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So, perhaps the problem is that proper retirement planning requires you to "know the rules and limits around IRAs, 401(k)s, capital gains taxes, backdoor and mega-backdoor Roth, Roth 401(k)s, and so on", which is beyond most folks ability - or available time.

It also requires a non-trivial amount of slack between your income and expenses, especially if you want to invest enough to beat inflation for your savings period and up to 35 years after. The value of $1 in 1985 (~35 years ago) is equivalent to $2.78 now.

With as many folks as are living paycheck to paycheck (and usually they aren't backpacking), not having that slack - or time to manage that slack "properly - is not really all that surprising.

I also feel it's worth calling out that the fact that your target cohort is 20-something backpackers shows a cognitive bias on who is actually having issues with their retirement funds. The reality is that most folks who are having issues right now are older Gen X, not young Gen Z.

I don't think Bogleheads applies for the vast majority of americans. The article in question is about a 66-year-old single mother of three, working two jobs. She's most certainly not figuring out capital gains tax.

Bogleheads isn't about capital gains tax. It's about steadily investing in a passive portfolio, dollar cost averaging in, and taking advantage of compounding returns. It's also about living frugally below your means, but not everyone wants that second part :)

Many people don’t have a realistic option to live below their means.

Not only do people make little money the US government literally kicks you off food stamps if you have 2,000$ in the bank.

In society broadly, you're absolutely right. For most of the folks reading these comments, we do (though that's obviously changing given the downturn).

you realize most audience here is first time emigrants who make much less than Americans on the same job and have zero network to navigate the intentionally opaque 401k et al hacks? not to mention most come from places with actual humane retirement and working law safeguards so they fail to negotiate a buffer for the complete lack of those in the us.

so yeah, you're out of touch with both the topic in the article and the audience here.

Yeah, like I said, the article is about a 66-year-old single mother of three working two jobs to stay afloat. She already had to move in with two roomates because she can't afford otherwise. Let's not blind ourselves to our own privilege, lest we become "let them eat cake" people. Many Americans cannot afford to steadily invest in a passive portfolio and don't have a realistic avenue to live any more frugally than they already to to any meaningful, life-improving extent.

"Blind ourselves to our own privilege"

I'm gonna be the asshole here, the article clearly states she adopted 3 children. Now because it isn't a particularly good article we don't know if maybe she adopted her nieces or nephew or whatever, but probably not(based on the video).

That decision alone is a very big red flag that (coupled with the ominous "I have a live-for-now philosophy") that we are looking at a person that made some questionable decisions in her life.

Maybe questionable decisions, maybe selfless decisions? I don't think we should judge her.

Good intentions do not make up for negative outcomes.

That depends on your values. I definitely know some people who have and would make a sacrifice like "Adopt 3 people and potentially change their life outcome for the positive, at my own personal expense"

We don't know if she had a husband with 3 kids she legally adopted when they married and then the husband died. There are plenty of ways someone ends up with three children without some questionable decisions. There's no way she would be able to adopt a child from an agency due to the huge monetary constraints. Please consider being a little less of an asshole, because occam's razor is that she very likely adopted these children via family or marriage, as it is the only way to do so without being upper-middle class. This is precisely the amount of blind privilege I'm advising against.

The mother of three part is where she went beyond her means. Children are a luxury, and they're one of the more expensive ones people widely indulge in.

By all means, if they're a major value in your life, spend your money where you choose to. But don't be surprised if that means it comes from another part.

That said, at some point demographics are going to result in a need to incentivize child rearing politically, particularly in developed countries. It may be wise to look to how difficult this process is going in China and Japan and get out ahead of it before it is the emergency it's growing into over there. We may take an ever present labor pool for granted thanks to immigration over our Southern border here in the US, but not every job can be filled by a migrant worker with little formal education.

We don't know the context though. Some people are responsible and have kids when they're doing fine financially, but then unexpected hardships happen. They don't deserve to be blamed in hindsight.

Bogleheads teaches financial responsibility from step 1. It is the right path for everybody, but not everybody finds it or wants to learn.

There's another group of people like me who _hates_ dealing with retirement shit.

It's not that I don't feel it's important--I do. It's that the entire infrastructure for dealing with 401Ks and retirement, I think, sucks. Moving money from one place to another is terrifying--so many different steps along with the fear you'll accidentally pull the money "out" and have to pay taxes and penalties on it...

I can hear everyone saying, "It's easy--I had no problem with it". So it's not rational. But I'll bet I'm not alone.

(For the record, I'm doing OK in the retirement department. Well above average for my age and well-well-well above median. I still goddamn hate it. I'd rather have paid more tax in exchange for more Social Security payout any day.)

I agree. I had a friend who told me that he had to spent less in months when my companies stock was down, because he was literally using his base + equity in full nearly every month. He also told me he hadn't opened a 401k. He is in his early 30s working in tech and just his base would facilitate a comfortable lifestyle. It really shocked me

given the likely state of the world when I'll be old, i'd rather enjoy my money now.

This is fine, but the problem is most people who think this then vote for wealth transfers from working to non working once they need help.

Yeah, that nuclear winter when Russia launches nukes isn't much of a retirement, and savings won't help much unless you saved in non-perishable canned goods.

Actually, wait. Sorry, that was the reason the previous generation didn't bother to save.

Mine is more related to climate change.

I'm really curious about the logic here, honest. Which particular aspect of climate change motivates you to avoid savings?

The global economy will suck. There will be less fun things to buy. I'd rather burn it all now than save to buy potatoes in the future.

got it.

> There will be less fun things to buy

^ that's an interesting way to look at it!

Essentially, we're looking at serous ecological collapses by 2040 or 2050. An awful lot of misery and pain is going to come from that. Maybe not the apocalypse, but it's not insane to question if the "tomorrow never comes" approach we're taking will last.

Going long on ammo, salt, and water purification might be a better deal. Knowing whatever new flavor of JS is great, but do you know how to grow rye in marginal conditions, or how to handload?

"Essentially, we're looking at serous ecological collapses by 2040 or 2050." Citation needed. I think it wilk rather be that the young people who are too afraid to live because "something something climate apocalypse" will collapse mentally when the expected doom has not materialized and they have wasted their lives.

> it's not insane to question if the "tomorrow never comes" approach

to me it sounded like avoiding savings cuz climate is exactly the "tomorrow never comes" approach, on steroids, so I was just curious about that part

(I do think the climate is changing, but I do not know the actual outcome.)

While yes you should be concerned about potential climate change, don't buy into this 'world is going to end due to global warming/cooling in 204x' stuff. That is just mostly said by guys that make money trading carbon credits.

In the 70's they said the world was going to end in a few decades because of a new ice age. Tuns of people said the polar ice caps would have completely melted by now. Most of the alarmists have an agenda that is more about power/control/money than "saving the world."

Also don't forget the folks selling you stuff want you stressed. A stressed consumer overspends. You are falling into the marketing trap they want you in. A lot of those gun and survival seed companies feed into that paranoia. If they seriously thought the end was coming why would they sell you that stuff? They would hoard it and keep quiet.

Turns out that it's easier to store and transport a few hundred thousand dollars worth of gold than it is to store a few decades worth of salt and farming equipment.

Even if you're prepping for a disaster you see as inevitable, having a means of exchange set aside helps maintain some mobility and flexibility.

Money lasted from pre-Sumerian days through some pretty cataclysmic scenarios in the past. Hollywood notwithstanding, I don't think anything coming down the pike is going to leave anyone saying "darn, I have all this gold."

Now, sure, fiat may go worthless, its backing tied to the economic output and taxation of systems that may well crumble. And yes, things like salt, water purification tablets, even seeds, could well become currency (tobacco was currency in colonial era Virginia). But it's worth considering why you're saving what you're saving, and whether you're leaving yourself open to be blindsided.

I wonder what "old you"'s opinion will be about all this.

I cannot say it here without annoying dang ;)

I _thought_ I knew a lot about capital gains taxes until filing my own taxes this year.

After firmly boarding the tax-loss harvesting hype train, I had fallen prey to the intuitively appealing idea that short-term capital losses could offset gains from the sale of a rental property held for less than one year. It turns out that short-term gains from the sale of business property flow (Form 4797) directly to your Schedule 1, without an opportunity for Schedule D losses to offset them.

Now as a result I'm sitting on a 5-figure tax bill and 6-figure capital loss carryforward.

and you just learned laws that are overly complicated are there exactly for that! so it's working perfectly as intended.

sucks to be you though.

The intention is to prevent commingling of business gains/losses with personal gains/losses.

I see no reason to assume bad intentions.

https://www.realized1031.com/blog/what-is-the-difference-bet...

that's some good schadenfreude, thanks

My heartfelt sympathies...

"Retirement" amounts to giving up control of your Capital to a bunch of companies, who may perpetuate God knows what in terms of social ills as a business model. In short; companies have found a way to screw workers out of even their wages by convincing us that "we have to invest in them to make our living for later".

When you realize that the entire system is basically set up so that as an employer, you're siphoning off funds from your employees for witholding that by default are conservatively invested (read: in whoever has managed to become the too big to fail company from convincing institutional investors to foot the bill)... Ot really starts to make a bit more sense why sweeping change has a hard time happening except in tech circles.

This concern is why ESG investing has picked up, though personally I'd call that more of an opportunistic way to convince people they can have their cake and eat it too (and take a nice fat cut of the profit in the meantime), given how much of this trend has been characterized by gaming scores, rather than a renaissance of people actually digging into the companies they invest in to ensure their money is doing good in the world.

I don't have a great solution to apply to the masses. Personally I enjoy researching my investments, but am well aware people don't all feel this way.

Not investing for the future, however, feels like rather than finding a solution, it is just the "throwing one's hands up in the air and giving up" option. And the results are, well, what you might expect.

Perhaps the best solution is for people to find what DOES interest them to invest in. The options aren't limited to company stocks, or real estate, debt, or even commodities. A larger and larger portion of the market has been opening up to retail investors with increasingly minimal costs. Perhaps no solace to the 50+ crowd that hasn't started yet, but at least hope for younger generations to have better options to avoid the same fate.

Also, for what it's worth, money in the bank = that bank having more bank reserves = that bank effectively having greater leverage to do gods know what with.

If your goal is not to give anyone else your capital to do anything with, you'd better at least have it in hard cash, if not outright hard commodities.

Otherwise, don't fool yourself into getting a smaller return while still doing what you thought you were avoiding.

> I think my highest-downvoted post ever here was something like "Maybe it's not financially wise to spend your 20s backpacking and finding yourself."

People backpacking know this, so it pretty much falls on deaf ears.

I've also found these types of people tend to live an incredibly frugal lifestyle. Saving in their 30's becomes far easier because they tend to not have the lifestyle bloat.

While their overall income will be lower, they need less to retire and generally seem to remain surprisingly financially independent.

The way people handle money is a cultural problem. Not only is it a lack of savings, many people have a lot of debt that's growing. The way many view money is to spend more than they take in. Driven by consumerism.

Consider how often people see ads trying to influence them to spend. They work and it's shaping our culture.

I intend to die covered in debts.

What kind of debt would you be able to obtain?

It's a social problem. And how do we deal with social problems in the US? Tell people they need more individual responsibility.

“ what their plan is if they get critically sick to the point where they can't work, or when their health inevitably deteriorates in their old age”

best case scenario plan - become a financial burden to their children and family.

most likely plan - become a financial burden to society.

When inflation > interest rates, saving is a loss making activity. That's the environment we've been in from 2008 until about 2022. You're not wrong and I am the same as you, but we can't blame people for adapting to their circumstances...

Retirement savings means investments, not FDIC insured savings accounts. However, it has not been that long that it has been as easy as opening a Vanguard/Fidelity/Schwab account and buying an index ETF or target retirement date ETF, so I cannot blame someone in their 50s and 60s today for not following advice that has only been easily accessible for 15 or 20 years.

This. Also, we take 401(k)'s for granted, but even those are only a little more than 40 years old, and widespread use did not happen instantly. That Gen X didn't make hefty use of them is hardly surprising, given the limited access along with the limited education in place.

Their parents had defined benefits pensions. Their children have commission free IRA's, 401(k)'s, variable annuities, and a handful of other lesser known alternatives.

They got the 70s and 80s economies to grow up in, and the dot com bubble, GFC, and now a looming recession after many got sucked into some YOLO moonshot plays in the bull market of 2021, upon realizing how much ground they needed to try to make up rapidly. I don't envy their situation.

If you have non-mortgage debt, it makes no sense saving (unless you're just saving for a temporary large purchase like a house).

That depends if it's fixed rate debt or not. Fixed rate debt that came about over the last decade is often accruing interest at a lower rate than you can reasonably get with some fairly safe instruments, be they treasuries, money markets, or some more exotic fixed income securities. If you're paying down debt financed at 5% and getting a 7% return on your savings, it's a non-trivial decision to pay it down any faster than you absolutely have to.

I'm sure in no rush to pay down my car loan any quicker than is required.

This is not correct. Not saving will leave you with nothing. Some saving will leave you with something, regardless of the inflationary and interest-rate environment.

What inflation > interest implies is that you should try to place your savings in in real assets, i.e., assets that are inflation protected, rather than in assets that just pay interest, such as bonds.

In an inflationary environment, saving up to purchase a house can be an enormous, life-altering financial windfall for those who can do it.

Retirement accounts aren't in high-yield savings accounts. Using S&P 500, $1 in 2008 would be $2.61 at the end of 2023. Average APR is 8.45%, while bank savings is 3.5% right now.

Just a few hundred a month could have made you a millionare today through dollar-cost averaging. Deciding not to invest because you think our economy isn't as great as before is a terrible reason not to invest. If you are trying to "time the market" with your retirement account and believing that no time in the past 12 years is a good time, rather than dollar-cost averaging and investing all throughout, you're really screwing yourself over

On a similar note, I know >3 individuals with successful businesses, think small construction shop or solo professional suite. They make good money, but everyone I've talked to doesn't have an IRA/401K or anything stashed, its all in their business. They have lots of cashflow, but are an injury, change in business climate away from ruin. Many don't have plans for hitting 60+ when they can't work anymore to keep the business going. They likely assume they will sell their business, but lately the valuations on these small time shops has been very low and many "boomer" businesses are having a hard time finding people interested in purchasing. Think mom/pop grocery store, ice cream shop, stationary store, etc. They own their home most likely, but thats all gonna get sucked in end of life care...

Bogleheads. This is the way.