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According to a May 2025 Gallup survey, only 61% of Americans age 65 and older own stocks in any way, including IRAs, 401ks, etc. I found that a bit shocking and a little sad. I’m pretty certain HD readers and writers are not among the 39%.
If that is an accurate percentage, no wonder many retirees are in poor financial shape, no wonder social media is full of videos with seniors claiming they need and deserve higher social security benefits and higher COLA adjustments. Their message is simple, we worked and paid into social security for “our whole lives” and we deserve more.
Can the retirement system continue this way?
My investing in stocks only began when I implemented a 401k at my employer in 1982, I was 39 then and previously only dabbled with no understanding of what I was doing and no positive results. An employer match made it clear to me (but not everyone) that using the 401k was essential.
I often wonder where I would be without that 401k.
Some people find it hard to risk money, even on paper, even temporarily. Some people find it difficult to take a longterm view, especially decades in the future. I find that all understandable, but the trick is overcoming those obstacles.
So, how did you become motivated to embrace the stock market? How did you develop a longer – term mindset that allowed you to follow through to retirement?
As a youngster I dabbled in mutual funds but had no real plan. I had perhaps $10K invested.
During a fortuitous casual conversation with a co-worker in the late 80’s, he mentioned the concept of “pay yourself first” and it struck me as a fabulous idea. (Thank you Henry!)
I immediately set up an allotment to have a percentage of my pay invested in a mutual fund. Anytime I received a raise, I would increase the allotment. Not by the full amount, but most of it. And I made it a one way street – I never took any money out until after I retired at 55 in 2012.
This made “budgeting” easy. As I had already “paid myself”, anything left over could be spent without a second thought.
If I needed significant money, for a car for example, I would put in on my HELOC. At the time, the interest was deductible and I didn’t need to interrupt my retirement accumulation and compounding. I paid the HELOC off as quickly as possible.
I have access to the TSP and wish I had invested from the beginning. But being young (don’t trust anyone over 30!) I didn’t trust that it was legit for a few years. I finally did get on board when I discovered that Richard Headlee was on the TSP board. (In Michigan, Headlee is famous for the Headlee Amendment which limits property tax increases. He’s still saving me money.)
Unfortunately, I was late to the indexing game. I didn’t learn about index investing until I was nearly retired. When I did learn about it, the logic and math behind it seemed inescapable.I switched to an all index fund portfolio (on the equity side) and use the G Fund for my primary fixed income holding.
Another thing about index investing that I like is that once setup, no thought is required. No research, no stock picking, no timing decisions, etc. Makes for a much more pleasant life.
I’ve have been an index investor for the past 15 years and the stock market has had a good run the last several years. I have more assets than I ever thought possible. So, no complaints.
I can only image what I would have now if I knew in the beginning what I know now. But then wouldn’t we all?
I believe it, but as shocking as that is, how about the average IRA balance for those over 65? $250,000.
Worse yet, the median balance estimated at between $160-200,000.
That’s no way to run a railroad.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve been interested in investing. As a child, I followed stock price quotes in the newspaper and watched the evening news report the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Back then, the Dow was under 1,000 points.
I didn’t begin investing until my early 20s, when I landed my first career job and could finally afford to buy stocks. I purchased my first shares through a local bank’s brokerage department—back when they actually issued paper stock certificates. I also contributed to my company’s retirement stock plan up to the maximum allowed.
In my early 30s, I opened a brokerage account and an IRA at Fidelity. Over the years, I consistently contributed the maximum to my 401(k) and IRAs. I still remember our quarterly statements arriving in the mail—some showing losses. I would just chuckle and say, “I hope our accounts grow so we can retire someday.”
I was never afraid to invest because I always felt I had time on my side. That long-term mindset made it easier to stay the course through market ups and downs.
I eventually retired in my mid-50s. Today, I have a much deeper understanding of how the market works and how to manage my investments—but it all started with a curious kid reading stock quotes in the newspaper.
Very nice story. Retiring in your 50s is an accomplishment, is managing investments a chore or stressful in retirement?
In retirement, as you likely know, there’s a new element to investing—tax management. I’ve actually enjoyed learning how to manage our investments and distributions in the most tax-efficient way possible. I wouldn’t say it’s a chore or stressful. As odd as it may sound, I find it very interesting.
I also retired in my late 50s. If I have one regret, it’s not thinking carefully enough about how my portfolio was positioned from a tax perspective as retirement approached. I focused on tax efficiency going in — contributions, sheltering, accumulation — but didn’t give nearly enough thought to how it would unwind on the way out. It’s not a disaster, but it’s created more friction than it needed to. A bit more foresight and it could have been much cleaner. The bright side is I have quite a few years to sort it out.
I began my adult life with zero knowledge of the market, but I liked reading about personal finance, which introduced me to the concepts of saving and investing. My dad got me buying CDs in the late 70s, then the 401k got me into mutual funds in the mid 80s. I knew I was going down the right path, though nothing prepared me for Black Monday. Black Monday provided one of the best lessons of my investing life; what goes down, goes back up pretty darn fast.
Let’s hope that continues.
At the school where I worked, no pension was offered. Instead, we could choose from various TIAA investments offered in our 403(b) retirement plan. A mandatory contribution of 5% was deducted from our gross salary, AND the school contributed another 8% (10% after we’d been there enough years). Plus we could make voluntary supplemental contributions to the plan. A few years before I retired, the school also began offering a Roth 403(b).
Anyway, since these mandatory contributions were happening, planning for retirement in this way was just something normal we all did.
If I’m honest, and I’m trying hard not to gloss over the truth and make myself look good by claiming it was always the “grand plan” it started with equal parts dumb luck and stupidity.
The dumb luck came from crossing paths with a guy who sold a product similar to your IRA, who somehow persuaded me to open an account at a very young age with an automatic contribution that increased with inflation each year. The stupidity came from simply ignoring the account in those early accumulation years, because frankly I was far more interested in beers and girls.
By the time I eventually got around to paying attention, the balance was large enough that I figured I’d better start educating myself about personal finance — and it grew from there.
Well at least you didn’t blow the account on beer and girls
That’s where the rule of having absolutely no excess until age 55 shows its wisdom, lol.
So that’s where I went wrong!