Thread: A pension

is to seek guidance from a qualified financial advisor. not a forum on shaving! (I would go with the 401K personally. Better to control your own money, and that match is fantastic)

Congrats Jimmy!

I love to hear stories like this.

I hope I live long enough and stay in good health to enjoy a pension.

My mother passed before she could open her second check and my father passed earlier.

Congratulations, Jimmy. I'm a pensioner too. Retired over two years ago and I'm only 51. Had over 25 years in a New York State law enforcement title.(prison guard) It's a beautiful thing to get that free money every month. My only restriction is how long I can live and take their money. I'm young enough to get a lot.

Pensions are not fully guaranteed, at least not all of them. There have been many Pensions that went bust in the Financial Disaster. I'll see if I can find more info online and post it here.

PBGC Executive Director Bradley D. Belt said in an interview that United is only the latest -- and largest -- illustration of what ails the federal pension protection system: It allows companies to drastically underfund pensions, and even to disguise the problem. Defaults have so escalated in troubled sectors of the economy, Belt said, that the PBGC now is on the hook for $450 billion in pension obligations, compared with $50 billion only three or four years ago. In three years, it has gone from having a $7 billion surplus to a $23 billion deficit. Without changes to the 30-year-old pension protection system, he said, the PBGC could itself become insolvent.

The Pension Benefit Guarantee Corp. (PBGC), the federal insurance program that faces its own solvency crisis and is to take over the United pensions, ensures a maximum of $45,000 a year in benefits for those who retired at 65, but considerably less for those who retired younger -- much as Social Security pays less to early retirees. This particularly hurts pilots, whom the law requires to retire from major airlines at 60 and who now collect as much as $125,000 a year in pensions, depending on length of service. The PBGC's maximum coverage for those who retire at 60 is $28,000 -- a cut of 50 to 75 percent for pilots. Saracini will receive even less because her husband was 51 when he was killed.

These are excerpts from an article here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...061201367.html

In a nutshell: Pensions are guaranteed, but only to a fraction of what the pension may have paid out. And the Government is already overwhelmed by bailing out Pensions from the recent disaster.
401K's are insured also, I think the limit is $200,000/account (Used to be $100,000)

My recommendation is never put all your goose eggs in one Picnic Basket.

Originally Posted by aroliver59

Congratulations, Jimmy. I'm a pensioner too. Retired over two years ago and I'm only 51. Had over 25 years in a New York State law enforcement title.(prison guard) It's a beautiful thing to get that free money every month. My only restriction is how long I can live and take their money. I'm young enough to get a lot.

Free money? I paid in 7.5 percent of my salary for 30+ years with the federal Govt and worked probably 800 hours of non paid overtime each year. Maybe I worked for the wrong outfit.

401Ks are not insured. If they were people would not have lost all the money they did in the financial meltdown. 401ks are usually based on stocks. Savings accounts and CDs and related are insured by the FDIC.

Thanks for the advice jimmy, when i trun 18 im heading off to the air force and id like to become a pilot and stay there long enought to get a pension so when i retire i have that for income.

Originally Posted by Deerhunter1995

Thanks for the advice jimmy, when i trun 18 im heading off to the air force and id like to become a pilot and stay there long enought to get a pension so when i retire i have that for income.

One more thing, when I was an apprentice ironworker an old man, my foreman on a job, told me to save 10% of what ever my net was. Put it in the bank and forget it is there. I didn't do that but if I had I'd be on easy street today. Do that and by the time you've done your 20 years in the military you'll be set for life.

Originally Posted by JimmyHAD

One more thing, when I was an apprentice ironworker an old man, my foreman on a job, told me to save 10% of what ever my net was.

very good advice. I put more than 15% of my gross into 401k and roth accounts (you are limited on how much you can put into each account), the trick to surviving a recession is diversifying very thoroughly. So far I've yet to lose a dime... helps that I married a professional investment advisor

hoping to retire by 50.