Wednesday, January 21, 2009

A sign of the times...

I never thought I'd look at my mutual fund statement and say, "I only lost about $1000 this quarter." Yet, two quarters ago I said just that, and thought it wasn't too bad.



Yesterday, I got my statement from last quarter. And, hey, I only lost around $2000. I'm beginning to wonder if maybe my employer should just throw the contributions in the shredder instead? At least then, no one else is getting rich off what should be my retirement.



On the bright side I have approximately 35 years til I retire, maybe more. Plenty of time to recoup.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Can't you do a withdrawal? If you're loosing that much money, I would rather just take it all out and have in as cash on hand, and then start over at some later time with a retirement fund. That must be so maddening, because doesn't everyone always tell you that you should have one of these accounts? Kind of like houses, huh

TJ said...

I don't think I can take it out, not as long as I work here. It's an employer sponsored thing. Stuff I'm fairly dumb about. Even then, they take so much of it out in taxes, and then tax it again as income. Luckily my personal IRA through our local Federal Savings and Loan is holding steady.

Anonymous said...

At least you haven't lost $5000 in the last quarter like your poor mom. And your dad has lost more than that.

And we don't have 30+ yrs to recuperate. But at this rate I may HAVE to work that much longer. NOT!

Mom

Anonymous said...

You're right. I think. When I worked at Texas Children's, I had a nice big account like that, something for retirement or something. When I left in May, 2006, I collected the whole amount in cash. They tried like crazy to get me to roll it into another account, but I dug my heels in and held firm that I wanted my money. It was mainly because I didn't think I would work again. The plan was to finish school and make babies. The children's museum just happened somehow. I'm so glad now, for those reasons that I took the money when I did. I could definitely see that account dwindling in half

Casii said...

Hubby is so bereft he says he's gladly pay $4 a gallon for gas to have or 401Ks recover, so yes, the bright side is we have a long way to go for retirement.

I feel horrible for those who won't have the time to recover.

Art said...

Whatever you do, DO NOT, stop your contributions. People who recommend this clearly do not understand how the market works and/or how quantized investments succeed. They succeed by your "selling high and buying low" and now is the best time in our lifetimes to buy low! Keep buying and eventually, the market will recover and all the folks who advised you to get out will be crying!

Anonymous said...

Personally, when I hear people say things like what Art just said, I wonder if that's just what they want you to believe so the banks can keep customers.

BTW, I revamped my blog

Art said...

No Danielle, it is not. I do not work for a bank and don't recommend investing with one. It is simply fact. When the market is "down", you will buy more shares of whatever (preferably mutual funds) with a given amount of money. When the market recovers, and it will, you will have many more shares to increase in value.