATS!

oh well, what do ya do!? right! we will just ride it out and see it GO up again....what a rollercoaster!
 
I'm with you Allie! I have been trying not to look, but you all made me break down and do it. I'm probably in the same boat as to how large a drop we've had, but I'm with you on the philosophy to keep investing. You never know when the market will hit "bottom", and if you try and wait for it to get better before you contribute, you will have missed out on the opportunity to buy low. And the reality is, especially for 401k's that most of us won't be using for more than 20 - 30 years, we have plenty of time for the market to recover. It's all about picking a long-term strategy and then trying to stick with it... although it's easier said than done, that's for sure!

Sorry to ramble... my finance degree left me somewhat of a personal finance junkie... :)
 
A LOT of older people at work have stopped putting money into their 401k's. To the point that there is going to be a meeting at some point soon, talking about why that is NOT a good idea.

I prefer to remain blissfully unaware of the state of my 401k (which, I only JUST started putting money into a few months ago after I got out of debt, LOL!). I'm 25 and have at LEAST 40 more years of work ahead of me before I retire. And I totally am of the mindset that I should keep putting money in cuz I'm buying stock "cheap" right now. So in a few years after the market has turned itself around, I'll be in good shape.

You're not alone Allie! Lol!

Funny story. Mr. Obnoxious Dude Who Sits Behind Me and Has No Volume Control (that's his official title) was saying the other day that he lost $24k in stocks. Um. No you didn't. Not unless you were going to sell all those stocks this week. You didn't lose anything. STFU and leave your ish where it is and you'll be fine. Jordan was in my cube and heard him talking about it, and as we were leaving he was like dude, how can you stand to sit near him?! He's a moron!! I've learned to completely block out everything he says. :p
 
Yeah, my dad lost 32% and is kinda freaking out. He retired five years ago at the age of 51 and is now considering going back to work after last week.

Boo on the economy. :thumbdown:
 
I have a finance degree too and I am not panicked about the loss in my 401k, even though it has gone down close to 40% this year. And since I have been contributing for 15 years, I have lost a LOT of money. But I am still contributing, because right now my money is buying me a lot more shares since the stock funds are "on sale"! People should not stop contributing right now, that is the opposite of what they should do, especially if that means they're missing out on the company match.

Yes, these are scary times. But I have about 20-25 more years before I need the money for retirement, so I'm confident that I'll recover from this. And by the time I'm closer to retirement, I would have changed my asset allocation such that I'll have less stock funds and more bond funds and money market funds, thus my account will be less susceptible to huge swings. People who have five years or less until retirement should not have the majority of their 401k in stock funds.
 
Actually my husband and I had recently moved a lot of our 401K investment into a cash position....so we luckily didn't lose as much as we could have. That said, we are still net losers for the year.

But now is the best time to buy. There are some great stocks that are totally undervalued due to the crash and are a great bargain. As someone previously said, buying low is always the objective....so I think we are going to start moving some of the money that is in cash to stocks.

This whole thing is so stressful. I just want it to at least stabilize soon. I hate when commentators start throwing around words like "depression" and "panic"....it really just stresses me out.

Susan
 
I'm in a 401K, and yes I've lost a bunch and had been in hopes of retiring in the next few years, but now I'm not sure I can afford it. But I will not drop out of it because I'm so bad at saving on my own, Also, I like the fact that the company does their company matching, even if it is with Company stock. I feel pretty sure that the stocks will go back up.
 
I think I am one who is blissfully unaware - There are days when I HATE being a military spouse, this week I was thankful that we are in for the long haul and have the gov retirement - We have kept up our contribution to our 401K and don't plan on retiring for 25+ more years so...... hopefully we are hitting the blue light special with our stocks right now - But I am not naive ~ I can remember all my friends who lost EVERYTHING on the dot com bust.....I'm just keeping my fingers crossed +
 
Well at least we haven't listened to the talking heads and went into total panic mode. That is very encouraging! All this talk of depression and people need to freak out- I don't think it's helping (just like the bail out hasn't helped, unless you were one of the AIG folks chilling at the spa, or toy wooden arrow makers, rum runners, or nascar, or other pork recipients). Plus, it's not time to freak yet, it's going to get much worse :D ok so maybe that's not funny, but I'm guessing it will. We'll be alright in another 10 yrs or hopefully sooner, so most of us who aren't retiring don't have much to worry about right now. Still doesn't make it any less frustrating.

Does anybody know why you can't touch them? You finance people, why can't I have my money anytime I want it? I'm sure there's good reason so can anybody explain in dummy terms for me? :D ***wishing I could grab that money now and pay off my house**** HMPH.
 
You can technically "borrow" money from your 401k, but you have to pay yourself back (with interest). The reason you can't take it out now without penalty is that you have tax advantages with it. It's either tax deferred, or taxed when you put it in, then it grows tax free. HTH.
 
We moved a lot of our retirement into money markets late last year, anticipating that this would happen, so I think we've lost a total of $900 with this whole mess. Now we're feeling like it's a good time to buy. :)
 
I'm just not looking at my 401k statements right now. With 2 little punks who I hope will go to college one day, I have no hope of retiring any time soon, so I'm just riding it out.
 
Christine's right on track with her advice - it's the same thing I told my husband. I've seen mine sink a lot, but I know eventually it'll go back up; it will just take time. The only thing I did with my 401K is move some of my money within it from the large cap stock group to the value fund - I had 50% going to large cap, and it should really be lower (the rest was split in a more diversified manner). I know that the large cap will suffer for a while because companies like GM and GE which have had poor earnings reports will take a while to recover.
Early withdrawal from your 401K can result in huge penalties. Because most 401K's are a tax haven (up to a certain %), you end up having to pay a penalty and the taxes on it if you withdraw early. Whereas a Roth IRA you get taxed up front, but then you don't pay taxes later on, if I remember correctly. But as AllieP said, you can borrow against your 401K and pay yourself interest - but if you have to leave the company, you usually have to pay the loan back in full within a short time of leaving.
 
I didn't wanna look but this thread made me - so far lost $3000+ in my current 401K. I didn't check my mutual funds yet (previous work's 401k). I'm scared. I hope the analysts on TV are right, that it will bounce back by the time I'm ready to retire in another 30 years or so.
 
supertwinkle said:
I have a finance degree too and I am not panicked about the loss in my 401k, even though it has gone down close to 40% this year. And since I have been contributing for 15 years, I have lost a LOT of money. But I am still contributing, because right now my money is buying me a lot more shares since the stock funds are "on sale"! People should not stop contributing right now, that is the opposite of what they should do, especially if that means they're missing out on the company match.

Yes, these are scary times. But I have about 20-25 more years before I need the money for retirement, so I'm confident that I'll recover from this. And by the time I'm closer to retirement, I would have changed my asset allocation such that I'll have less stock funds and more bond funds and money market funds, thus my account will be less susceptible to huge swings. People who have five years or less until retirement should not have the majority of their 401k in stock funds.
Click to expand...

Dittos to all of this. Well, not the finance degree part. Very level headed.
 
AllieP said:
You can technically "borrow" money from your 401k, but you have to pay yourself back (with interest). The reason you can't take it out now without penalty is that you have tax advantages with it. It's either tax deferred, or taxed when you put it in, then it grows tax free. HTH.
Click to expand...
All about the taxes. I should have known :thumbdown: Thanks for helping me out with that!
Ours is mostly mutual funds so that's not so bad. I think technically we are "high risk" but still highly diversified. Invested in overseas markets, energy, software, bonds, you name it. Fidelity has done very well for us so far.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Community platform by XenForo® © 2010-2026 XenForo Ltd.
Back
Top