Where did all my money go????
By reinydawn
@reinydawn (11643)
United States
October 1, 2008 9:38pm CST
This is so depressing, and I know some of you out there are feeling the same pain. September 20th marked the end of another quarter and for some unkown reason I just HAD to check up on my retirement plans. Oh, if I wasn't depressed before, I sure am now! Between my husband and I we have 4 retirement plans - 1 each with our current employers and 1 each from previous employers. It's not a lot of money, but we're trying to put as much away for retirement as possible. Well, this past quarter, between the 2 of us, we put about $3,200 into our accounts. And get this, we LOST about $13,000 between all our accounts. I'm pretty sure we lost more in this past quarter than we did in the whole first half of the year. I know things are not going well, and I keep hoping they'll start to get better, but at this rate my retirement will be gone before I'm even old enough to use it!
I know if we call our reps they're going to tell us to keep it where it is, it'll get better. I've been hearing that for a couple years now and I don't know if I can afford to leave it where it is. Has the recent financial industry caused you to make changes in your retirement planning?
2 responses
@pyewacket (43903)
• United States
2 Oct 08
I'm sorry to hear this...I take it these retirement funds are 401K plans??? I'm having my "fun" too with my mother's 401K plan that I'm supposed to get and opted to get it before it plunges down next to nothing. From what I've been hearing in general about 401Ks...is there anyway to "rollover" to treasury bonds? I hear they are supposed to be safer
1 person likes this
@reinydawn (11643)
• United States
2 Oct 08
There are many different types of plans. My husbands old one was from a 401(k), my old one was from 2 403(b)'s (because I worked for non-profit organizations the plans are named different). Now my husbands is a profit sharing and mine's a SIMPLE plan. They all do the same thing though - defer the taxes until retirement, or in the case of a Roth allow you to take it out tax-free. All the money is with brokers and if we call now to move it we're going to take a huge loss, probably more than if we let it dwindle a bit. As soon as I get my husbands new account set up - his employer just changed brokerage firms - I'm going to change his allocation for the new contributions to the bank funds instead of the stocks. I've also told my guy to not make any more purchases, but to leave all my new contributions in the bank fund - that gets around 3% so at least it's SOMETHING!
Good luck with your mother's account, I hope you get it taken care of soon.
@sedel1027 (17846)
• Cupertino, California
2 Oct 08
Wow that is a lot of money. We only have 1 401K and it barely has $100. My husband started it at his last job and a month after he was able to get into the 401K he was let go and we haven't had any money to add to it.
My Dad has a lot of investments and I know he has been watching the market like a hawk.
1 person likes this
@reinydawn (11643)
• United States
2 Oct 08
Well, I hope it hasn't dwindled like ours has. I hope this stuff bounces back SOON or there wont be anything left in our accounts.
