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Superman Comic Saves Family Home From Foreclosure
A couple's home was saved from foreclosure after they found a copy of Action Comics #1 in a box in the basement. From the article: "In a statement released through ComicConnect, the owner of the prized comic book said the family was still 'a little shell shocked' after the unexpected find. 'I was so nervous when I realized what it was worth,' the owner said. 'I know I am very fortunate but I will be greatly relieved when this book finds a new home.'"
stocks are tantamount to gambling by people who are just far too greedy in the first place
WTF? Excuse me for wanting to have a decent retirement and not having to work until my dying day or depend on social security to keep food on the table. The stock market is integral to the retirement plans of almost everyone who is not putting all their hope into social security (or is independently wealthy). Whether your retirement is coming from a 401k, IRA. pension, etc, chances are you are highly invested in the stock market for retirement.
Yes, I will definitely argue with you. You are talking about a retirement fund they isn't going to be used as a retirement fund. They are going to cash it out at the low point, YEARS before their actual retirement. The proper approach is to keep investing the same (or more) money at the low points. The market, as a whole, will inevitably go up. It may take a few years but it will happen. When it does, all those purchases in the low years will really help your fund grow much more.
The trick to properly managing a retirement account is 1) making sure your portfolio is diversified enough that you can't be wiped out by a few bad picks, and 2) shifting more and more of your investments to less risky options as you get closer to retirement.
So, when are you going to retire? I guarantee it won't be on your schedule. If your schedule and the stock market don't coincide, then you are SOL. If you retired in the last couple years, did you really have a choice of when to dip into the retirement fund? I guess if you were making mad money, and had a bunch of money in the bank, then you're ok. For the rest of the world, you take what's in the retirement funds and cry about it until it's gone.
First, if you get cut loose from your job unexpectedly, that isn't your cue to retire early. A retirement fund is a retirement fund, and you don't touch it until then. You need a secondary fund...the good old emergency fund takes care of this. The idea is that you should have a MINIMUM of 6 months of expenses covered, and you should work towards 12 months. That means if you lose your job, you can pay your mortgage, utilities, taxes, groceries, etc for 6-12 months even if you have no other income. If you get unemployment, that will help you extend your fund out longer. The advantages of an emergency fund are that 1) you aren't dependent on timing your emergency to when the market is good, and 2) you don't pay the 10% penalty that the IRS will assess on your for cashing out your 401K early.
See how the concept works? Money you might need in the near future gets put into safe investments in your emergency fund. Money you won't need for years goes into your retirement account some percentage of that gets invested in the stock market, the percentage dependent upon how close you are to retirement.
Now I know you'd like to say that it's difficult to save up such a fund, but we are talking about personal responsibility here. If you've been working long enough to build up any decently sizable retirement fund, you should have been able to do the same with your emergency fund. If you live responsibly there should not be a problem. That means not buying a home so close to your income limits that you have no money to save for emergency and retirement. And it means when you lose your job and have no other income (or just unemployment), you recognize that you are actually in an emergency and LIVE LIKE IT. Don't use your "emergency fund" to go out to dinner regularly at restaurants and stuff like that.
You don't need to be making "mad money" to make all of this happen. Our family makes less than the national median income. Despite that, our 30 year mortgage is just a few years from being paid off in 15 years. We were able to do that because we decided to buy a home that was significantly less than our finances would have allowed, and we never used it as an ATM. We've been able to save up a good retirement fund and enough cash to cover a year of expenses. We've been able to let my wife quit work (meaning were now even further under the median income), have a baby, and continue putting my wife through college without grants or loans. We even managed to buy a new vehicle every 5 years. At one point, I even lost my job, had 3 months of no employment and 6 months of part time employment. We did alright through that because our mortgage payment was less than my unemployment checks so we only had to use our fund for bills and living expenses.
I'm not trying to brag about how good we are at saving or anything...just showing that what you claim requires "mad money" can actually be done at less than the median income, and we didn't even have to live like we were poor to do it.