Are 25-35 year olds feeling discouraged yet?

[soupcxan]

I know I am. Household conversation:

DW: How much of our income did we save in January (2009)?
DH: $2,000. We're doing a good job staying witin our budget.
DW: How much did our net worth increase?
DH: -$4,000.
DW: Uhh...how do things look for February?
DH: The budget looks great, we will have at least $1,000 left to save.
DW: And the investments?
DH: Uhh...

 

[Sarah in SC]

Well, I can't speak for your range, but the 30-40 year olds are pretty darned discouraged.
I quit updating Quicken some time ago. I don't want to know more than just round numbers. I congratulate you on knowing the truth!

 

[Bimmerbill]

I'm 42 and starting to get a bit discouraged. Not that I think the USA will circle the drain or anything. But the huge number of doom and gloom articles I've been reading daily are starting to pick away at my confidence.

 

[Urchina]

We're not discouraged. We have years to catch back up and a lifetime to live. Winston Churchill said "Let our advance worrying become our advance thinking and planning." Things might be changing; we're young enough to change with them.

 

[ziggy29]

I know I am. Household conversation:

DW: How much of our income did we save in January (2009)?
DH: $2,000. We're doing a good job staying witin our budget.
DW: How much did our net worth increase?
DH: -$4,000.
DW: Uhh...how do things look for February?
DH: The budget looks great, we will have at least $1,000 left to save.
DW: And the investments?
DH: Uhh...

I'm 43 and have been investing for retirement for 20 years. In 2008, we saved about $30,000 but our net worth dropped by about $140,000.

If the market is going to tank on you, being young is the best time for it.

 

[samclem]

Maybe this will help

I know I am. Household conversation:

DW: How much of our income did we save in January (2009)?
DH: $2,000. We're doing a good job staying witin our budget.
DW: How much did our net worth increase?
DH: [-]-$4,000[/-]. Our net worth increased by 145.88 shares Vanguard Target Retirement 2030. We're buying a lot, they are on sale right now--they cost about 40% less than what we used to pay a year ago.
DW: Uhh...how do things look for February?
DH: The budget looks great, we will have at least $1,000 left to save.
DW: And the investments?
DH: [-]Uhh...[/-] They are primed for a launch. I don't know when it will happen, but it always has in the past. We own more shares today than we ever have in our lives--some great companies. When the share price goes up, and they always have, we'll be in clover.

Sometimes we have to have some "creative" positive self-talk to maintain the motivation to do what we know is good for us.

 

[tpcooper]

At 25 I'm not really discouraged, but it is never fun for anyone to lose money.

I just hope I remember this as I approach retirement age and make sure I'm not too heavy in stocks when I can't afford years like this.

 

[TromboneAl]

Aw, you kids have it so easy today. Stocks at ridiculously low prices; decades before you need the money. We had to walk through snow to buy mutual funds.

 

[REWahoo]

Aw, you kids have it so easy today. Stocks at ridiculously low prices; decades before you need the money. We had to walk through snow to buy mutual funds.

Cue the Four Yorkshiremen!!!

YouTube - Monty Python - Four Yorkshiremen

 

[Sarah in SC]

Darn you old timers, just when we were getting ready for a nice big cry.

 

[WM]

We're not discouraged. We have years to catch back up and a lifetime to live.

If the market is going to tank on you, being young is the best time for it.

Urchina and Ziggy summed it up well. On the other hand, I don't check balances more than a couple times per year. If DH and I were having this conversation every month, he'd be downright depressed. Have faith! I figure if all the early retirees here did it, there's no reason we can't do it too.

 

[pasadenaDC]

29/yo not discouraged, yet. However if I get my #ss laid off from work things may change quickly

I guess stocks can be considered 'cheap' (again this is a relative term) compared to inflated prices in 2007, but the same can be said about housing as well. Both fueled by easy and available credit. I was reading recently about how the S&P500 is trading at about 13.5 P/E which leads me to believe the downside risk from here is another 25%. When stocks trade at 10 P/E and the S&P stands at 600 or so, I guess I can say for certain that 'stocks are cheap'. DCA all the way down. Buy, buy, buy.

My time horizon is about 30 years and the hope is that I can outpace inflation and taxes by a 1-3 percentage points each year. But as I've said in other threads, if nothing else, my expectations for investment gains and ER have to be tempered a bit. I just have to laugh at the Dave Ramsey's and David Bach's of the world assuming 10% ROI on index mutual funds. Nope no way, sorry. The only guy guaranteeing that over the past decade was some guy named Madoff.

 

[CuppaJoe]

Ah, yes, I remember it well. At age 25 I thought I would never afford buying a house, ditto at age 35, and now, plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. Still renting in an expensive city. My French hasn’t improved either.

On the bright side, at age 25-35, my PF seemed to stand still, but now despite many downturns is good enough to support me in RE. Keep the faith, baby. What Samclem said & the Yorkshiremen.

 

[clifp]

Far worse than walking through snow, We?I had to talk to brokers and pay a load to buy mutual funds . Buying stocks might cost 5% or even 10% commission. Plus researching stocks involved a trip to the library to get your hands on Value Line.

No CNBC either, just Louis Reykeyser (sp) and his merry band of elves. I wish I was 25 again in a bear market, instead of retired.

 

[bow-tie]

I know I am....

I hear you... lousy market returns, coupled with me trying to unload an unbearable job in a questionable economy. Sometimes... when it rains, it pours.

 

[Nords]

No CNBC either, just Louis Reykeyser (sp) and his merry band of elves. I wish I was 25 again in a bear market, instead of retired.

No you don't. At least now we can stay home all day and obsess over CNBC between [-]frosty beverages[/-] analyzing stocks and [-]napping[/-] working out. Back when we were 25 we were expected to obsess over the markets and show up to work at the same time...

In 1985 when I was 25 I was standing midwatches and trying to get off the "qualification delinquent" list. No goin' back to those good ol' days.

Spouse and I have noticed that we're in much better shape today than we were in 2000-2002. So, yeah, this hurts and it might hurt for longer than it did in 2000-02, but we know how to deal with it.

When the markets eventually hit bottom and start thrashing around in the mud, the young'uns are going to start partying like it's 1982 again!

 

[FIREd]

I am 34. Still checking Quicken everyday. Not discouraged yet but only because income-wise, things were great and just got better in the last 2 days. Despite market losses approaching $200K since October 2007, our net worth has remained more or less stable thanks to hefty inflows. As long as we can manage to keep our net worth up there, we see no reason to get discouraged. The average household's net worth has probably trended down substantially over the past year and so, if we can manage to keep ours flat, we are actually becoming wealthier relatively speaking. I also focus less on account balances and more on building my passive income. We have made great progress in that area in the past year.

 

[DblDoc]

47 and hammering down my cost basis every two weeks. Like FIREdreamer with large inflows this past year and paying down the mortgage we are staying even NW wise.

DD

 

[Grep]

You should not feel discouraged at your age. William Bernstein (of The Four Pillars of Investing fame) would say that, at your age, you should get down on your knees and pray for times like these. The investments you make now, at these prices, will be the foundation of your future wealth. Congratulations! (Now keep your job and save, save, save!)

Older people who have just entered retirement are the truly worried ones, with good reason: they are making withdrawals at the worst possible time.

For someone like myself who was approaching FIRE? It's pretty unfortunate. But at least I've got some time before the "early" in E.R. would become a misnomer, and a very secure job, so I hope to wait this crash out while dribbling a little more money into the markets as I can (I only wish I could keep up with my losses).

 

[CuppaJoe]

.... (Now keep your job and save, save, save!)

Older people who have just entered retirement are the truly worried ones, with good reason: they are making withdrawals at the worst possible time.

....

Some of us older people are actually less worried if we are among the ones who re-arranged our allocation to have many years in CDs and other fixed income investments. I would be more worried if I were working and might lose my job. But all in all this a very bad time for all of us, IMO.

 

[W2R]

Darn you old timers, just when we were getting ready for a nice big cry.

Well seriously, you never know what life will bring except that it probably won't be what you expected! At least, that is the way it seems to me.

I worked hard, married a handsome, intelligent guy and had a beautiful daughter and (I thought) "did everything right". But the marriage fell apart and I ended up divorced, 50, with nothing but a junker car, an old sofa, a temporary job, and zero knowledge or experience in personal finance or investing (plus the tech crash was about to slam us). I felt I did not deserve that fate!

I made plenty of stupid mistakes, including using retirement funds from my prior job to pay for a new Solara to replace my junker car. Still, I lucked out by investing during the good market from 2003-2006. I didn't deserve that either!! But between that good fortune and a big dose of LBYM I found myself in a great position to retire by the time I joined this board. Then later that year, I came into some money.

The point of all this rambling is that IMO we don't know or control the future. All we can do is our best to push things in the right direction, and be flexible in dealing with the surprises that life brings to us. I think living is sort of like surfing in that respect.

 

[brewer12345]

Eh, yeah, its discouraging. But realistically I was going to be working for 10+ years before the mess started and that remains the case today.

 

[wildcat]

I am not discouraged about my situation.

A) I have time on my side
B) this is the cheapest I have ever seen stocks
C) I have a job

This is my reminder:

[moderator edit]

 

[Fireup2020]

I agree with Wildcat & W2R. At age 38, I finally have no debt, max out on savings, have a good job (two of them that I can alternate between actually) and pensions provided I live long enough. If the economy continues to slide, well, that just means I get to buy a larger number of shares that will eventually increase (just based on historical evidence) and as long as I am having fun along the journey, it's all good! Sometimes you just have to work hard to get you where you need to be for the luck to start hitting you!

 

[Rich_by_the_Bay]

Does it help to remember that you're buying shares -- lots of them, and cheap -- rather than a specific dollar investment or return?

FIRE becoming "FIR" and ESR turning into "SR" each year that passes, economy damn scary, but still putting half my new savings in stock funds. This is the part where I remember how fortunate I am to have a secure, decent-paying job that I like, even if I'd like to slow down.