Your thoughts on this article: "If You Have Savings In Your 20s, You're Doing Something Wrong"

[crisi]

You don't have to do all stocks, in fact diversity is your best bet. invest in some low risk vehicles but you do need the stocks. you need something that will let you beat inflation

So right now I have investments that are about 70/30 mix of stocks/bonds. now some folks think that is high for a person who is retiring in 8-12 months but I'm thinking long term. I still have a good probability of living 35 years so I want to get high returns up front but I also have about 3 years living expenses in safer vehicles,

As crisi said if you want total safe returns you've got to have some way to make up for your buying power shrinking.

Now the aca is working for me, also like Crisi I've found a couple of insurers that will give me a plan at about ~650 bucks a month, which means I can retire early since one reason folks work until 65 is due to having to wait until medicare kicks in.

Yep,

A 70/30 mix is generally calculated to return that 8% OVER THE LONG TERM. Some years you lose money. Some years the market returns 20%+. Most retirees also have cash. I keep about a year worth of cash around (although right now I don't have it, when the stock market goes on sale, like it just did, I go shopping).

I also tend to invest in a lot of dividend stocks. The return isn't great - AT&T doesn't tend to grow much - but investing at the right time gives me 5% on my money with a fairly stable capital base (AT&T is probably sticking around). Then diversify (I don't have so much in AT&T that I'm only dependent on them).

If you want a safe return, look into an annuity, but you'll discover you need a lot of assets to return enough to live on on an annuity. If you can save that much, great. But if the $1M to get $40k seems daunting, the amount you'll need to get $40k a year from an annuity will be unfathomable.

 

[LoveBWVVBR]

That article was so terrible that I can't single out any part as worse than any other part. I feel like society will be paying for people who live this way

 

[Dakota731]

I feel like society will be paying for people who live this way

We've been supporting these type of people for decades now - in record numbers the past eight years. Our local newspaper just had an article about 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act which I'm sure most people have never heard of, but allows anyone to come here from Cuba and get social security benefits and Medicare without every working a day in this country. We have a lot we need to fix in our government, but first we need to be informed!

 

[LoveBWVVBR]

The more I think about it, the more I think that the author of this article just wrote it to be controversial/go viral/get maximum press and views. I just honestly cannot fathom that this is truly her mindset. Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems like it was written to generate controversy.

 

[eliza61]

We've been supporting these type of people for decades now - in record numbers the past eight years. Our local newspaper just had an article about 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act which I'm sure most people have never heard of, but allows anyone to come here from Cuba and get social security benefits and Medicare without every working a day in this country. We have a lot we need to fix in our government, but first we need to be informed!

woooo Dakota, let's not start a panic here.

President Clinton modified that act when he was president. Now most Cuban immigrants that are found at sea are returned (wet policy) and those who are detained on dry land (dry) go through the immigration process and have to be here for a year before eligible for benefits.

Cuban nationals still get benefits because Cuba is still a communist country and we give asylum to many countries but they just cannot roll up to the social security office and say give me a check.

Now since WWII this country has always had safe guards in place to ensure that it's populace has a certain level of survivability. Social security was designed so that older Americans would not live in poverty. most folks working or not get waay more out of it than they put in it. So be careful of the rules you want to change, the vast majority of Americans BENEFIT from them.

so the popular belief that if we get rid of illegal aliens will some how make everyone else secure in their retirement is pretty much as viable as the belief that sprinkling me with pixie dust will let me fly.

Americans as a whole will always take the easy way out so if this was even remotely possible we would have done it long ago. Social security was never intended to be something for a person to solely live off to so even if it was 100% fully funded, it would not save a person who is retired.

What's the max benefit? something like 24K a year more or less? that's darn near poverty in my neck of the woods. no way could I survive off it.

I do agree with the above poster, op definitely has a degree of shock value in it.

 

[crisi]

What's the max benefit? something like 24K a year more or less? that's darn near poverty in my neck of the woods. no way could I survive off it.

And that's the max benefit. That assumes you've worked 35 years (years you don't work count as $0 income in your annual average up to 35 years). That you've made a good income for much of those 35 years (35 years with a part time job paying $10k a year in today's dollars will not result in a large check) and that you delay retirement (or at least collecting social security) until full retirement age.

Now a two income family could max out at $50k a year, but only as long as the both live.

And it assumes you aren't qualifying through another method (SSDI is calculated differently, for instance).