Had To Have Been A Member Here

If those are in an IRA they are going to hurt more than they should. You will pay as ordinary income instead of paying as capital gains on the net profit.

tigger said:

I own a financial planning firm. I imagine the he was more of a tremendous saver rather than a good stock picker. I also imagine that he kept his portfolio very aggressive as he aged rather than making it more conservative. He invested for 60ish years. It time, not skill. Good for him. I spend a lot of time in southern VT. I think it's great that he left it to the hospital and the library.

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More likely he started conservative and stayed that way. Buy and hold, not much risk in blue chips.
Not an altogether uncommon story. Avoid the fees. I realize that strategy is anathema to folks such as yourself.

Oldman47 said:

I have been saving the legal maximum in my 401K since I was about 50...

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Started doing the same at 33, after zeroing it out at age 26 (long story). Unfortunately, my company has no match, and I keep getting bumped down due to the disparate average of highly compensated employees to the others ('lowly compensated'?). Without a company match, many of our hourly workers use this as an excuse to not contribute to their 401k's.

They can rest assured that I'll be supporting them, someday, given the present political outlook. [emoji12]

Joful, I was in that boat until I was about 50 so my earlier contributions were smaller. I started putting as much as I could of each year's raise into my 401K the year they enacted the legislation. By ramping up at 3 to 4% each year it didn't take long for that proportional thing to limit me. The company match was not big but it did exist. It was like 25% of the first so many dollars each year so it came out to a real world 10% or less match if you could max out. Around the time I turned 50 enough "lower tier" employees were finally contributing to get me to the federal max amount of $15,000. Somewhere around that time they also instituted the supplemental tax exempt contribution of up to $5000 and they indexed it to inflation so by the time I retired it was around $6500 per year.

Good conservative planning, there, ramping your contributions with each raise. Connecting this back to the OP, I spent today splitting firewood, an activity that saves me less per full day of work than I earn in an hour or two. Sometimes it's not about the money.

Coach B said:

You may be right, but my wife has my four kids in the library nearly every week. She must be trying to buck the trend and is admittedly quite old fashioned. They are all voracious readers and doing very well in school so I don't argue with her.

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You pay for them. By all means use them.

I'm sure most of my family would laugh at me for picking up my wooded lot and maintaining my wooded canopy....but I find joy in the simple things. I can also appreciate expensive stuff too. LOL

WiscWoody said:

But I won't part with my material ported 390XP and a ported 562XP either! Who needs a relationship when I have those?

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Great saws man

Joful said:

Connecting this back to the OP, I spent today splitting firewood, an activity that saves me less per full day of work than I earn in an hour or two. Sometimes it's not about the money.

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I think about this every time I fire my splitter up. I could work two extra days and buy a winter's worth of firewood, with some left over for the next winter.

Wasn't that long ago that it was about the money.

I spread investments. 401k, RIRA, homes, wise choices in tools, gold and silver...and keeping a nice liquid fund.

I do not want all of my savings in imaginary 1's and 0's in a bank somewhere. I think there is real value in things you can hold and see. Basic, I know, but proven the test of time. Only in the last 50 years have Americans massed large fortunes in money for retirement. We used to invest in the family farm, the family business, land, barns, cattle, ect. Now it is tied up in banks.
I don't have a crystal ball any more than the next guy, but think this can put us at the mercy of others and more tie our future with the world economy and central banking.....and I don't trust central banks.

I appreciate your perspective sportbikerider. For me it came down to how to write a check for 3 chickens to cover a grocery bill or a bill for bar and chain oil. Some amount of cash is always going to be needed even if you replenish it by selling the 3 chickens.

Mag Craft said:

I did a little bit of investing in the market while I was working. When I retired I sold all my stocks and paid everything I owned off. It does not take much money to live on when you do not owe anything.

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I'm elderly myself. Just so long as I can go on a hunt every year (preferably a lodge hunt), I'm good to go.

sportbikerider78 said:

....and I don't trust central banks.

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The ironic thing is that most folks with this phobia don't have enough money to really warrant concern.

I am still working for the same company since '77 that has matched my 401k investiment at 6% and also will get a lump sum pension when I go. In '77 the stock market was 400 to 500 hundred and now 17,000. So I am good to go. But even with a sore back I love burning and processing firewood for all the reasons other than saving money. Part of my lifestyle that I don't want to change....

Joful said:

The ironic thing is that most folks with this phobia don't have enough money to really warrant concern.

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A phobia would imply fear. I study the economy and economics and make wise investments and truly diversify my portfolio.
Please don't make assumptions about peoples financial status. That is a bit of a stretch, don't ya think?

The economy is a fragile thing right now. Home values are high and will get a staunch correction when interest rates soar. Interest is being kept artificially low with the federal reserve pumping dollars into the economy through QE, but that drives inflation up so everything costs more and your dollars are worth less every year.
Unemployment rates are very high and costs are going up every year.
The economy is always fragile, but more so then it has been in the past.

Oldman47 said:

I appreciate your perspective sportbikerider. For me it came down to how to write a check for 3 chickens to cover a grocery bill or a bill for bar and chain oil. Some amount of cash is always going to be needed even if you replenish it by selling the 3 chickens.

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That is true.
If you have things of value (say a real silver coin) that will always be able to buy you something. A paper dollar.....not so much. It only has value if society/economy says it has value.

Personally, I think it is very smart for people to barter goods. Much of this happens on online sites and neighbors doing each other favors.

Joful said:

The ironic thing is that most folks with this phobia don't have enough money to really warrant concern.

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Probably because they lost it!

gzecc said:

Probably because they lost it!

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Or, they never had it together enough to actually get around to putting money in the bank and leaving it there!