One Bad Year Just Wiped Out my Retirement Savings 

Wow I'm so impressed this video has reached a large audience ! Please consider liking and subscribing as well watching some of my other videos, it really does help. Thank you all for watching and commenting !

Anyone who shares their retirement saving experiences, good or bad, helps so many others. The problem with finances is it’s such a taboo subject. Hearing about real people’s situations is such a great help to others.

You were saving for retirement, but not yours. You made the banker's retirement better. This is a very good video! Best wishes to you in the future. Low cost index funds will get you there.

You have a great perspective. Building your house was your biggest investment, and that is another comfort for the future

So sorry about your situation. Very tragic. It's decent of you to get this message out.

Love your positivity!!

I am in a similar boat with finances and retirement preparation. I am in my 50's and starting over, but I don't freak about it. Quality of life, right here and right now is so important. We may be starting later, but we are also much smarter. Great video!! Thanks for being real on your retirement investment story!!

Great attitude. awesome

You are a STRONG dude to admit what you did to the world via the internet. I HAD to subscribe!!!😮

It does surprise me when finances come up with coworkers and my very smart coworkers that I respect seem to know very little regarding personal finance.

Solid advice and tough break taking that hit through covid.

Agree, I listened to others advice and lost 100K trying to get rich fast, I was forced to sell my house and it was a wake up call, I studied investing, picked the middle road investments and now I am happy with what I have saved.

Thank you for bravely sharing your mistakes, sometimes we learn more from other's mis-steps than we can from our own successes...besides, it's the least painful way to learn, lol. I've got a different approach as I've been through far more than my fair share of adversities. After a couple of life altering events I ramped it up even more as I realized that we had an additional wrinkle to our financial life and we needed to save even harder. Technically I'm one of the 50% that shouldn't be able to "afford to save" yet somehow I've got a 50+% savings rate thanks to the wonderfully frugal lifestyle I created from scratch that provides more than we could possibly ever need or want. For instance, I wouldn't dream of going out for soft serve because I have Breyer's ice cream at home that was bought on sale for $2.49-$2.99. Not only is it better ice cream, it's less expensive and we save the gasoline to go "out". Alternatively I have a self freezing Cuisinart ice cream maker that I got for a song at a garage sale so I can make even better ice cream. Then there's the tax savings thanks to the powerful incentives to save for retirement. Maximizing the form 8880 retirement savers credit will completely eliminate your federal income taxes and in many cases your state as well. The same frugal lifestyle or lowered "need of money" also allows us to make Roth IRA conversions slowly over time and under taxable limits. Once in the Roth IRA the money and the compounded returns are free from taxes and required minimum distributions FOREVER. Better yet, in retirement, distributions from a Roth IRA do NOT increase the amount of your social security that's taxable nor will it increase your medicare premiums, unlike with distributions from an IRA or pension. By keeping yourself within the 12% tax bracket you also enjoy a long term capital gains/qualified dividends rate of ZERO PERCENT for your taxable investments! I've never viewed retirement savings as an emergency fund, it's a very bad idea as I witnessed during the great recession when the market crashed and far too many had to cash out, locking in these losses simply to cover their living expenses and often not for very long. During that time we had a 50 week unemployment stretch that included emergency surgery followed by an 11 day hospital stay for my wife. We had an actual emergency fund but I'm fiercely protective of hard won savings so we fell back to our frugality and we didn't have to touch our savings and thanks to the timing of the job loss we didn't even skip a beat with our retirement savings. While it was a stressful time we look back fondly because we successfully pulled together to make it all work and the changes to our lifestyle we made we continue with today because we quickly realized that it's the best way to live. I'm no financial advisor but if I were in the same position as you are I would plan on working to 70 to maximize my social security and I'd take a good look at the tax forms to figure out the best mix of contributions to lower or even eliminate my taxes with an eye towards what taxes will be like in retirement so I avoid the dreaded "tax torpedo" and the "widow's tax trap". I'd also greatly reduce spending, not so much by doing without but swapping for less expensive or free alternatives that are also better...never settle for less. I've got tons of these swaps from cooking every meal at home from scratch with basic ingredients that we buy on sale for the best food at the lowest price to assembling our own mattresses with a zippered mattress case and layers of high quality foam for the best mattress that no one sells. Why buy new electronics when simply by putting the word out among family and friends will get you a river of free used items that are still perfectly good or easily repaired and they're happy their items getting a second life and not going to waste. For some reason people get new laptops every few years instead of refreshing their current one with a Windows reinstall. Even ones that are too old to run currently supported versions of Windows work splendidly with Ubuntu or other versions of Linux. My stereo is a Yamaha receiver (40 station presets!) without HDMI that was a relative's home theater upgrade discard, a pair of Polk Audio bookshelf speakers that were $35 off Craigslist that sound amazing and a 14 year old Dell laptop running Ubuntu to play MP3s and stream online content. The cord to connect the laptop to the receiver I had bought in the 80's to connect a CD Walkman to a boombox and carefully saved when I was done with it. Hopefully you can quickly turn things around and retire in comfort. Cheers!

NEVER invest through a bank, total rip off.

Most people don't plan. Because we are Not taught any real financial education and understanding and what goals to plan for.

Skip the Bitcoin. Save speculation for later and something else like an individual stock or gold or whatever. Instead: Eliminate all debt esp at your age Get an emergency fund of 3-6 months of living expenses Build a diversified portfolio. Establish a budget to achieve above Unsexy but it works. Good luck

Life is 💯 percent full.of setbacks. I'm not all that dissimilar in letting cash languish without growth. I'm going hard started at 47. I refinanced when rates were 2% at a payment that could be manageable. Wish I pulled out more. Depending where you are in the house repayment, that will have a huge impact. Sell it to rent a room in someone's house or fill yours with renters. Save 60%

Retirees who struggle to meet their basic needs are the ones who could not accumulate enough money during their active years to meet their needs. Retirement choices determine a lot of things. My parents both spent same number of years in the civil service, but my mom was investing through a wealth manager, and my dad through the 401k.

I knew better than investing via a banker. . . I procrastinated and didn't invest at all. I showed them!!!!!!

Puting your money in bank is like holding your money on a open window on a windy day. Buy cold/silver or some fancy bitcoin like stuff.

Safe retirement savings - with investing properly - is 15% to 17% of income from the first day you go to work. This is the mandatory rate in many North European countries (Nordics, NL etc.).

This is not financial advice, but you should put a big chunk of your money in Nvidia and leave it there.

I recently opened a Vanguard brokerage account and move my money from my bank to Vanguard. I've got more interest...

Yay index funds!

To this day, jan 2024, my Wells Fargo savings account pays LESS than 1%.

It sounds like you are still a little behind on your research since you mention you would have been better off in the 2010s sticking your money into a savings account and earning a 2% interest rate. For almost the entire 2010s the US was in an ultra low interest rate environment so you wouldn't have gotten an average savings account rate of 2%. You'd be very lucky to get 0.5% even if you went with credit unions. After accounting for 1-2% inflation, savings accounts were actually depreciating. I do like your portfolio though with mostly a low fee S&P500 index fund, and a small amount in high risk, speculative ventures. Just make sure you're doing it via a tax advantaged investment account like an IRA or a 401k (note even private business owners can set up a 401k account for themselves).

SP500 etf is is not as diversified as you think. Have you considered asset allocation ETFs like XEQT, ZEQT, VEQT etc?

I read in a biography of Warren Buffett that, in the trust he created for his wife to live on after his death, he instructs the trustee to put all the assets he will leave her in a low cost S&P 500 fund and leave them there. Even though he may be the world's greatest investor, he believes that his wife's assets will be safer and more productive in an S&P 500 fund than with any investment adviser he might recommend. So it sounds like, according to Warren, you're on the right track!