DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Everything Else... 401k’s

Well my wife’s 401k is now down $35,000. She is worried. I have told her it will come back, she’s got 20 years left for it to come back. I told her if you switch your options now, all the options you have, when they make ancome back you will have lost all the $35,000.

How do you guys feel a about the market? Do you think it is short term thing? Personally I think it is. If a small family is losing, the big boys gotta be losing too, right?

I’m thinking of stopping contributions for awhile til it makes a comebacl.

The last thing you want to do is stop contributions. Stay the course, it's not a sprint, it's a marathon.

Just looked at my 401k again and I'm down almost $30,000 since last fall. My employer matches a certain percentage of what I contribute and I was going above and beyond that but I've since dropped it down to what the company match is. Our plan also allows us to switch where our money goes and I've since moved mine to a plan that puts more of my money into bonds and less in stocks, I'll switch it back when/if the market goes back up. fingers crossed.

My wife's has lost $41,000 to date - in the last about 6-8 months or so.

Keep putting in though, as it NORMALLY comes back in time. And, for the prior year or so, it was making huge gains as well. If you're not close to retiring, let the market work it out. We still have a good 10-15 years of working, so I'm expecting fluctuations moving ahead as well.

I am NOT a financial advisor by any means, keep that in mind.

I'm no financial advisor. Everybody is different and everybody needs to be comfortable concerning their savings and retirement plan... And when it comes to a husband and wife -- that picture may become even more foggy when it comes to "agreement".

However, I want you to think on the following example as it pertains to your current situation:


Scenario:
Wheat is overproduced, the price of flour has plummeted, the cost of bread is at an all-time low.

Would you...

A. Keep buying it, be happy it is so cheap and maybe even consider throwing a couple loaves in the freezer?

B. Stop buying it all together, avoid it like the plague and start using wraps or stop eating sandwiches? Would your attitude be "I'm not going to buy any more bread until it's expensive again"?


Your basically saying you don't want to buy stocks while they're cheap and would rather postpone your buying until they're expensive again.

Right now bread is 4 loaves for $10, do you really want to wait 'til they're $5 each again?

AGAIN, timing, personal situation, overall strategy, play much larger roles than my simplistic illustration... this is simply just a little "food for thought" (pun intended ).

I'm in the same boat. The 401k's are taking a beating this last year-plus. It's been pretty brutal, actually.

The ONLY thing you can do is stay the course. At this point, we've only lost value, but not actual money. Once things rebound (If?), it will all come back and then some. It's just painful AF watching every contribution from every paycheck pretty much evaporate into thin air. I just have to keep convincing myself that I'm buying lower and lower each time that happens. It's about playing the long game and being patient through the short-terms ups & downs.... it's just a little anxiety inducing at my age because I only have maybe ten to fifteen years left. Hell, a few years back I was hoping to be able to retire at 55 which is in just four years, but that is a pipedream, now.

Yeah I meep telling her buy low now and when it rebounds you should see some huge gains. Like I said she has almost 20 years left before she retires. Me I can retire in a little over 2 years, but with pay raises of about $6/hour in the last month to next 2 years I probably won’t, at least that is what the wife says, lol

Don't stop contributions unless you really need the money, and even then don't stop...at least totally.

Markets go up and they go down. In the long haul you will be fine with 20 years to go. If not, we are all screwed, so just go with it. That doesn't mean you/she can't make a portion of the account less risk adverse, but again, with a 20 year time line you still need to be in some growth funds.

Right now the market is adjusting because it fears a recession, which is likely with the war in progress and the questionable politics being practiced right now.

And maybe you don't want to. It might not make much difference, but if you are looking at some serious pay raises, lifetime earnings is how your benefit is factored. SS takes your 35 highest paying years to make the calculation. Adding several more higher paying years and kicking out the same number of lower paying years can make a difference in your benefit.

Only Corporations exist, the people... are not even considered. It is set up, so that they steal from the humans. Steal the wealth from the humans so the corporations get stronger, because the corporations are in danger of being overtaken by other corporations.

Then consider that the corporations, purchase the politicians, and the politicians, decide the disputes, and then go back to be members of the corporations.

( Why just today, I was thinking, No American should be allowed to complain about Gasoline prices, if they would not also complain about the rebuilding of new stadiums when the existing stadiums were still viable costs. )

In the current times, the humans do not exist. ( Well, what I mean is, their interests are not represented, not even in a teeny tiny corner of a place, they might as well not exist. )

I’m down $50K. I made huge gains after the housing market crash/recession and again after the dip created by COVID. Both times I shifted money into stocks when the market was really low. Both times I captured gains by moving them back into more stable funds/bonds.

I’ve been holding off funding my Roth IRA for the year. Sitting on the cash waiting for a bottom.

If you’ve got time until retirement now is the time to capitalize.

Before this slide started my financial advisor changed my portfolio to be more conservative, but I'm still down a lot. This may turn into a recession and go on for a while, but I have significant savings so I'm not too worried. Honestly, inflation worries me more than anything because it erodes the value of the cash I have saved.

I agree. I am not all that worried about it at this point but once you retire, your stack of cash is your stack of cash. You aren't making any more so you need to hope it lasts longer than you do.

Amen.
While my 401k may have lost maybe 8% of its value, my money that is left has also lost that much, too. The $1.00 that I had in there a year ago is now worth maybe $0.80-$0.90. It's a double loss and the second one, the inflation, is a permanent one. Stock values rebound; inflation never gives up ground.

I wish mine was only down 35k. I went conservative and converted a lot of company stock to bonds and lost more than that last I looked in April. I'm betting I'm down over $100k. It is better (for me) to just not look at it or get even more conservative and just keep contributing. Oddly though, my Roth IRA was up last I looked at it in April.

Amen! She's got 20 years? don't touch a damn thing... keep contributing... I have an extra 10K that I'm about to put into VTSAX... my 403b has lost around 60k... but I'm still contributing... and looking for other investments... best time to buy is when there is a sale...