I get that few of us work only 8 hours these days, and during extraordinary times we sometimes have to work extraordinary hours, but if the days you described are typical and common, your company is taking advantage of you, IMO. Hopefully you at least are getting compensated for all those extra hours.
It’s definitely a bad time to be looking for a job or out of work, but that doesn’t mean you should be on the path to becoming a karoshi statistic, either.
In my industry even CEOs don’t typically wear ties. Mine definitely doesn’t.
Legal/commercial finance. Totally swamped right now. Dramatic slowdown in new deals but everyone is looking at liquidity issues and waivers/amendments. And stimulus programs are on everyone’s minds. Treasury came out with some regs yesterday that contradicted with the statute which doesn’t work. Normally there is a review/comment period to flush out issues but that can’t happen here because the idea of the programs is getting cash to businesses quickly.
We have discussed the various work/life/sleep/etc balances in the past (not in this thread though I don’t think). In my experience there is a spectrum and people need to find a place on it that works for them. Not everyone’s place on the spectrum is the same. Like a lot of things in life.
Legally I am part owner (though its a pretty small percentage) so I guess I am taking advantage of myself. LOL
I spent 4.5 hours straight on Zoom and have Google Hangouts dinner tonight. If I am just on the phone, it is harder to stay attentive, especially in big calls. But, I do get screen fatigue and I usually walk around while talking if I am not on a screen and believe I think better when I am walking.
I don’t know if we are well-positioned or not for all of this economic chaos. One of our FA’s is a big believer in gold, so we have a significant position in physical gold sitting someplace.
We have a lot of real estate, in part by accident. We have two condos that we rent out, half of a vacation house, then two houses and a studio in the town in which we live. One of the houses and the studio are to be sold. The studio gets sold when the developer gets his permit for building a new house on that lot. I don’t know how RE prices reposition, One of our rental properties is in an extremely strong location. The other is trendy – rents have gone up a lot in the last few years and I suppose could decline if there are big job losses. The big industries are education, health care and biotech/pharma, which probably are less impacted than other areas, though smaller biotech companies may have a harder time getting funding.
Being unemployed affects retirement. Pay cuts affect retirement. Working long hours (or not) affects retirement. Having kids who may need an extra semester or year to graduate college affects retirement. Having kids graduate college in a month or two but not be able to find a job affects retirement. Unplanned gap years affect retirement.
For all the time I have read and posted in this thread, there as never been a requirement that “retirement” appear in every post. And the direct connection to retirement of any given subject of the day as this thread meanders (as it tends to do) varies greatly. And many of the topics discussed regularly here are also the subject of other threads here. Not sure I see the difference here in terms of the discussion.
Like a poster said a page or two ago, I don’t have anywhere near the money most of y’all do. Last month, dh and I met with a financial planner, who gave us the great news that he could retire now if he wanted and hardly touch my 401k (our largest asset along with equity in our house). That made me feel better, but now I have to worry whether the scenario we spelled out even holds. I haven’t looked at my 401k to see how much I’ve lost (I was overexposed in stocks because I have a high risk tolerance and we are in our 50s and didn’t intend to touch it for many years; I still won’t touch it and may use some of my cash to add to the Roth), but from what I can tell, thus far house prices are holding in my 'hood. Several are/have been on the market, and people are asking/selling for top dollar still.
My question for y’all is about my pension from a former employer. It’s not a ton, but I want it, lol. Could the company just say sorry? I have a friend who worked for a former company similar to mine (in the same field) who said that his company reneged on its “executive” pension. What does that mean? I didn’t want to ask him.
@Youdon’tSay, I don’t know how it works, but there is a pension benefit guarantee corporation and the federal government level. (PBGC.GOV).
You may want to see if you can find the information you’re looking for there.
I wonder about the pension as well. Say the 401K goes up and down based on the market. But I don’t think it’s like that with Pension, which makes sense because that’s not the money that you invested, it’s the money company gives you.
BUT when my husband left a company he worked for 22 years, and they give him the lump sum for one of this pensions (he has 2 different ones from the same company b/c they got sold and merged). He just got a check for a large sum which was the same amount that was estimated way back in Jan. So apparently the pension lump sum isn’t impacted by the market. So it’s a real check, but it’s not cash, he has to put it in some fund for the future.
My husband has been trying to educate me with finances, stock markets, trust funds, blah blah blah. I just glazed over and has zero interest nor patience to to really understand it
The lump sum value of the pension is based on how much his pension would pay every month, interest rates, how long before he starts to collect, and his expected life span.
The market affects how much money is in the entire pension fund and whether the company can meet their pension obligations. If a pension fund is underfunded, it may not be able to pay out pensions in the amounts promised.
The check he got needs to get rolled over into an IRA within 60 days, or else the entire amount becomes taxable and depending on his age there could be a tax penalty.
^^ Yeah, he said he can’t do anything with the check until I got to get it notarized. After that the can roll it over to something. I guess they want to make sure i am entitled to the pension as well. BUT i don’t want to go out to do anything right now. Thanks for the 60 days note, I will ask if he knows that. I guess I still have time.
Changes in the stock market typically do not affect pension benefits; only the ability of the obligated party to pay them. A lot of pension plans are unfunded. Some very significantly. Pension plans other than state and federal can go bankrupt. There is a provision for municipalities to file bankruptcy petitions. There was some talk in/around 2008 about adding provisions for states to file. But it never went anywhere. PBGC guarantees pensions but payouts can be fraction of what was promised (for people promised more, the reductions can be severe).
I wish I could remember the details better. My husband had moved a large portion of our savings into “low volatility” funds. They avoid the higher and lower swings yet average out well over the long term. I haven’t looked at our balances on purpose but I am hoping they have not been hit as hard as other index funds.
No pensions here of any kind, and no hopes that SS will be there for us when I reach that point (maybe for Mr., he is already eligible for a reduced benefit). Our Vanguard and Fidelity mutual fund 401(k) portfolios took a giant hit, but the trading IRA and a handful of stocks we own in a taxable account are not that bad… of course, they can still go to the dump any day now. Being invested in biotech taught us to be patient and have nerves of steel. I am actually counting our lucky stars that Mr. sold all of his cars and airplanes at a loss… the loss could have been much bigger.
My undestanding is 401K is your money, not in hands of employer. (I think pension may depending on how the vesting rules work).
For folks that have annutity pensions and pre-Medicare medical coverage, the market downturn won’t be as critical as situations where much of income is derived from assets.
Correct, 401(k) plans are your money. Subject to vesting rules with respect to employer match. If you leave, you take the money with you (often rolling it into IRA to keep benefits of tax deferral). But if when you leave, you are not fully vested in part of the employee match, you will lose that. But you are fully vested in your own contributions from the time they are contributed.
Asked my Mr. how his trading IRA was doing… he said the airplane and car losses were more than covered by his strategic purchase of a stock that he thought would do well due to the Covid mess… he lucked out bigly, by pure dumb luck. A buyer emerged, so the money is dead now. He got rid of the stock and moved on. Says he is going to follow Mr. Buffett’s strategy: buy what you know well. He sits on cash, ready to be deployed.
Checked my 401(k) - down about 20% for the year. Oh well. I will be buying cheap shares with my next contributions.
@BunsenBurner Good for you on the good stock buy! And 20% loss isn’t so bad, I think you beat the market with that loss. I don’t want to ask hubby but I suspect that we lost more than that.
If you were a union employee, your union is in charge of making sure your pension is funded. Good luck.
If you were not union and not an executive, your pension is probably considered “Qualified” and is protected by the PBGC, so that you will get a check even if the company you worked for goes under. For higher paid employees, you may not get the whole amount, but you will get a substantial part of it. GM salaried employees fell into this category.
If you were an executive, you might have also been expecting a Non-Qualified pension. This pension is backed up by company finances and is not guaranteed by PBGC.
I get 2 payments every month, the qualified one, which shows up on a 1099-R and is considered a pension for income tax purposes, and a non-qualified one, which shows up on a W-2 and is considered ordinary income. But not earned income, because FICA and Medicare are not taken out of it. Or maybe they were taken out of it as a lump sum at retirement, I forget. If the company goes under I definitely won’t keep getting the non-qualified one, and the qualified one will be paid by the PBGC.
Anyway, pensions are complicated, and legions of actuaries figure this stuff out. The HR rep you get on the phone won’t have much of a clue.
He sits on cash, ready to be deployed.