I had a list of a dozen different things I wanted to blog about, but then I read
this. For those of you who are wondering what "this" is, it's an article about how Generation X isn't saving for retirement. There are several valid points about college loans getting in the way of savings. I think a lot of it has to do with sayings like "40 is the new 30, 30 is the new 20". This makes us think that we have oodles of time, we're still young, saving for retirement is for old people. Basically this thinking means that the "new 55's" will be working until they are 75 or something like that. I'm still bad at math even when I'm mocking. My only qualm with this article is:
The Principal Financial Group, which runs 401(k) plans for 47,000 employers and their 3 million workers, offers free music downloads to people who boost their contributions to retirement accounts.
How sad is it that our generation has to be duped into planning for retirement with free music downloads? It's times like these that makes me glad that I'm not married so I don't have to experience my husband telling me that he just locked away all of our rent money to get the new Britney Spears single. This only strengthens my theory that more people would vote in elections if we could text message a la American Idol.
4 comments:
You're not wrong! And the image of your future husband investing your rent for a new download will have me giggling all afternoon :)
True dat be. Although personally I feel that if your husband-to-be is downloading Britney songs, he might have more problems than poor money-management skills! :)
Well, I'm pre-GenX and I bought into the non-saving stupidity for years. I was ignernt. Didn't know what a 401K was. I thought it was just another way for corporate America to bilk me of my money. Which shows you that I knew absolutely NOTHING, hung out with conspiracy theorists and smoked way too much pot in my early 20s.
Once I got a clue (sadly, 6 yrs after I could have been contributing to my 401K), I started hammering money into that baby.
Now it's not student loans keeping my contributions small. It's darnged lawyer fees. Once I'm done with this divorce, I'm hammering as much as I can into that puppy again.
SAVE. SAVE SAVE SAVE. SAVE while you're young and you don't have tons of huge bills piled up. Unless you're also stupid like I was and have gotten yourself into tens of thousands of dollars of debt in your 20s.
PAY CASH FOR EVERYTHING.
AND SAVE.
There. I'm done.
Smooches.
That's actually pretty funny...in a disturbing sort of way. As voting goes, I think that would be a very interesting experiment. Maybe there should be talent contest too.
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