What is a good piece of advice from your parents or that you’ve learned that others may not know or that you wish you were told as a child/teen?
If you’re not happy with what you’re doing or what you have, make at least a rough plan on the steps how you will change it so that you’ll like your life more in the future.
By doing so you realize that there is a way out of the missery and it gets easier to get out of it.
From the very moment you start working your first job, put 5 to 10% of every paycheck into a 401K and or IRA account. Start this as early as possible so that you might stand a chance of retiring one day. Do NOT depend on social security or anyone else to care for you when you are old. Sure wish my parents had engrained this idea into my head …instead I’m starting late and will pay dearly for the missed years of contributions.
Why do you expect that the savings in a 401K will be worth something once you want to retire?
In Germany, about 20 years ago they pushed evwryone to additionally to the normal state funded retirement to have private insurance too (Riesterrente) over time all this money was stolen by shady insurance people who got super rich (Meschmeier or so his name) so that what is still left is not worth anything. But the state owned retirement is still working kind of OK.
(I’M NOT FROM THE uS, so I’m not sure if 401k is state owned or private)
Yes. “Put your money here, it will be there when you’re old—we promise.” Is a ridiculous plan.
You get to choose how your 401k is invested, though. The only difference is a tax advantage.
The advice is just: save money, let it grow using compound interest, use tax laws to your advantage.
There’s no “trust the government” in that advice.
