Start saving now; compound interest is you friend.

Don’t if SS will there in 50 years.

Yes you should start saving now. Because even in the best of all worlds, Social Security will never pay anough for 100% of your needs.

And Yes it will be around, in some form or another. Although it will change, as it has over the last 50 years. Too many people have too much money in Social Security for the government to do away with it.

That is encouraging to hear and yes I think I will start a savings account.

S.S. will be there to help, but it can’t bear the full load of your retirement. Save, and use both.

Yes. The government would catch hell if they bailed on SS when so many have vested in it. Keep working until you reach the maximum age!

Yes, it will be around, but don’t rely on it.

Save, save, save, put money in IRA’s, HSA’s (not FSA) and 401k’s. If you don’t know what those are ask a Q here it research it.

The power of compound I interest and long term investments matter. At 5% interest your money doubles in 15 years. What that means is if you save $100,000 by the time you’re 50, if you never save again and that’s earning 5%, it turns into $200,000 by the time you’re 65. If you save $500,000 by the time you are 40, at 55 you will have $1million at 5%.

Even more important is how much interest on loans cost you. A mortgage of $200,000 for 30 years at 5%, you pay $385,000 by the end of the loan.

Imagine how crazy the interest adds up on credit cards charging 15%. Always save so you have rainy day money so you can pay your credit cards in full and so if you lose your job you have a kitty of money.

@JLeslie I have a kitty but he seems to cost money. (joking) You have given me fantastic advice thank you a bunch!! :) thanks all

I second what JLeslie suggested.

I third it. Compound interest is extremely powerful. Starting young with even modest amounts of money can become millions of dollars in retirement.

Social Security will be around.

Social Security was an okay idea in its beginning. It was a way of forcing people to save. Before that people either couldn’t or didn’t save for retirement and then when it came time, they were broke. But there a number of things that make it unlikely to be solvent after another dozen years. There are aspects of SS that are going to drain it quickly. One way to keep it solvent is to do an across-the-board 21% cut in pay out.

Effectively if you are planning on relying on SS when you retire….don’t. Plan on saving, investing, getting income streams that are all outside of a regular job income and SS.

I will for sure start saving and I don’t know about finances or how all that works. I hope my mom and dad will help me.

@RayaHope If your mom and dad don’t know what 401K, IRA, and HSA are then you need to look into those things yourself. You can help teach them. If I remember correctly you are still in high school, I hope your school has a class that teaches about those things and other basic finance related topics for every day life.

@RayaHope If I were you I would start a ROTH IRA today. I think you only have to be 18. They grow tax free and in your position of not likely being able to put much in it’s your best option to get an early start. If you’re not 18 use a savings account to accumulate cash to open one when you do turn 18. When you’re out of school/college your employer will likely have 401K options. If they don’t…seriously consider working somewhere else that does.
Savings accounts these days are for short-term places to put money. They don’t pay you near enough interest to keep up with inflation.

I.M.O. Social Security won’t be there for you. I’m 45 and I’m not so sure it will be there for me. 2035 is when things start looking bad for SS. That’s right when I’m going to want to retire. I will have to use 401K and other retirement vehicles to carry me over to when SS begins to payout. That horizon date is going to keep getting pushed out. So If I work my whole life and pay into the system just to see it close shop or effectively close shop when it’s time for my turn then I’m going to be more than a little upset. I don’t expect to get that much and I’m planning as if I’ll never see a penny of it.
You should 100% plan on not seeing a penny from Social Security.

@JLeslie They do have an economics class I’m gonna take this senior year coming up. I hope they cover that stuff then.

@Blackwater_Park I’m 17 but will be 18 next year in July. I will start a savings account and I am gonna be taking an economics class this year. I know some here says not to worry about SS being there in 50 years but I am a little unsure with all the stuff going on.

@seawulf575 anyone that votes to reduce SS by that amount can kiss the f%&king sorry ass good-bye !

I am not sure if an economics class will cover it. It wouldn’t in college, but it might in high school. Economics usually teaches about economics at the macro level. How decisions and actions affect the world, industries, and businesses. It’s a great class to take, that’s wonderful you have that as an elective, I am not discouraging you. It is possible in high school they touch on micro level economics, which might discuss savings opportunities available to you.

If your economics class doesn’t cover it, then probably it is covered in accounting, personal finance, or a really good home ec class. I don’t remember where I first learned about compound interest and different savings vehicles. I took a lot of business courses in high school and college, so it is somewhat of a blur, and some you learn along the way from friends, relatives, and even what the company you work for offers you. Things have changed since I was in school; they keep coming out with new ways to circumvent taxes.

@JLeslie “I am not sure if an economics class will cover it. It wouldn’t in college, but it might in high school. ”

I think it was my junior year of high school, we had a team of financial planners come in for either a full or half day for our entire grade. They spent that time workshopping a lot of this stuff. I think it’s not a common occurrence, but it was some of the best knowledge I ever received from my high school.

I hope so but I wouldn’t bet on it. Make a back up plan.

Yes but it may be called something else and be a base amount set for everyone.

@gorillapaws That’s great. They should have some sort of program like that in every school. Sounds like you did not have to be enrolled in a specific class, it was done for the entire student body.

My advice is to try to own your home by retirement age, no matter how modest it has to be.

Also, save a percentage of all money that comes into your hands from now on. Buy gold and keep it at your home in a safe place.

Learn to garden and be able to grow some food.

@Tropical_Willie That might be true. But the alternative is that the entire ponsi scheme collapses and then they will all kiss it goodbye.

@Starquest Oh I do like gardening, I grow the nicest flowers.

If social security disappears in the next 20 years, it’s will be back within 3 election cycles, because poor elderly people will be begging on the street.

You know that expression poor house? We really had them. The elderly who could no longer afford a home we’re in some of those houses. That’s why we put social security in place.

Republicans (not all of them) talk about wanting to get rid of SS and have control of their own money, or some of them want the SS money to ride the markets in the private sector. At the same time they will complain about the elderly losing their homes because of property taxes. I think both Democrats and Republicans don’t want people over age 60 to risk being so poor they lose their home or can’t eat. The question is which party will really fight to keep SS solvent?

The idea that Americans will save their own money and invest it for retirement is ridiculous. Sure, part of the population will, but a large percentage of people won’t.

Edit: poor houses https://www.history.com/.amp/news/in-the-19th-century-the-last-place-you-wanted-to-go-was-the-poorhouse

I am expecting SS to be around but it might get reduced so low that it would be just lunch money. You will have to fund your own retirement. My daughter just got hired into the FAA. They are matching the first 5% of her $ into her 403b plan with 5% free $ => she will be saving “10%” of her income into her plan. My company 401k is more stingy – they only give me 4% of my $ free when I put in 8%. But “12%” of my income is going into my plan, so that’s not bad. It adds up over the years.

@JLeslie That is utterly dreadful I sure hope that doesn’t happen here. I better start saving anyway some people mentioned a 401 k thing I should look into.
@RocketGuy What is the FAA? Is that something I could look into?

The FAA is the Federal Aviation Administration.
From what @RocketGuy posted, it looks like a good option to consider.

I worked as a Communications Technician for AT&T; perhaps you’ve heard of them.
As of now, their Comm Techs earn $47/hour.
This extrapolates to just under $100K/year, and that’s without working any overtime, Sundays, or holidays.
If you work 40 hours/week, including an occasional Sunday, that comes to over $100K/year.
The company pays for your training, and they pay you your regular pay while you’re being trained.
We had a good union and a generous 401K.

@Gosh since I’m afraid of heights I guess I’ll have to pass on the FAA. Communications Technician for AT&T, yeah I’ve heard of AT&T That’s a lot of money. Now I know why our internet is so expensive. lol, kidding I am really happy for you. I hope nurses make good money like that.

@RayaHope

I mentioned AT&T as an employment option for you, not as an autobiographical segment for me.

When I was working for ATT, my coworker said that his wife, who was a nurse for Kaiser, was making more money than we were.

From what you’ve posted at Fluther, I’d say you have a lot of care and compassion for other people, so I think you’d make a great nurse. :)

@Brian1946 (blushes) I’m embarrassed but thank you

I’m not confident that there will be much of anything in 2050. It’ll depends a lot on whether climate change is mitigated enough, and whether we can avoid any major wars, and pandemics.

I expect some form of universal basic income to replace the sort of social security we now have.

The increased robotization of economic production will make a lot of jobs redundant, but the capitalist economy still demands that there be consumers with money to buy things.

At some point, it’ll make sense just to give people money to spend instead of making them do increasingly useless jobs for their disposable incomes. I’m not confident this will happen either.

I wonder if we will someday do away with money altogether. Create some other way to compensate people like just working for your home and basic needs. Healthcare will be automatically provided.

@RayaHope doubt it. Civilization back 10,000 years needed some means of exchange, whether it was pebbles or pieces of gold, or coins, or whatever.

There will always be a need for some device fo allow trade and transactions. Maybe not money as we know it, but there will be something.

In certain low-income areas people have been using other things like laundry detergent for example as a means of exchange. This make so much sense to me because it has intrinsic value to most people. At some point our “currency” may not be worth very much. If currency fails here which could happen, it’s a good idea to own some fungible assets.

@RayaHope – my daughter is doing FAA stuff on the ground. Facility upgrades and maybe inspection of aircraft while they are on the ground. Good money and benefits, not too stressful. I think she wanted engineering-related work experience before barging into something exciting. Also, she is a train ride away from her college friends and boyfriend.

@RocketGuy I may put that on my #2 list. I love to help people and although doing that type of work would certainly be helping people I think I’d like a more hands-on up close kind of help. Making people feel better is my goal.

Yes, but the payout will be substantially cut. Note that the payout was ALREADY CUT in the 90s when Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich changed the CPI calculation to deliberately hide how much inflation was in the economy for the purposes of reducing COLA payouts via SSI. That’s why SSI didn’t go bankrupt as quickly as previous estimates. Alot of people didn’t notice this change.