Life Is Unfair. Deal With It.

Over the weekend, friends were complaining about the fact that the worth of their retirement accounts have plummeted this year.

I told them the following:

In a perfect world, the value of our retirement savings would climb every single year from the time we put the money in, until we decided to finally use the funds to pay for the retirement of our dreams. We would never suffer a financial crisis caused by divorce or illness. And we never find ourselves suddenly unemployed or the victim of the plummeting stock market like the one we experienced in 2008.

In the perfect world, a mix of investments -- say 65 percent stocks, 25 percent bonds and 10 percent cash, a combination that represents a diversified, fairly safe portfolio -- would earn 8 percent a year every year as it has on average since the 1920s.

That would mean, in this perfect world, we would know with absolute certainty that if we saved $6,000 a year every year for 35 years toward our retirement we would be guaranteed to have 1,116,612.89 at the end of year 35.

Well, we don't live in a perfect world.

The current market meltdown makes that clear.

You can:

A) Complain and say it is unfair.
B) With our help take steps to help improve your financial situation.

Choose B. Complaining about things beyond control is just a waste of time.