My Personal Experience Holding On To My Retirement Funds

[ScoutHikerDad]

Just for context, as I come from frugal working class mountain stock, I have been throwing every spare penny since I was 19 into my 401k's, mostly into aggressive growth-oriented index funds. And when I was younger, I just ignored the occasional dips even in the '08 collapse, and just let it grow. Fast forward to when I retired from a career in teaching last May, I just stayed with that strategy last year, hoping a President Harris would continue and carry forward a growing and robust economy (the many inflation, housing and affordability issues notwithstanding). And we all know how that turned out. In my nearly 60 years, I don't remember my hopes being dashed that hard.

Anyway, right about the time the market peaked and the rapist felon was obviously eager to destroy everyone's retirement plans, I panicked late one night, got up, and moved every fund into more stable bond index funds, expecting that at best, I could hold the line, or maybe just lose less.

What I didn't expect after looking at a few growth over time charts is that those bond index funds are actually increasing in value even faster than my stocks were, so I'm super relieved that I made this move. I figure unless our credit rating gets downgraded (which is a real possibility with all the insanity right now), those should be safe for the time being. Now full disclaimer-I am nobody's financial adviser; in fact, I lost my shirt trying to be a day trader and betting some extra money on AOL at the top of its roller coaster, right before its merger with Time Warner and the '99 crash in the tech. sector's bubble. It became essentially worthless soon after-lesson learned.

I just thought I would share my personal experience with my fellow DU'ers who are fortunate enough to have some/any money invested. For the millions who aren't and see their economic hopes dwindling and no hope in sight for the foreseeable future, my working-class heart goes out to you, truly. I really think America's days of economic prosperity are probably over unless you're a billionaire. And for all of us, I think we have to hold on zealously to what we have, whatever that is: housing, a vehicle, a job, everything, as all of those things and even groceries are going to be very hard to come by moving forward. That's just my 2 cents.