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Retirement

When i was a 1099 contractor I saved 20% of everything and put it in a SEP fund. When i became an employee i hitting my max contributions on a 401k with a 6% company match.

my advice is don't finance a car ever! Save the amount you would spend on the car payment. you will have enough if your patient. Drive a beater when you are young so you can get a nice car in 5-8 years. Start saving as soon as you buy that one again for your next one.

By the way, we did hit over 30% return on all of our investments last year! Thanks Uncle Trump! That compounded interest is an impressive thing...
 
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My current company doesn't have a match, so the part time jobs I have I put all of it into retirement 401k, and the roth.

Remember if you haven't maxed out the roth you have just a little time for 2020.
 
Only jumped into retirement investing last year sadly. We have 3 kids and my wife stays home with them. Two paid off cars, own half of our modest vinyl house (refi'd to a very low rate last year and 15 year note) and manage to save 1/4 of our monthly income. I squeak when I walk but don't feel like we need anything more than we have.
Currently working to max out our ROTHs as early in the year as possible, then put additional savings into a traditional ira and savings toward a rental property.

Google FIRE...it's an acronym for "financial independence retired early". Basic philosophy is that when you have 25x your annual expenses saved in investments, the dividends will cover them and you can retire. You mix reducing your lifestyle with very high savings rate to achieve "f**k you" money as early as possible. We are no where near that extreme but have implemented a lot of it.

Owning a trail rig and all the tools, trailer, and such that go with it sure put me in a conundrum since all this frivolity laughs in the face of my extreme retirement saving dreams.
 
Would you rather be 50-60 and not able to enjoy it? There has to be balance right?

Sadly my fund for a side by side had to slow to pay for a wedding that may have went over budget.
 
With the way that my parents generation planned for their kids future, pushed for everyone to go to college, take out student loans and had the mentality of "you'll make so much money when you get out of college that you'll pay back your student loans in no time", I don't know that that exists much these days. Outside of family money and drug dealers...

Complete derail/tangent here:

But my first week of college was spent with my engineering professors saying the same line of BS over and over; "The average salary of a new hire right out of college in this field makes $1XX,XXX a year. So the best thing you can do is not work, take out the maximum student loan possible and focus on school. Don't worry if you rack up $100K+ in student loans, that will be a drop in the bucket when you graduate".

I'm sure there are exceptions. But, out of the people I know from my engineering classes, I'm the only one who is working as an actual engineer. And I'm the only one that flunked out. Everyone else graduated and went on to work in a totally different field because that was all they could find.
There is plenty of sense built into that statement, but planning is not a one way street. We planned for our sons college and is paid for, but, he has worked 1 job and an internship the entire time and is making his own way. We have spent time with him discussing our retirement and what to expect and plan for in his future. We direct him but in no way put the "Silver spoon" in his mouth. We have been fortunate that we have put money into a 529 plan since he was born to be able to afford this though. Money well saved IMO.
 
I agree with all of you and I am headed down a good path with teacher retirement..I will say this, there is a point to doing something now while you can enjoy them....Dont put yourself in such a debt hole that you cant get out, but I also dont want to wait till im 60 to build a garage or buy a buggy or camper etc.. It's a balance for sure.
 
You have to balance your retirement with where you are in life right now. You do not know what is going to happen to next year, next week or tomorrow. Trust me I dodged a bullet. Was forced to retire. But I
I agree with all of you and I am headed down a good path with teacher retirement..I will say this, there is a point to doing something now while you can enjoy them....Dont put yourself in such a debt hole that you cant get out, but I also dont want to wait till im 60 to build a garage or buy a buggy or camper etc.. It's a balance for sure.

am still able to go out and do some of the things I love. But not all. And I have to watch (plan) on how long I plan on doing the active.
So you need to get out and do some things now while you can. But don't put yourself in dept doing it. Make a bucket list and then work on it.
 

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