Daria

NaBloPoMo day 26: retirement

“So, when would you like to retire?” The financial planner asked me two weeks ago. Me: “I don’t know… Maybe 60? 63? 65?”

As an immigrant to the US, I have never had any kind of financial education so everything I know about IRAs, and 403Bs, and other retirement is self-taught. What I did inherit from my parents were the beliefs: 1. Money is evil 2. Money doesn’t buy happiness 3. The proletariat shouldn’t value money 4. Money is not discussed in our house.

My father is 78, is retired, gets a small state pension from the Russian government, and is still working. My mother is of the same age, retired at 58 and also gets a meager state pension from the Russian government. So, when I started working in the US, I was like “saving for retirement, what? Why? Don’t you get a pension at the end?” Ha.

T and I have been saving for retirement for as long as I have been working, and, according to the financial planner, we are in a good shape. I am in my early 40s so there is still time to save more. We both contribute 11% of our total salaries per year. T gets matched and I don’t because I get the state pension.

Something very empowering that I did in November was this. I looked at my IRA and my 403b, and saw that the portfolios were set to be too conservative. I still have 20+ years till my retirement so why not capitalize on more aggressive mutual funds that have higher returns? Plus, the funds that money was invested in were 2 or 3 star funds, according to Morning Star. I called my 403B people and asked the sell the low-performing funds and buy the 5-star instead. With my IRA, I did the trading myself 🙌

Really, learning about this stuff was so eye-opening. I have always been very careful and conservative with money, always an under-buyer, ever a saver. And I still am. But it’s time to learn more.

Leaving you with a picture of R and I before the live show we went to see yesterday. The Underwater Bubble Show!

Join San and other amazing souls as we make our way through #NaBloPoMo2023

More information about this great initiative can be found here!

Posted by:

Daria

Mother, teacher, partner, friend. I love coffee, books, and travel with and without kids. I dislike exercise. Nothing glamorous here but do have moments of insight.

7 responses to “NaBloPoMo day 26: retirement”

Kyria @ Travel Spot

November 26, 2023

Hurray for you! That is great that you are managing your finances on your own a little. My first foray into doing individual trades in the stock market was through a Roth IRA and I had a lot of fun and learned a lot (and invested in 2007 which was right before a crash, so I lost a lot BUT it came back!!) I am an analysis paralysis person at times and I did deliberate for a long time before finally dipping my toe in.

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1. Daria
  
  November 29, 2023
  
  I did the same! I doubt myself all the time, not just with trading but other things. Need to work on that…
  
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J

November 26, 2023

Congratulations on doing so well with your savings/investing, that is a great accomplishment.

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Tina

November 26, 2023

It sounds like you are right on track and doing the right things to be able to take care of yourselves in retirement. Too few people, me included, are prepared for retirement.

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Lisa’s Yarns

November 27, 2023

Financial literacy is something that we struggle with even in the US. There are so many even within our country that are under educated about financial topics. When I am retired and have more bandwidth, I’d like to volunteer with organizations that are working on improving financial literacy. Good for you for taking the bull by the horns and making adjustments to your investments. We are super limited in what we can do because we work in asset management so we only buy mutual funds and ETFs. It was super helpful to meet with a financial advisor in 2020 – not for investment advice but for scenario analysis to see when we could retire. My goal is early/mid-50s but we’ll see what happens. A lot can change in 10 years!

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Steve

November 27, 2023

This has been on my mind a lot recently as well, as I get closer to the age where I’ll choose to retire (or have that chosen for me, as the case may be). If you’re planning ahead you’re already ahead of far too many people in that regard.

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San

November 30, 2023

I really love that you jumped in with both feet. While I had some financial education back in Germany, a lot of things are very different (both my parents are teachers and didn’t have to “worry/plan for” retirement because they knew they were going to get a good pension…. here in the US, it’s a lot about your own planning and I definitely learned a lot already (but would love to learn more).

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