Of course, having worked at my "real job" for less than half a year, saving up for retirement seems absolutely absurd. But, I figure that I really should start at some point. It's certainly going to have a very negative effect on my reckless spending, which is really disappointing. I'll start up my 401(k) in a month or two, at which point I will have 6% of my pay taken away from me before I even get it. Also, starting next paycheck, I am having another 15% of my income vountarily taken away to buy stock. This will be for more mid-term spending goals, like getting me to a point where I could go to a Jaguar dealership and just write a check for the full amount like one of my friends did.
Of course, in the meantime, I can evaluate other ways of saving for retirement. I had an idea today that wouldn't require any salary deductions to work. You know how people have been suing tobacco companies and McDonald's for all sorts of crazy money, right? Well, I figure that I already drink 10-12 cans of Diet Coke a day, something that will almost certainly give me cancer of pretty much the whole body. Assuming that in the future we still don't have a cure for the kind of everything-cancer that this plan is going to give me, I'll just sue the Coca-Cola company for my retirement fund. I mean, how was I to know that drinking an absurd amount of the stuff—a beverage strong enough to be used as a cleaner—every day was going to give me an incurable disease? Basically, I'm just betting my entire retirement on the likelihood that we don't have a cure for omnicancer in forty years. I can make a really good "sad puppy-dog" face, and assuming that judges will continue to get less and less scrupulous as the years go by, I think I'm pretty much assured a win.
8 comments:
Except now you've told everyone your plan. Coke will read this many years from now and know you planned on doing this from the very beginning!
Except now you've told everyone your plan. Coke will read this many years from now and know you planned on doing this from the very beginning!
:-( and now it posted my comment twice
Heh, I know how you feel... very shortly I'll be dumping around 25% of my income into a 401(k)...
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA...and stuff.
-Stack
but is it really worth it? i mean... diet coke? that stuff will make your life too miserable to care about money.
What are you looking to do with the 15% you are going to dump into stock? Personally, I would invest in index funds, matching your risk and return needs (usually high risk, high return investments when you are young, and slowly transfering that money over to less risky, lower return stocks as you approach retirement). An incredibly cheap and easy option are SPDRs (S&P 500 Depository Receipts) that are traded on AMEX (ticker: SPY) that match the movements of the S&P 500. You can buy these yourself at some online broker instead of paying much higher fees at a mutual fund for the same type of performance. There are other funds like these out there that can match a different index, such as the S&P 500 small cap 1000.
Obviously, I also read and enjoy your blog. -Odell
What if you just stop drinking the pop and save $6 a day -- then you'll have saved millions by retirement!! ;)
- Krista
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