Should I not sign up for 401k?

[grey poupon]

What the hell was his 401K invested in, penny stocks and jcpenny stock?

 

[MASShole]

If he had $54k put in, plus the company's match, I wonder if he had over 100k at the peak of his 401k.

Could also be that he's lying. That would mean he lost 90%, and that generally only happened to people with 1 single stock that utterly tanked, like Lucent or Enron.

 

[PolishHeadlock]

Well, it's looking like the US is going to default. I froze my 401k after the market crashed during the 9/11 bombings and saw everyone lost their 401k money. I decided to focus on paying off the mortgage and did just that. Now I don't owe anyone anything.

http://forums.sherdog.com/forums/f54/well-looks-like-us-going-default-after-all-2582023/

Couldn't you have just switched your fund to T bills or a commodities fund that we you would still get the match without the risk?

 

[PolishHeadlock]

This is a Vanguard Fund you can buy in for long term investment.

https://personal.vanguard.com/us/funds/vanguard/LifeStrategyList#lifeStrategyAnchor

This Fund Industry Avg.
YTD as of 10/16/2013 15.67% —
1 year 15.53% 11.87%
5 year 8.02% 7.94%
10 year 7.18% 6.31%
Since inception (09/30/1994) 8.05% —
Acquired fund fees and expenses as of 08/12/2013 0.17% 1.01%


Just some food for thought for those thinking about investing. Think about how long you plan on working and look at the return over that time.

Your money is usually better in the market.

 

[MASShole]

Also this fund does very well over the long term: https://personal.vanguard.com/us/funds/snapshot?FundId=0021&FundIntExt=INT#tab=0

 

[PolishHeadlock]

Also this fund does very well over the long term: https://personal.vanguard.com/us/funds/snapshot?FundId=0021&FundIntExt=INT#tab=0

Exactly. There is no reason to play the market when there are people that do that for a living. Just look at the performance of the funds over the course of 1, 5, 15 year periods and see how long you want to keep that money invested. Companies like Vanguard get paid to measure the and forecast the risk. No reason to keep your money out of the market because you're afraid the sky is going to fall.

Look over the history of the market and see it's bust and boom. In the late 70's and early 80's everything looked horrible and than the late 80's and 90's killed it.