WOOO HOOO. Our retirement balances are falling faster than me and the kids on the first hill of the Nitro at Great Adventure.
It’s not really wooo hooo, but more of a gulp. But, like I said last month, I’m not really worried. We are in the beginning phase of saving for retirement, so down markets are actually beneficial in the long run.
Really, that is the more worrisome thing – that we are so far behind in saving for retirement.
I think we will meet our retirement goals, but if we would have had the knowledge that we have now when I was 25, we would have hit the current retirement goal of $2 million by saving $250 a month from the age of 25 to 62 instead of nearly $2,000 a month (my work 401k deposits include the company match).
Having an extra $1,750 a month would be huge, although we likely wouldn’t have that much because I think we would either be investing a portion of that for retirement, investing in index funds to grow money for other assets like real estate, or a mix of both.
Either way, we would be a lot more financially sound if we had our current mindset when we were younger.
Oh well. You can’t change the past. All you can change is the present and the future. I’m just glad we didn’t start any later than we did.
One thing we can do is to make sure our kids are educated so that they don’t make the same mistakes we did. Or at least not as many of them.
Our parents never talked to us about money or the importance of saving. We plan to make sure our kids are knowledgeable about money, saving, and investing so that they can have a stable and secure financial future.
| Investment | Deposit | Balance | Growth |
| Work 401k | $1,268 | $113,137 | -$9,845 |
| Roth IRAs | $1,250 | $28,776 | -851 |