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+1 Started saving and investing in 2001. T

Final number: -6.5%. Not making any withdraws. Almost all of the loss is non-us investments which were -14.6%. T

1. Joined this community 2. Refied. Rates have dropped since and I will refi again as soon as possible in 2012. 3. Provided face capital to a small business. T

You might find it hard to get a reasonable no cost refi on a 59k balance. A low cost home equity loan may turn out to be a better option so look into those as well. T

Employee Benefit Research Institute’s annual publication using their data on • 23.4 million 401(k) plan participants, in • 64,455 employer-sponsored 401(k) plans, holding • $1.414 trillion in assets. 401(k) Plan Asset Allocation, Account Balances, and Loan Activity In 2010 | EBRI From...

Happy holidays! T

You want it done fast, you want it done cheap, you want it done right? Pick two and call back. T

You could pay off about 30k, leaving you some cash for an emergency. Then dump the 2k a month you are clearing into the remaining balance and you will be done in 5 months or less. T

First things first, but not necessarily in that order. T

Thanks for posting. I'm on a mobile with a crappy browser that's not doing so well with that link so I will have to read the article later. After clifp posted calculations and comments it helped me understand what people were taking about. And what you just posted reaffirms that. I was totally...

+ 1 Ignore the instructions. If I follow the instructions I get rice that I think sucks. But after trying different amounts of water I found what's needed to make it the way I like it. T

Sorry to hear this. Always remember that. T

Mulligan - those are steep contributions. Hopefully it shores up the system and your benefits don't get cut in the future. Clifp - thanks for taking the time to post your comments and calculations. It helps to get some insight into how you think about these things. T

Could be. It depends on what the liability is today right? Total payments for the next 20 years will be 1.8B, but because of the time value of money the liability will be less then 1.8B (Just as 20 years of mortgage payments will total more then a balance of 100k today.) Let’s say it’s 1.3B...

Same here. My megacorp has reduced benefits a number of times already. I think it's only a matter of time before they shut it down completely. It's not COLA'd. I'm at least 20 years away from collecting anything. Whatever I have earned by the time they shut down will be worth very little by the...

I don't know. The way I see it, the company has to pony up the cash to pay what it owes. If the assets do well they have to find less money. If the assets take a beating they have to make up the shortfall somehow. As Alan said a few posts above, the megacorps he worked at are required to keep...

Thanks for responding. It sure sucks when you don’t get what you earned! I understand why you feel the way you do. What you are doing though is judging how the current system works against an expectation of something it is not designed to do. If you want a system that guarantees your full...

This is where I think the confusion is coming from. A liability is what you owe. How much you can pay, and how you expect to get those funds doesn’t change the liability. If you owe 100k on your mortgage then your liability is 100k. What assets you have and what you expect to have doesn’t change...

You should bump that up by 2% for admin fees that could be passes on to you. T

This is not true, at least not in the US. Pension benefits that have been earned cannot be reduced or taken away by your employer, by law. If they go bankrupt that is a different story. In that case what do you expect? They have failed and have no more money. The PBGC steps in and covers...

I’m with you 100% on that. I’m not sure why you think I suggested otherwise. In your example there are 1B in assets. If you say it’s 100% funded then that means there are 1B in liabilities. Let’s say all 1B of the assets are invested in Wellesley. It makes no difference if unclemick...

Only those 4? So you have an optimistic outlook for Texas. T

And if Bernie can be believed we'll have a street circuit in New Jersey added in 2013. T

Maybe we are taking about different things here. When you say funding levels, do you mean an actual funded % or are you referring to some expected future funding level? If it’s the latter then I agree, what you assume for expected future returns is key. For actual funded %, the expected...

I don’t think it will. Think of it this way - how well the plan ends up being funded down the road will depend on what the value of assets and liabilities are at that time. The expected return on assets should not change that. For example, if the plan is 100% funded today and 5 years from now it...