If you come from the future and the best investment vehicle you can think of is a 401k, you don't deserve to be a time traveler.
Maybe there's a framework of rules that the time traveler must adhere to (or risk being disintegrated by the time police).
For example, specific knowledge of the future is off-limits, but it's OK to give basic advice as long as it's already general knowledge for the time period you're traveling to. Make sound investments, eat right, exercise, don't smoke, etc.
Maybe it's not the best, but it's the correct one. Clearly future self knows something we don't
In before future self just forgot to check and is just trying to make the best use of it
My headcannon is that he's already come back several times with amazing investments and it turns out it goes bad every time. He just ended up going for something more reasonable/healthy cause nothing else worked.
Really hoping for your sake you mean headcanon.
Lol 10-15% of our income? I'm sorry... But who can afford that? We're getting so fucked right now by greed in this country...
My power bill was $500 last month for a two bedroom apartment. This is because I live in a city with the highest energy rates in the nation, all because the company and our local governments are absolutely lousy with corruption. They have posted obscene record profits for the last half a decade while everyone in the city suffers.
My rent was also 21% higher this year than it was in 2020. My landlord bought this place a decade ago at a bankruptsy auction, but like, fuck me right? Gatta keep those rates up when the rest of the city goes up.
I also haven't saved money since around 2019, since I went four years with a 0% raise due to the company I work for struggling. We were bought out by another company with tons of money, but they decided we were overpaid, since they live in a cheaper city.
My story is not unique. My story is not special. I hear a similar one from people every week. Retirement is a luxury most post-boomers will never experience, no matter how hard we work.
So you're supposed to do 50-30-20 Meaning 50% on needs 30% on wants 20% investing
You might be thinking "Ericbomb, how does one keep their needs below 50%, when the median rent in the US is $2,000, and median household income after taxes/withholdings is near 40k?"
Wonderful question!
Australia has a Superannuation Guarantee. It's currently at 11% and will go to 12%. Employers get fined if they don't pay it to their workers.
Conservatives in Canada are trying to cut it. Conservatives in the USA are attacking social security. Conservatives are vultures. Never vote for conservatives.
Conservatives here are the worst at picking and choosing. They'll happily borrow America's racism, anti-socialism, hypercapitalism, nationalism, mysoginy, gun culture and mass surveillance... but holy crap do they make noise when you put a pumpkin on your front lawn in October.
I've never owned a gun in my life. The day I go to buy one is the day I start planning for my "retirement."
I'm still doing the 401k thing and trying to save on the side, but just like homeownership, retirement is for "other people," not me :/
If you have perfect knowledge of the future and know which stocks will do well, why bother with trying to diversify your portfolio to try to mirror the market?
So, as it turns out there are a few big reasons.
it's a cosmic felony
causing improbable events creates a new timeline which increases entropy in all probable realities, which can have some drastic (and usually negative) effects.
most time travel agencies (which is what most people can afford) use technology that doesn't actually allow for free will, that's why it's mostly sold for vacations.
time mercenaries. We're actually not sure who these guys are, but we also don't wanna know either. Some say they're who cause spontaneous combustion and embarrassing deaths.
most forms of actual time travel leave the user stranded, with chronic or terminal illness (and sometimes amnesia), and in some cases fading/poofing out of existence when certain thresholds are crossed.
time spiders. You don't want to know.
time spiders. You don’t want to know.
They're really more crab-like than spider-like. If you bring a net back home from vacation, you can snag a few. They're delicious steamed with butter.
Very informative, thanks
Who knows if you really want to have much much wealth in the future.
Maybe he would have made the deal of his life the next week if his future me wouldn't have intervened; but 30 years later everybody that ever had more than a million gets killed by the revolutionary movement that swapped across the world after society almost collapsed due to greed.
But he managed to reach a time machine, and now he calculated that if he saves a maximum of 15% he will only ever reach 975000 bucks and therefore survive the revolution
Maybe they're really risk-adverse and don't trust they haven't fucked everything with the butterfly effect just by being there.
Old self is greedy and wants young self to reduce the fun of their prime years by locking away money so they can sit on a big ol' retirement fund in their older years. Of course, that's assuming that past performance guarantees future results and that the conditions of the 401k will remain the same. What's to say politicians don't start applying extra taxes on 401k withdrawals? What's to say they won't increase the retirement age?
A lot of people can't spare 10-15% of their income and I'm not so sure the advice is not just a ploy by 401k fund managers to squeeze out extra fees. Maybe it's just a silly little comic and I'm taking it too seriously.
Young Johnny should ask old Johnny why they don't simply buy a sports almanac
Because Marty will just steal it. Duh.
Well. I assume this guy is actually from the future. So in theory wouldn't he know that in the future 401k's have not been taxed into irrelevance? I feel like if he's coming from the future with this advice it's because he feels it's still good advice in his future.
And then one day you wake up and you are that "old" person. Then you realize you're screwed: the health problems that aren't a big deal if they're treated are debilitating because you can't afford treatment. Those issues you assumed are going to kill you don't, and instead you linger for decades with a garbage quality of life.
The worst part is you aren't even that old: mentally you're still pretty much the same person you were in your 30s, just trapped in a body that's slowly falling apart and needs constant maintenance.
Yes, you need to strike a balance -- but not doing what you can to financially plan for old age is fucking stupid.
Must be nice to have a job that does 401k matching. I had one for about a year, then boom, laid off. Back to part time work that doesn't match. 🤷♂️
I don't have a match but I still save in my pretax retirement account. If you don't have any available to you through your employer, please look into a Traditional or Roth IRA.
He should have come back with winning lottery ticket numbers and sports outcomes
That happened in the previous loop. This time-traveller ruined his life with hookers and blow, so instead of giving his younger self quick riches, he gave solid financial advice instead.
Yeah, future him is a fucking moron.
What exactly is 401k?
As a Warhammer fan, I’m telling you it is wild.
It's even further than 40k when the T'AU empire have saved the world obviously
blasphemy, though the mechs are cool.
So if you have a 401(k) you agree to have part of your paycheck go to a fund and your employer matches however much you put in up to a certain percent. It helps get around some taxes when you eventually pull the money out for retirement.
Originally it was supposed to be a supplement for pensions but pensions meant less profits because they need to be fully funded, so over the years big corporations pushed 401(k)s as an alternative to pensions because they can just push that responsibility onto us.
A defined benefit pension puts market risks on the company. A 401k puts the market risk on the individual.
The employer matching is definitely not always a thing
It's like an RRSP.
this thread calls out to all the real adults on Lemmy lol. actually learning so much.
It turns out if you save that 10% instead of giving it to the church you might not be destitute when you retire. Or you can buy the church for assistance and see how that goes.
What company let's you put a full 15% into a 401k? I mean... sign me up.
Generally you can put in as much as you want but they only provide matching for some percentage. Usually like 1-5%. There is a total contribution limit but that won't affect most people.
You can put in a max of 22,500 per year. The employer contribution can be higher.
You can put however much you want in. Max is like 22k a year. You're probably thinking match, ya basically no company will match 15%.
That'd be too close to a pension fund or something reasonable. We can't have that. The boomers said those were bad, raegonomics are good. Fuck pensions and unions.
Unions, blegh.
I was forced into a union at my job, and it's horrible. We get tons of time off, full benefits, protection from our employers when they try to violate the contract or do something illegal, and great pay. I'm currently set to retire at 55 years old, with over $10,000 a month income between my pension and 457b.
I mean, what the hell is my $100 a month in union dues doing for me!?
You can put in however much you want, the company only matches up to a certain low percent though. Typically less than 5%. I personally put 17% of my income into my 401k since I didn’t do anything for about a decade that I should’ve been doing 10% and now I’m trying to catch up, company only matches 3%
Any company that pays you less than $150,000.
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