Looking Into The Future

How far do you look or p!an?

For me, it differs
Depending on the day or p!an

 

Somethings in a day, week, year... if it's taking a year I'm probably not going to realistically achieve that goal though. Like doing something on the house or something. Been telling myself for years do this do that but nope, I spend the money on other house jobs that come to mind on the spot. And that's just me really, I'll wing through life like I have been hopefully.

 

I try to not look too far into the future


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZP7RJFDoys




Hotwater

 

As if this was the only year i have left.

 

Strong username to thread content OP

 

my crystal ball can only see 6 months into the future.

although if people pay me for fortune telling, i'll make shit up for the rest of their lives.

 

tomorrow only

further than that is rarely planned

 

"The future ain't what it used to be."

- Yogi Berra

I think more in the short time now.

 

I'm meticulous when it comes to planning for retirement; other than that maybe a few months to a year ahead, at most.

 

I'm exactly the other way. If I had a job with an official pay roll I would try not to get any money in a retirement plan. I also don't save up for it in another way. I'll worry about retirement about age 50 or something, not a moment sooner
I do plan like you with most other things in life: a few months or a year ahead at most with most things.

 

Plan all you want.... ain't gonna happen the way you expect.

 

The future is shockingly grim...

 

There is no future.

 

Well, i do have a 401k

But usually i'm just trying to make it through the day. I try to cultivate good habits so i'm not working backwards and fixing past mistakes

When i do have a goal i dont really give myself a timeline, i just know what I have to do to achieve the goal and i do it

But in general i just trust that things will work out without a whole lot of planning

 

i don't plan. i just look.

i take such sensible precautions as are available to me.

 

Generally I have to plan for 10,000 years out-------otherwise all of you mortals would just muck everything up.

 

Ummm... They are doing a pretty good job of mucking things up now. Don't ya think?

 

LMAO!!!!!!

In the future, at age 55, tell me how that is working for you...!!!!!

Ok---I am laughing, and I am hoping that you save your post and at age 55 you look at it and see how that plan worked for you...

Don't take it personally. I actually understand exactly what you mean. And there are very many people who feel the exact same way. I'm not making fun of you. I felt the same way too really----though I always assumed that I would be in a greater position at that age and I was lucky that the stock market in many ways came natural to me.

If I had to work today, I would be in big trouble. When I parted ways with the last brokerage firm I worked for, I didn't leave on the best of terms. There are those in upper management that would support me if I wanted to go back---if they are still there. But I wasn't making friends in the influential circles of the evolving version of the company. I stood up for employee rights, and I did not like the path the company had turned to in regards to its employees. I was very vocal about that, and had documented plenty of case histories of employee dissatisfaction and detrimental changes in policy and strategy---and I was, in a sense, a trouble maker, because I wasn't in HR, or in any other job that shaped policies for employees. But I will still argue that if employees would have been treated better our stock price would have been much higher, and our industry position.

Of course I have come to realize that this is the lot of corporate America, not just that company. It is true everywhere!

But the thing is, if I had to find a job today I would be in a hell of a lot of trouble. I actually have very little grey hair for my age, and look and feel a lot younger. But I would find it very hard to get a job because of my age---anyone near 50 and older would find it very difficult to start a new career that would pay you enough to comtinue your mortgage and to live the life you are used to. If you are in upper management and play the executive game then you have a better chance of jumping into another executive position somewhere else. But for many of us---there aren't many employment options that do not mean settling for a minimum wage position with a boss that is 20 years younger than you telling you what to do.

Then, I was blacklisted more or less by the company I left---they stated on my license that I did not follow corporate policy---they did not have the right to state that, and considering that by very many measures I was one of the better employees they had, they obviously were therefore simply being malicious, and incredible petty, but the result is that if I wanted to work in the industry that I have experience and knowledge for, it would be pretty hard.

The next problem is that I am overqualified for anything I would apply for. No one is going to hire me to be a customer service rep, for example, because no matter how much I may need to work, they can't see a former Securities Analyst being challenged enough at his job, to be able to be 'happy' talking to customers about their problems and taking care of mundane account issues. Then there is the fact that to start any kind of new career, especially at my age, I would have to go through a steep learning process and training, and any firm would much rather do that for a 20 or 30 year old so they can hopefully get enough years of his working before retirement to support their matrix of expected returns on that worker.

I know this because I have friends from the industry that are in that exact same boat too. And they tended to be good corporate yes-men who got caught in industry layoffs, or committed an unlucky mistake, or because of corporate policies, were taken advantage of. For the unfortunate ones who have no wealth to fall back on, when unemployment runs out and they still can't find jobs they eventually lose everything or much of it. One such friend, for example, eventually got a job at Home Depot (where I ran into him a few years ago). He lost his 5 bedroom house and now lives in a 1 bedroom apartment and expects to work the rest of his life, at jobs that will provide a substandard life very different then what he thought would happen, and the life he had just 5 years ago.

If you are lucky, you may have skills I don't have that will always get you a job. Construction, plumbing, or tax preparation, for example. But do you want to spend your last years working? I love to write---but that is never a guarantee. And once you sell a book to a publisher you are looking at typically around 2 years before it hits the shelves, and then if it doesn't sell and you don't have the money and time to go out and promote it, the royalties you receive may amount to a few hundred dollars or less.

There are a lot of people in their 50's and 60's that have ended up in this lot. Consider all the steel workers, auto workers, and others who have lost their jobs over the past decades...





SO MY ADVICE to everyone who thinks that someday in their 50's they will worry about that----------go open an IRA account at a discount brokerage firm where the commissions are minimal, where you can trade online for hardly anything, and you don't have a minimum requirement to open an IRA (For those of you living outside the US find an equivalent to what I am talking about).

Next take $50 or $100 and open up an IRA (Individual Retirement Account). There are different kinds of IRA's and the discount firm can help you choose which is best for you.

I don't care if you are 20 years old---put down the controller and go do it now. Don't make me count! You aren't too old for me to ground you now...! ;-)

Now for those of you that are saying----'I don't know how to invest.' 'I will just lose my money.' 'Brokers are all crooks and they will just try to cheat me and con me.' 'To invest you have to know all about economics, politics, and business and stuff.' 'The country is going to collapse and dollar will be worthless anyway!'

First of all----brokers in discount brokerage firms do not earn commissions so it doesn't matter what you do with your money----you could just stick it all in a money market and earn interest for all they care (and if they try to push you into a specific investment complain about it to their supervisor). In the better discount firms they do offer advice, and are happy to teach you about investing, and all of them can certainly teach you how to do your trades and so forth. They cannot tell you to buy this stock or that fund, but some of them can provide opinions about it, and let you know if you are about to do something that is stupid. They can explain the different kinds of investments and the pros and cons, and so forth. They might have a department that can create a portfolio for you, where they do put you into a basket of funds that is automatically invested so you don't have to do anything (---but you will make more money doing what I tell you next).


But you don't really need to know about what you are doing, or even follow the market-----if you do this: just take your money and stick it into a broad index fund----I personally prefer exchange traded funds rather than mutual funds----such as the SPYDER---the S&P 500 Index fund (there are all kinds of spyders so make sure it is the S&P 500 Index Fund---but they can help you). Or the Diamonds---the index fund that tracks the Dow, or another similar broad index fund that represents most or all of the market.

Put your $50 or $100 into that index fund. Then any time you have a little money---stick some into that fund----the rest of your life. It doesn't matter what the market does----unless you learn about how to better manage it-----otherwise leave it. Maybe at the end of the year, you have $300 in it. Then next year the market might plummet and you only have 75----don't worry about it! In fact that is the best time to put more in---while its cheap.

In the long run the market will go up and it will go down------but it will mostly go up. Your long term average will be a compounded growth of 11 - 12%.

Let's say that in a few years, you had $5,000 in that fund, and that something happened and suddenly you could not put any money in it for the next 10 years---an average compounded 12% return would turn that money, just by itself, into $15,529. Now that is an average----because of the markets ups and downs it could be a mere $9,000, or it could be $25,000-----the 12% is a long term average---and it averages out over many decades. But one day you might even decide----how can I keep my gains when it is up, and maybe even make money on the way down? Then we can have a longer discussion and that is where you make your fortunes for retirement.

But I think you can see that if you are 20, for example, and start doing this, by the time you are 50, or 60, or 70----you will have plenty of money to enjoy retirement----and you didn't do hardly anything for it, and barely knew what you were doing. On top of that, you would have been lowering your taxes all those years, and gotten greater amounts of money back from the government every year!

 

definitive plans for tomorrow, expected plans for within the week, general plans for within the month, ideas for within the year.

 

I plan to someday make plans.