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A mil?.....wow, I just want to be able to buy fish bait and gasoline(I mean diesel) when I retire.....Is it possible for a blue collar guy to ever retire with a full million?

Remember when the government came out with the IRA plan?    Everyone thought it was going to be really good.    People were jumping up and down to put money in.   The very next year they changed it so it wasn't as good as the first year.    Now on with the story.     According to the plan, if everyone sticks to it very strictly, in 30-40 years you could be a millionaire.     Think about what I saying here.     In 35-40 years if every working person started putting money in their IRA faithfully, when they were 20 and continued for the duration, they would end up a millionaire.    Now the problem as I see it.    Take an average of 100 million people, because we are close to 300 million, so half are kids and non working and others are not of retirement age.   Now in 35 years make them all millionaires.     If 1/3 of the population is a millionaire, what will a loaf of bread cost?    I see ABSOLUTELY NO WAY THAT OUR GOVERNMENT CAN ALLOW THIS TO HAPPEN.   They will start, in a few years, taxing that money heavy.   They changed the rules after the first year.   With 30 years to go, do you think that there is the slightest chance that OUR wonderful government won't change the rules again?   Look how many times the Social Security rules have changed.   That's not over yet.    Remember this, when has the government ever done something they said will be good for you and it actually turned out the be good?    NEVER.

You are SO right!...What was I thinking?!!!!...All this money I've made investing is going to go poof! if I don't cash it in and get my butt to wallyworld and spend it before it's worthless!

It wouldn't have been hard around 1980 given interest rates..  You have to have enough of a principle to just leave there.. Naturally nothing accrued is touched.. You have to have enough you can forget about.. and let it build for quite a few years, even occassionally adding to it..With interest rates being low, there's no way in H__L,
If interest rates stayed at 10-20 percent, ALOT of we baby boomers would've been somewhat wealthy today....Incidently, that sum of money ASSUMING interest rates didn't dive and stay so low, for a retiree, isn't that high for upper-middle class areas.. and wouldn't be considered high today assuming we didn't hit a recession, that lasted so long..  Since the 90's,  alot of us that had a decent sum in the stock market took a few REALLY bad hits...

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Northeast United States runner up for the "Singing Hall of Shame".

Yep, then add to that the explosion of casinos all over the country where many folks have lost their homes and worse....and the upward spiraling divorce rate where the net worth of the family goes up in smoke...add the huge credit card debt that gets refinanced into over mortgaged homes.....And then consider the increased cost of energy and other essentials.....It seems we middle class are headed into poverty as a whole.

I really got pizzed early this year when the gov borrowed from my retirement plan to finance the war.....bad enuff they tax me for it, but don't fiddle with my retirement like they already gutted SS...If a corporation borrowed from your 401K they would go to jail, huh?

As I recall,  the divorce rate was even worse in the late 70's in Fairfield County where I grew up Keith. Something like 61% or worse.. I don't think it increased since the time I'm speaking about in certain NE affluent areas, but I don't really know.. It's been a bad divorce rate for a LONG time.. Throughout most of our adulthood actually... I don't think many of us in the Metropolitan Northeast area ever recall a time period where odds weren't greater than 50% that a marriage would not work for the start

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Northeast United States runner up for the "Singing Hall of Shame".

In order to make that kind of money on interest rates, they must be good interest rates of course,  but a person also can't be prone to gambling it off (of course some can make that money in a night gambling), squandering it, or withdrawing it... I suppose that's another thing that makes it tough... Some if they have money someplace, over a period of 25-40 years,  impulsively at some point feel compelled to withdraw it, or their mindset changes and they start spending down... I was never like that..  It's easy for me (assuming I don't need to touch something) to leave it....

Keith, assuming you aren't already on your way, you can EASILY make that kind of money.. Thing is (outside of occassional musical toys) some like to live their life rather than keep it in a bank... by that I mean many prefer to travel, go on the yearly vacation, get a boat, some a nicer home, several homes.... other's of us stay single... don't need anything lavish.... and deposit the money... We don't take trips, buy boats... that's another HUGE difference.... staying single, and having no kids also of course makes a HUGE difference....  When you think about it... It's VERY easy for a person that doesn't like traveling, can do without owning luxury items... and sits around living an existence that would drive most other's nuts with boredom, to accrue a few bucks...

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Northeast United States runner up for the "Singing Hall of Shame".

Oh, I like to live a good life AND have some bucks in the bank...I discovered I can have both as long as I avoid CREDIT.

Me and the first wife made great bucks, but there was never a penny for vacations, kid's college fund or savings....It all went for new cars, credit cards and whatever.....I was always gone in the Navy so I let her manage the bucks.....Every time i looked up we had a huge credit card debt but nothing to show for it...so I would explode and cut up all the cards and then pay them off and the whole process would start over again when I went back to sea.

When we separated I discovered more huge credit card debt!.....I ended up filing bankruptcy to force the card debts back on her and then divorced her.

This present wife n me almost divorced this last year when I discovered she too had ran up 20K in debt with not much to show for it...she is still on probation in that regard....I've given her a year to pay it off....and I mean it!

Now I only owe for the house (which I need as a tax write off).....I only buy used vehicles with cash and have only a Mastercard ATM card, no credit cards.....I also stuff almost 1500/month in long term savings/investments yet still manage to buy at least one nice 'impulse' item each month or so....This month it was a $2500 horse and a very nice dually truck for 8K....Now we are shopping for a larger horse trailer with living quarters so we can camp and ride all weekend....We have calculated we can have it by next Feb by using short term savings and the expected tax refund.

I don't want to have to work till I die just to pay some jerk interest on items we bought on credit and have since worn out or thrown away.....I learned to turn the interest in my favor instead.

I never racked up more on a credit card than I'm willing to pay in full every month.  I'm not going to pay their finanace fee's.. If I buy something for 4K,  it get's paid in full..  Plain and simple,  ONLY time a financed anything was back in the beginning days when I was trying to establish a credit line.... When I first got out've college I was stupid.. If I was moving from a place, I didn't pay the last utility bill, similarly, I felt it fine to stiff the phone Co too... As a result I had lousy credit.. When I was ready for a credit card, I realized that I needed to establish Credit... I paid cash for this condo around 83.. Didn't believe in a mortgage, based on what I had in the bank, it wasn't worth it with interest rates...It paid to pay cash at that time.. Unless there was enough in the bank to build more in interest than I'd be paying on the mortgage, I saw that as bad money... So I spent alot of my savings on the condo... When I wanted a credit card I realized I shot myself in the foot by slacking.. Started with the Sears card, but that wasn't enough,  I didn't believe in plastic back before the internet.... I'm glad I established good credit since... Because now everything's CC.... Wasn't that way in the 1980's... I never did the mail order thing prior to I-net accounts...  Didn't want a stupid CC.... In fact I refused a few in the old days..

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Northeast United States runner up for the "Singing Hall of Shame".

If you do everything as the bankers would want it.....this is what you would have.    I'm going to use Steelworker as my example coz I was one.

As Per Bankers.    This is the formular they used in the past to determine your loan worthiness.

1 weeks pay should be your mortgage payment.  
No more than a 35% total debt load.
10% at least, savings going into the bank every month.
That leaves everything else for utilities, food, clothes, insurance, gasoline, etc.

Now if you take $50,000 a year and do all the bankers want.

No steelworker could afford more than a $50,000 house.
  "        "        would ever have a new car.
   "       "        would take a yearly vacation.
   "       "        could put kids through college.

Now where is all of the discretionary money to gamble on investing?

No way!...My house payment is only 12th of my income, and those car payments now a days are usually about 500/mth plus big insurance!...that's why I avoid them....I have no idea what this wife does with her paycheck, but i'm sure it's gone by payday....I got things to where I can live on my Navy retirement if something bad happens, so my day job pay is totally discretionary money....After the first wife bankrupted me I learned to be very discretionary with it.

Steven, I can see why you paid cash for the condo back in '83....I bought my first house in '81 and interest then was 17%, so that held home prices below true value.
But by the time i sold it interest was 7% and homes had skyrocketed in value so that allowed me to jack the asking price up to 3 times what I paid for it.

That's what I mean.   I didn't work with anyone that lived within their means.   Husband and wife working, spending every nickel and no savings.    They wanted all of the toys and didn't want to wait.   New cars and boats, vacation homes, big vacations, fancy furnishings.... OH YEAH   CREDIT CREDIT CREDIT  CHARGE CHARGE CHARGE     I remember when people that bought on credit were the scum of the earth.   No joke.    If you didn't save your money and pay cash, then you didn't buy it.    Our generation isn't waitng like our parents.   They couldn't take it with them and they usually didn't have it.   We have it all and we still can't take it with us.     Money isn't everything, but you can't live without it.  LMAO   It's a whole lot more fun with it.     Ask my wife.     It's more fun with somebody elses money.    LMAO  LMAO  LMAO  LMAO

Yeah, it's the waiting part that is hardest....I really and truely understand how hard it is for a young couple to show restrant when all their friends seem to 'have it all', but they are counting pennies and saving to pay cash for each item vice the credit trap.

I'm gonna go back in time here for a minute and recall when I first got married....We didn't have anything but some used stuff our folks gave us...We set up house in an empty apartment a thousand miles from home where we slept on the floor and and bought each piece of furniture on lay a way at the unpainted furniture store.... I had a motorcycle and no car and a pregnant wife.....When she got very pregnant, I sold the bike and bought her a used car and I hitched to work....

I was there when she delivered our son......and I went into shock....Cause here I was 20 years old with a wife and a baby and an old used car in a half empty apartment and hardly any food, and no money in savings, and I was fixing to go to sea for 6 months, and scared for the first time in my life....really scared....all I could do was set it up with payroll that she got all my paycheck while I was gone.....and worry myself to sleep for 6 months.

When I came home 6 months later, we had a home in every sense of the word...She had squeezed every penny...We had a healthy baby boy, a little money in the bank, plenty of food and a more furniture.....and I discovered I had a very special little gal, so i dug in and applied myself and made rank faster than anyone and we prospered rapidly.

But once she started working, it was new clothes, new cars, credit cards, bigger house, new furniture, eating out on plastic 3-5 nights a week and lunch with the gals 3-5 days a week and nails, hair, jewelery, clothes, shoes, health club and so on.....Til we were so far in debt we couldn't make the monthly payments....so we would cut up the cards, pay the crap off and it would start all over again....and every time I was labled the a-hole cause I said 'NO!".

Well, I'm still the a-hole who says 'NO' cause I've been there and done that. I ain't gonna go thru that again....I got a good little gal, but she needs to listen and learn to be patient....

It looks like she won a better job...we will know tomorrow if she got it.....It will double her salary.....Her mom(who is my age) stopped in to visit today and she mentioned the new job....I took advantage of the subject and told her if she got the job, she was going to putt 500/month in the bank or go live on her own.....her mother looked at me and agreed-said she would back me up this time......Well, we'll see if if she decides to cooperate or if she says she can afford now to live on her own was my responce.

Lots of drama this week....new job and extra $$ for the wife...old boyfriend making trouble for us.....it's a pivot point......I got my ears up and I'm paying attention.....She needs to wipe her feet before she comes back in my house-clean up the old boyfriend stuff, no I'll do that and she better stay out of it or i'll toss her back to him......she needs to get in step on the money thing.....Marriage is a three legged race.....two people strap their legs together and compete against the rest of the world.....They gotta stay in step with each other or they lose....I've ran/won this race before...I know the pace, I know the path...I run it fine alone...don't need a slow partner....I won't slow for a cripple.....ain't got time for drama.

I have a few in my family that never run price comparisons prior to spending a fair amount of money. There's one that buy's "cutting edge" technology and doesn't wait, or question things.. Not that he needs it, he just wants to buy "cutting edge" technology... I suppose if a person is rediculously wealthy, and has money to squander that's fine, personally, I can't do that.. I think there's such a thing as stupid buyer's too, people who don't mind padding some stranger's pocket with dollar bills while paying thousands more than they need to.. I couldn't see myself being that way regardless of how wealthy I was, I don't believe in throwing away money assuming I have just a few minutes to be at least a tiny bit frugal. Even if I'm buying a smaller item for a few hundred dollars,  you can be damn sure I'm going to check other stores prices, and see what low retail usually runs on an item.. I guess if my time was worth several hundred an hour, I wouldn't want to waste it, but still..  There's plenty to do with money if a person has too much of it... I can't see paying some stranger 200% more than a competitors price assuming warantee is the same on an identicle new item, and the other store also has a decent reputation.  Similarly,  I don't need top of the line anything... Maybe a doctor if I had a brain tumor... yet that aside,  I think it's rediculous when people try living outside of their means...I don't understand that mindset

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Northeast United States runner up for the "Singing Hall of Shame".